Christmas Eve Meditation
John 1:1-5, 14-18
Rev. Stephen H. Wilkins
Georgetown Presbyterian Church
December 24, 2006
Do you ever wonder what Christmas is all about? When somebody asks you to explain the meaning of Christmas, what do you tell them? John Shea tells the story of how a young girl explained the meaning of Christmas to her family:
"She was five, sure of the facts, and recited them with slow solemnity, convinced every word was revelation. She said, "They were so poor they had only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to eat and they went a long way from home without getting lost. The lady rode a donkey, the man walked, and the baby was inside the lady. They had to stay in a stable with an ox and [a donkey], but the Three Rich Men found them because a star lighted the roof. Shepherds came and you could pet the sheep but not feed them. Then the baby was borned. And do you know who he was?" Her quarter eyes inflated to silver dollars. "The baby was God." And she jumped in the air, whirled around, dove into the sofa and buried her head under the cushion, which is the only proper response to the Good News of the Incarnation."
Most people, when they consider the meaning of Christmas, do not even think in terms of the Incarnation. We are more prone to think in the comforting images of the nativity scene in quiet little Bethlehem, with the angels coming to the shepherds and sharing with them the good news of great joy. But rarely do we consider Christmas in terms of John’s description: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the only-begotten, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. Let’s be honest, it’s hard to deck the halls and decorate our Christmas trees from the language of John’s gospel.
It may not sound like Christmas to us, but the very essence of the good news of great joy to which the angels referred is the Incarnation. That God would come to us, not merely looking like a human being, but AS a human being, is precisely the good news that we proclaim at Christmas. The Incarnation is good news in at least three ways for us: In the Incarnation, God shows us what he is like; in the Incarnation, God shows us that he understands our condition; and in the Incarnation, God proves to us his love.
By coming to us and dwelling among us in the person of Jesus Christ, God shows us what he is like. Truly, there is no way that our human mind can grasp the infinite God. There is an enormous chasm between us and God. And the truth is, we are unable to cross over that chasm and discover on our own who God is.
So God became incarnate in Jesus Christ and revealed himself to us in terms that we can understand. God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ, communicating himself to us in a way that humans can understand. "God took on visibility; God took on human flesh; God translated himself...into the categories that are accessible to our human ways of knowing. And this means that we have a chance to glimpse deeper into the mystery of God, not because of our powers, but because of the gift of revelation that comes at Christmas."
In the Incarnation, God shows us what he is like.
And in the Incarnation, God shows us that he understands our condition. Don’t you see--by becoming human in Jesus Christ, God has walked in our footsteps. He has faced temptation. He has known the joy of friendship and the pain of rejection. He has suffered hunger, and he has eaten his fill. He chose not only to become a human being; God also chose to share our condition with us.
Other world religions tell us about a God who is remote, out there, unreachable. Other world religions tell us about a God who barks commands from afar: straighten up your lives, get yourself out of your own quagmire, clean up your act! But in Christ there is no sense of remoteness. In Christ God ceases to be above and outside and beyond us. God understands what it is like to be human because in Christ Jesus God became human. "God understands what it is like to struggle as we struggle and, therefore, God can give us grace to help in our times of trouble."
God’s been there. God’s done that. And so God knows what we need and how to give it to us. In the Incarnation, God has shown us that he understands our condition.
And in the Incarnation, God proves to us his love. It is his coming to us in Jesus Christ, his living among us as one of us, and his dying for us on the cross that is the ultimate demonstration of God’s love for us. The Incarnation is that which moved God from telling us about his love for us, to actively demonstrating his love for us. It moved God’s love from ethereal words that we really had no way of understanding, to concrete action in flesh and bones.
She was eighteen and he was nineteen when they met. They fell in love, and a year later they were married. Some six years and three children later, she was standing at her sink filled with dirty dishes, thinking of the piles of laundry that still awaited her, and the pail of dirty diapers in the baby’s room.
And something within her snapped. She took off her apron, picked up her purse, and she walked out of the house.
Days went by, and then weeks. Sometimes she would call home to check on the children. And when she did, her husband would tell her how much he loved her, and he would beg her to come home. Each time, she refused.
At some point, the young husband hired a private detective to find his wife. The detective came back with a report that his wife was living in a cut-rate motel in Des Moines, Iowa. The husband packed his bags, dropped off his children with a neighbor, and got in the car for the long drive to Des Moines. He found the motel and made his way to her room. When he knocked on the door, his hand trembled, because he didn’t know what he would find when the door opened.
His wife opened the door, stood for a moment with a look of shock on her face, then she fell apart in his arms.
Later, at home, when the children were in bed, he asked her a question that had long troubled him: "Why wouldn’t you tell me where you were when you called? You knew I loved you. Why didn’t you come home?"
"Because," she replied, "your love was just words. Now I know how much you love me, because you came for me."
God came! That is the glorious message of Christmas! In the Incarnation, God proves his love to us! No longer is his love just words; in Christ his love has become real for us.
In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We have beheld his glory, the glory of the only-begotten, full of grace and truth.
Do you ever wonder what Christmas is all about?
When somebody asks you to explain the meaning of Christmas, what do you tell them?