We have just come from the beautiful celebration of Christmas, complete with its pastoral
setting, with the Holy Family, the shepherds, the angels, and the magic star. For many it is the ultimate symbol
of the gift of God's goodness and love. Now, in the course of just two weeks time, we have moved into the final
Sunday of Christmastide and the celebration of Epiphany.
Depending on which lectionary cycle you are in, (and there are three if you didn't know), you may never hear about
the visit of the wisemen, or the forced flight to Egypt, or the slaughter of the innocent babies of Bethlehem.
In the B cycle one goes immediately from the birth, to the presentation in the Temple, to the mystery of God's
preeminent Son as revealed in the opening chapter of John. By next Sunday we will be officially in the season of
Epiphany, and will find that Jesus is all grown up and about to be baptized at the start of his public ministry.
In the B cycle everything is beautiful. The shameful and tragic aspects of the story have all been skipped over
and the emphasis is on the miraculous nature of the entire event. In similar ways everyone re-writes their past
to some extent, deliberately glossing over much that was mundane, and most that was unpleasant, so that in the
artificial reality we create there is something so extremely beautiful to look back on and remember, it defies
the ability to be recaptured. We call that "longing" - and without some sense of longing for that which
seems to be beyond perfection there would be no romance in life.
Realists would probably say "And we'd be so much better off," but for those of us who thrill to spectacular
sunsets and snowfalls, crisp autumn days, and glorious springs…there is always "the one that got away,"
the snapshot still carried in the mind that has set the standard for all the others that follow. The majority of
us need that snapshot, are more content to admire that beauty than to question what lies behind it.
Take for example your last new car. What attracted you to that vehicle? Most likely it was the way it looked. The
color, the shape, the interior composition, the smell of the upholstery. My guess is that not as many of us can
honestly say it was the engine, we were totally sold on what was under the hood that enables that vehicle to run.
In fact my guess is that more people are absolutely amazed when something goes wrong even though the exterior of
the car still looks the same. It's almost as if they have been betrayed, and there is a great lesson in that.
Behind the beauty…there is always the power that makes it happen. And that is at the heart of our lections for
today!
That power is not effected by the changing conditions of life. It is not limited by external realities. In fact
it is what makes the creation of those "images" we need, whatever they are, possible and sustainable.
It makes everything possible and sustainable! By the time John's gospel was being written some early Christians
were beginning to identify that power as God.
From the opening chapter of this work it should be obvious that the writer of the Gospel of John is not presenting
the same kind of narrative that we find in the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. From the outset John
and the community he was writing for, want us to know they are convinced that the power they have seen in Christ
came from God, and existed with God from the beginning of time itself. While that may seem like an innocent enough
statement for us, it pins it's hope on the unshakable knowledge that the God who is with us at the birth of the
cute and smiling infant is equally present when we stand beside the grave and bury our parents, is as active in
the joyous moments of our earthly journey as in the trying and desperate hours when we feel totally abandoned,
and is in fact the very force able to hold all of life together in some cohesive way that gives purpose and dignity
to all of creation.
The ancients called the dedication to that belief Wisdom, and believed that because Wisdom governed existence there
was no such thing as circumstance. They personified it's power, gave it a female character, named it Sophia, and
built a spirituality around it. In pre-Christian thought it existed independently. For John it is one of the most
powerful attributes of God.
If you were a person who could accept that teaching, then you would read not only the history of your own life,
but the history of all of God's people through a different lens. For example, in our Old Testament lesson for today
Jeremiah tells of Israel's deliverance from the doom and gloom of their exile and of their journey home. It is
very important for him as the prophet to point out that the same God who scattered them will bring them back as
one flock, and to point out that though the conditions of their lives may be very different they will find commonality
in their joy. It will be the very same God who led Moses in the first Exodus who will "lead them back",
and though centuries have passed, and endless unanswered questions have been asked, this force will continue unchanged,
and be the consistency that holds it all together.
In the Epistle, you would hear Paul reminding the Ephesian community that this same God has brought us, in the
same kind of a journey from a similar kind of Exile, by way of Christ to the same place. Has brought us in fact,
"every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places",--blessings in our hearts which are unseen and eternal,
which bring together the physical world and the spiritual world of God, --"just as God planned for Christ
to come to us, God planned for our adoption as members of his family, to be able to appreciate and reflect on the
wonderful inheritance in store for us"-In doing so, God has made us "new."
We have the same lives, we are the same people-but we've been made new not "done over." That's very important,
because it is making a statement about the imperfections in our lives. They have been made acceptable to God through
Christ. It's like the teacher who allows "do- overs" for bad test grades - you can't do your life over,
but you can make it new, and what once seemed so wrong, so impossible, can fit in and become a part of the very
plan that brought you to this place today! Wisdom made that possible.
Just as it was the sound or voice of God which was used to call forth the Creation, in John it becomes the language
of sense now called the Logos or Word, who both was God and was with God and through whom God made and continues
to make all things. It was Jesus who became the Word made flesh, who dwelt among us, and who from the beginning
and even now gives meaning and purpose to our lives.
For those Stoics for whom this kind of theology was a breakthrough, a breath if you will of fresh air, the author
went on to say if you see the beauty in this cohesive understanding of all things, know too how much better than
these is your Lord, who is behind the beauty, who is the author and creator of it. If people were amazed at the
power and complexity of these forces, let them perceive from them how much more powerful is the one who formed
them. For from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator.
All things come together in God…light and life, bread and water, the shepherd, the door, the way the truth and
the life, and God exists in all things waiting to be revealed. To have a relationship of openness to Christ is
to have a relationship of openness to God and share his (eternal) life. It is to be connected to what makes sense
of reality, its "logic", its logos. This is what the complex traditions of Israel are finally all about.
This relationship is defined in terms of love - love in all directions and that is true knowledge and true wisdom,
grace and truth. Everything else, even the stories of Jesus, become mere pointers to this reality. John takes us
back to basics - back to "the beginning."
By the time John's gospel was written Paul had already been martyred, and the scattered communities that would
become the Church were all over the known world. Believers were beginning to see in Paul's encouragement that nothing
in life or death, neither persecution, fire or sword, could separate us from God, that he was also saying they
can therefore serve to connect us to God. If they have no power to undo, we should also see how they hold us together.
The challenge here is that we as people of faith need to learn not to be afraid of that which we cannot understand.
If the most dreadful circumstances of our lives can be viewed as acceptable in the realm of God's plan, for whatever
reason…then the words of Jesus, and the angels before him…"Be not afraid" take on new meaning.
When Jesus taught that we should "consider the lillies how they grow…" he was urging a more relaxed view
of the cosmos. That one should strive to lay aside their scheming and desire to control and learn to allow God
the privilege of being the Lord of Order. For Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these…and if God
cares this much for such beautiful elements of creation,…which are so transient as to be here today and gone tomorrow…know
for certain how much more God cares for you!
Behind the beauty is the very power of God.
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