Sermon: A Different Kind of Nativity - 12/25/09

The Rev. Christine Leigh-Taylor
Christmas Day 2009
St. Clement’s Episcopal Church
Rancho Cordova, CA

A Different Kind of Nativity

The Gospel of John is different. Matthew, Mark and Luke each have their distinctive voices, but John is more different than the other three combined. Matthew and Luke begin with narratives of Jesus’ birth which emphasize his humanity – without denying for a minute his divinity. In our minds we tend to blend these two accounts, but Matthew has the angel coming to Joseph, not Mary. Then Matthew skips ahead to after Jesus’ birth, when wise folks from beyond Israel’s borders come to learn the great event the stars have been suggesting. In contrast, Luke has the angel visiting Mary. Luke follows Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, where we have the story of the birth itself. And in Luke the angels visit shepherd in the fields. We’ve made these into one composite story, but the individual components have their own theological meaning.

The gospel of Mark begins with John the Baptist as the ‘preparer of the way’ of Jesus. Then there’s the Gospel of John, which goes all the way back to the book of Genesis for its infancy story. The nativity of Jesus is part and parcel of the creation of the whole world, because the divinity of Jesus is what the Gospel of John stresses, without discounting his humanity.

The opening words of Genesis: “In the beginning when God created the world…” The opening words of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

As God breathes the world into being in Genesis, the first action is to create light, and then to separate it from darkness. In John, the first thing that came into being from the Word-God was the life-light that shines into the darkness, which the darkness cannot overpower. The parallels are unmistakable, and have to be intentional.

Why is this text appointed for Christmas and the Sunday after Christmas every year in our Lectionary Cycle? The beloved images of a baby bathed in light and adoring glances of all sorts of human, animal and angelic creatures are completely missing. Instead, we hear echoes of those powerful stages of God’s creative energy as first released upon the earth.

John’s Gospel is heavily influenced by Greek and Judaic understandings of Wisdom literature. The New Revised Standard Bible translation of the original Greek word “Logos” is “word”. But “word” doesn’t fully convey the range of meaning of “logos”. Here is a very free translation of John’s opening lines penned by Jim Stamper, an Episcopal priest in Woodstock, VT.
“Initially there was a pattern for everything.
The pattern was God’s; God was the pattern.
The pattern was always God.
Everything came from that pattern.
There isn’t anything else.
The pattern is both the source of life and the meaning of life.
It is a way of being truly alive in opposition to death, and death cannot overcome it.”

This translation changes a number of terms. Instead of “word” we have “pattern”. Instead of darkness it’s death. And instead of “light” we hear of being “alive”. I offer this only because the beginning to John’s Gospel is such a powerful statement of belief that it’s a shame if the particular terms chosen in whatever translation you are reading don’t break into your psyche. If that is the case, choose some different words, as Jim Stamper has done.

The point is the same. It comes from the gift of God’s creation. God had great hopes for creation. God-made-flesh didn’t fare much better than just the Word alone. At least one wouldn’t think so, to look at the world today.

Where does the birth of Jesus fit in? What does God’s Logos/Word or Sophia/Wisdom have to do with the present and the future of the world? Looking again at the opening hymn from the Gospel of John, we see the very good, very assuring news that God’s creative force is before time, through time and beyond time. We can understand darkness because we know our own temptation to complacency, greed and self-importance. We know in our heads that light and life come from God. If only our hearts could tune in on the message.

Could God try again? I believe God has never stopped trying. We have in John’s Gospel the description of a different kind of nativity – one that is still happening in those who make room for it. Let us open our hearts, our minds and our lives to God’s invitation to be en-lightened. We are promised that all who receive the true light, who believe in his name, are given the power to become children of God. There is a birth story here for each of us.