Sermon preached by The Rev'd Dr. Susan Kraus

St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, Connecticut

The First Sunday of Christmas, December 30, 2007 - 8:00 a.m.

As you probably know, the scripture readings that we hear each Sunday are set in a three year cycle referred to as the “lectionary.” Each year begins on the first Sunday of Advent, the Church’s “New Year’s Day,” and each year takes most of the gospel readings from one of the first three, or synoptic, gospels – Matthew, Mark, or Luke. Last year our gospel readings were primarily from Luke, and this coming year they will be from Matthew. There are exceptions, however, during certain seasons, such as the Easter season, and on certain Sundays. This is one of those Sundays. In all three lectionary years the gospel reading for the first Sunday after Christmas is what we just heard, the beginning of the gospel of John, referred to as the Prologue to John’s gospel.

Though this is a daunting passage to preach about because it is so packed with theology and philosophy and allusions to Hebrew scripture, I see the wisdom of the choice to address this passage every year after we celebrate the birth of Jesus, because the passage is really about the question, “who is this infant?” We move now away from the particulars of the birth story – the relationship between Mary and Joseph, the reason they were in Bethlehem, the fact that Mary delivered her first born son in a stable because there was no room in the inn, the angels’ message to the shepherds announcing the birth of the Messiah – all the story we celebrate in words and songs and pictures and crèche scenes. We move now to the “big picture.” It is important to make this move so that we remember that this is no ordinary baby and so that we keep the mystery of the incarnation in our minds and hearts and souls.

I don’t know how many books have been written about the passage we just read. Great scholars and thinkers have researched and explicated this text. And the most intellectually gifted and well educated people in the history of the Christian church have attempted to understand and write down in precise language exactly who Jesus Christ is. One of those efforts is preserved in our weekly liturgy, when we recite together the Nicene Creed. The words of the Nicene Creed can seem incomprehensible, I know, and I hope that I can help make some of the creed’s statements clearer to you.

Jesus Christ is both God and human. As God, Christ is eternal. There was nothing and no one before God. We understand God to be relational, that is, three “persons.” We refer to these persons as God the Father, God the Son (that is, Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit. The Trinity – three persons in one God. And we understand these three “persons” to have different roles. The Father was the one who created everything out of nothing. The Son was the agent of creation, became a human being so that humanity might be saved, and will be the judge of all when his eternal Kingdom comes at the end of history. The Holy Spirit is the love shared constantly between the Father and the Son, and by the power of the Holy Spirit prophets have spoken about God and Jesus was conceived. These assertions about the nature of God and Jesus Christ are in the Nicene Creed and some of them are also in the Prologue to John’s gospel. Remember that these are human beings’ attempts to put into language what is beyond our comprehension and only glimpsed by us in this life.

One of the most striking features of the Prologue to John’s gospel is its reference to Jesus Christ as “the Word,” or logos in Greek. Luke Timothy Johnson, a New Testament scholar who has written a very readable book entitled The Writings of the New Testament, says this about John’s designation of Jesus as the “Word:” [This] “gives explicit expression to the constant assumption behind the deeds and words of Jesus: he acts and speaks as the incarnate expression of God’s speech. As word gives body to thought, so does Jesus give visible expression in the world to the invisible power and presence of God.” “As word gives body to thought, so does Jesus give visible expression in the world to the invisible power and presence of God.”

In the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus we see God’s “thought” regarding the human beings God has created. Some of that “thought” is this: God was willing to become human and vulnerable, to suffer and even die a cruel death that we might know God’s love for us and in response to that love, to love God with all our hearts and minds and souls. God brings life and light, and God’s life and light are stronger than death and darkness. God gives us the freedom to reject God’s life and light. We can choose to turn our backs on God or we can choose to follow the light and embrace life in God. If we choose to follow, the way will not always be easy, but God will give us power and grace. And the power and grace will enable us to do what Jesus did – teach one another about God, feed the hungry, heal and comfort the sick, visit those in prison, bring life and light to places of death and darkness, have compassion for the weak, speak truth to those in power, be a guide to those who are lost, and show the world by our lives that God is Love. The infant laid in a manger, the Word of God – come, let us adore Him. Amen.