Christmas Day

Bishop William Willimon tells of meeting with a young couple while he was Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. They came to talk about marriage. They were in love and therefore sure that any barriers could be overcome. But their parents weren’t so sure. See, he was a devout practicing Jew; she was a Christian. True to her culture, the young woman spoke, with some exasperation, “But surely there isn’t any real difference in what we believe. Is there? Except for that Jesus thing.”

Ah yes, that Jesus thing. In one sense, it is such a small thing. Such a one-off thing. A minor point in a complex theology. A single figure in a rich history full of amazing people. What is one person more or less in that line?

Of course, we could argue that this one person was a pretty special person. Wise beyond description, brave in amazing ways, uniquely self-sacrificing, and loving in ways we would dream of being. But a person, exemplary, but a person.

And we would be right. Yet wrong at the same time. This is why the Jesus thing is so difficult to comprehend. There is always a “yes, but” when it comes to Jesus. Or maybe it is a “yes, and.” Words fail us in the end. Words capture pieces and pictures, but not the whole of that Jesus thing. Even the creeds wrestle with a description of Jesus. The longest part of the ancient creeds is devoted to Jesus. Not simply because they had a lot to say about him, but because there was always more.

The Apostles’ Creed says : And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord: who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; the third day he rose from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

Whew. You have to draw a breath after the Jesus thing. It is both a statement of who he is, and of who he is in relationship to God and us. As if he exists for himself and yet chooses to be defined in community with God and with humanity. “His only Son” and “our Lord.” And then what God did with him and what we did with him: it’s all there, in this complex and yet terse statement that overwhelms us in its simplicity and depth.

But if you think this is something, check out what the Nicene Creed does: We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

They wanted to try and define him; they wanted to comprehend him; they wanted to nail him down. But they should have learned from the first attempt to nail him down. This Jesus thing defies definition. This Jesus thing is beyond our comprehension. He defies our attempts to categorize him. Simply because once we have him figured out, then we wouldn’t need him anymore. This Jesus thing would become one more thing that we have conquered, one more thing that we have figured out and then left to the side as we move on to other puzzles to solve or other mountains to climb.

So, what is left? We need some handles on the Jesus thing, don’t we? We need some way of grasping, of clinging, even if we don’t have full comprehension. Without a place to grab onto, then Jesus becomes another of those incomprehensible realities like black holes and quantum physics that wrinkle our brows but don’t really impact our lives.

What’s left is poetry. At least that is John’s response. When explanation fails, go for poetry. Or for music. Our text for this week is a song of praise to the nature of Christ. It is a theological doxology. Well, what would you call it?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'") From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.

We could, of course, analyze these words to wring out every thought. That would be a way of approaching understanding. And there are a few things we do want to notice together. But in the end, it is the power of the words that speak most profoundly. Or if not power, then beauty. There is something here in this Jesus thing that catches our breath when we gaze at it. There is something that makes our hearts pound and tears come to our eyes. It may be unexplainable, but it speaks clearly to the deepest longings of our soul.

In this hymn that John has written we discover that it is about us as much as it is about Jesus. Yes, it adds a layer of eternity to the man from Nazareth. And it wrestles with that thorny doctrine called Trinity. (Is he Son or is he God, separate or the same - or somehow both?)

But when the song begins to include us, we move to the edge of our seats. When John sings of the life that is the light of all people, we hold our breath because we have both seen and touched it and have wept for the lack of it. We lean forward toward that light, like a plant seeking sustenance from the sun. We have beheld that glory. And we have known him not. We are both - acceptors and deniers - often at the same time. Too good to be true, we find ourselves saying. Too good not to be true, we hope.

We have tasted, we have received grace upon grace, and sometimes it is enough. Other times we wrestle with the world, with our doubts, with our sin. We do lose our grip from time to time. And we wonder what it is all about. We wonder if it is worth the struggle, the misunderstanding. Don’t we all believe the same thing in the end? Wouldn’t the world be better if we just stopped worrying about what it is that we believe? Couldn’t we give in a little bit on that Jesus thing?

That Jesus thing, according to John, is nothing less than life itself. Life in all its fullness. Life in all its depth and meaning. Life as we long to live it. We can’t be who we are, or who we long to be without that Jesus thing.

Merry Christmas.