“Grace Upon Grace”
Isaiah
52:7-10
John
1:1-14
On this first Sunday after
Christmas, we, the church, find ourselves in an interesting transition between
the season of Advent and the season of Christmas. The fact that Christmas was yesterday
amplifies the tension between these two times.
Our homes are still adorned in Christmas decorations, our refrigerators
are still full of Christmas leftovers, and the images of the nativity scene are
still fresh in our minds.
It has only
been less than two days since we gathered here on Christmas Eve and heard the
story of Jesus’ birth in the Gospel of Luke. We stood with the shepherds as
they experienced the encounter with the heavenly hosts. We walked with the shepherds as they went to
We left Christmas Eve having been
interrupted and encounter and touched by God in a way we cannot fully
comprehend. Even though this baby was a
normal baby, flesh and blood just like us, we also know deep down that he is
someone more, someone bigger than life itself, someone beyond our understanding,
someone beyond ourselves. His life,
death, resurrection, and ascension tell us he is someone more, not to mention
the two thousand years of Christian theology.
We may find ourselves on the other side of Christmas day, but Christmas
has not ended for us.
It is the Christmas season that continues for us as we
reflect upon this baby, as we reflect upon his identity and his implications
for our faith and life. The birth event
may have been a snapshot in time, but the reality of this event and the
understanding of the central person in this event continue on for us. This Season of Christmas is a time for us to
look beyond the fresh images of the nativity scene, beyond the hills of the
Judean countryside, to the larger vision of this miraculous and gracious event
that took place.
Our scripture reading from the
Gospel of John does just that; it points us to something grandeur, to that
which is both majestic and mysterious.
John is very different from the other gospels in how he describes the beginning
of Jesus’ gospel. Mark starts with
Jesus’ gospel with his baptism. Matthew
and Luke go back a little further and give us stories of Jesus’ birth, close up
shots that puts us right into the action, but John does something different. John pulls the camera back, way back, and
gives us a much more expansive view.
For John, this birth event was
more than just snap shot in time, an event confined by the temporal; this birth
event has a cosmic significance to it that goes back to the time before time,
long before the world came into being.
Like a stone throne into water, John wants us to know that the impact of
this event sends out ripples in all directions, to the past, the present and
the future.
For John, Jesus is the eternal
entering the temporal, the infinite entering the constraints of time and space,
the divine entering the routine, the Creator entering the creation. Jesus is the very Word of God, the
self-revelation and self-communication of God’s very self. He is the genesis of all that there is, the
one who was with God from the beginning, who is God from God, light from light,
true God from true God, of one being with the Father, the Creator of the cosmos
and of life itself, grace upon grace.
How important these words are for
us to hear during the Christmas season.
They paint for us a picture of Jesus that transcends our understanding, that declares both the majesty and
sovereignty of God as well as God’s wholly otherness compared to us. If the other gospel writers want to point us
to Jesus’ humanity, then John wants to point us to Jesus’ divinity as a
reminder that this person is someone different than just a representative of
God, but that he is in fact God’s very self and therefore worthy of the title
of Lord and Savior.
John’s words are powerful words;
words of Holy Scripture, words we should not and must not too quickly
overlook. But there is no doubt they are
lofty words, words suited best for hymns, theology textbooks, seminary
classes. They point us toward the
heavens and give us a glimpse of the divine, but our faith and life is lived in
the world, among the best and worst that the world has to offer.
In this
Christmas season, we may want to stay in the lofty confines of the eternal
realm with glimpses of the divine mystery revealed, but we still have to live
in a world that is neglectful, divided, and indifferent toward the good news of
the Jesus Christ. We still have to live
in a world among people who find the good news of Jesus Christ offensive and threatening, and in some cases outright rejects it all together. And yet, in the midst of this world in which
we live, John reminds us that this Word of God, who was with God and is God, is
also the Word of God in the flesh. This
Word of God in the flesh is the great reminder of the depths to which God has
gone to be with us and for us in the real world in which we live. God is not so wholly other that he is not
concerned about our real human lives with all the inconsistencies and injustice
we have to deal with day to day.
God is neither an absentee parent
that lets things on earth just happen, nor is God the sentimental parent that
just pats us on the head and says everything will be okay. In the incarnate living and dying and rising
of the Word made flesh, God demonstrated to the world that light is more powerful
than darkness, love is more powerful than hate, life is more powerful than
death, and grace is more powerful than sin.
The Word of God made flesh is none other than opening act of God’s grace
to and for the world in order to embrace the world and bring God’s scattered
children together to be one with God and with one another.
For John, Jesus is not only the
fulfillment of God’s own promise, he is not only the mystery of God’s own
purpose in and for the world, but he is also the one to whom we can touch and
feel and come to know in a profound way.
Through this one who is flesh and blood, the barrier between God’s self
and humanity was breached, and the transcendent became one with us so that you
and I and everyone could become one with him and through him. The Gospel is more than just a story of a man
named Jesus, it is God’s story, the story of the one who did and continues to
do what we could never do for ourselves, the story of God’s saving grace upon
grace poured out for us so that we may have the power to become children of
God.
Christmas is
not only the story of the birth of God’s self-communication to the world,
Christmas is not only the celebration of God’s gracious decision to become
human in the baby of Bethlehem; Christmas is the event by which God made God’s
intentions known to the world, and directly intervened in the lives of people,
so that we may participate in God’s redemptive plans for the cosmos and see the
salvation of God at work. The Word of
God made flesh is the promise that neglect, division, indifference, and even
rejection will not have the final say, because there are those who have already
received Jesus, who have already trusted him, who have already found themselves
reborn in his name, who have already been empowered to be children of God.
Through Jesus’ incarnate ministry
of reconciliation and healing and forgiveness, he brings the good news that
those who seem unlikely members of God’s family – a
What we discover in these lofty words is none other than the
God who has sought after us all along with a pursing love that will not take no
for an answer, with an amazing grace that has washed us clean with the waters
of baptism, and with a saving faith that will keep us until the day when all
things will be made new. What we
discover in these words of this gospel writer is the reassuring promise and
encouragement to all believers that we have seen the salvation of God in the
one born for us, the one who is God with us, the one who was, and who is, and
who will ever be grace upon grace, the Savior, the Messiah, Christ the Lord. Amen .