I’m so glad you’re here this morning, on this Second Sunday of Christmas! This first Sunday of 2021!
I’d like to re-introduce the Gospel of John by sharing 5 ideas for you to watch for in John’s Gospel from now on…(good day to take notes)
As some of you know, our Sunday readings in church, our “lectionary” is organized into 3 years: Year A, Year B and Year C — Matthew, Mark and Luke, respectively. We just began the new year of Mark the First Sunday of Advent, November 29th, remember that? New Year’s Day for the church year. So, most of our Gospel readings this year will be from Mark. I’m excited to do some comparative study of the Gospels in Bible study this winter and spring season, and so today, at the dawning of a new calendar year, I really wanted to look with you at the Gospel of John! There is no Year of John...did you catch that?! Why? Because John is different. John is deeply woven into all three lectionary years actually! We’ll have whole seasons this year where we only read from John’s Gospel. We’ll be into Mark soon enough and for the whole year, so let’s spend some time with John, starting at the very beginning: One Johannine (Gospel of John) scholar said that everything you need to know about John is in this first chapter...
You need to understand that the Gospel of John’s on a very different plain, in a different orbit than the other 3 Gospels, and we’re in John world today!
just as a quick overarching image (if helpful) —
John is like a mystical, French poet…
I don’t believe John wrote the Gospel: he painted it...with vibrant, rich, Parisian colors! (Anybody ever been to Paris? It’s so beautiful there, my thought was, “How could anyone not become an iconic artist or poet, living here?” Music, food, art…[mind blown]) And all of these extravagant eccentrics, vivid images and words, only lead us to the most glorious message of unrelenting Divine Love, pointing us faithfully to this one incarnate, Christ Jesus our Savior, the Word made flesh. Welcome to the ineffable John’s Gospel! (the center of the labyrinth)
The traditional, medieval image for the Gospel of John is the eagle. Martin Luther said that John soars the highest in its view of Christ (God’s own self, come down to our pain-filled world). In the US the eagle’s a symbol of freedom — and that certainly fitting here too, but remember that in the middle ages — the eagle was believed to be the only animal that could look directly at and actually fly to the sun. The Gospel of John, more any other book in the Bible, describes God’s deep incarnation and love in such extreme, cosmic terms. It’s too hard to put into words, really. And so the artists, the musicians, the poets and the dancers among us must be convened.
John is about experiencing God, not simply talking about God, or telling great stories about Jesus. Just because you can’t quite describe it with language doesn’t mean you can’t reach it — in fact the opposite: IT REACHES YOU! That is to know God’s grace and love in John’s Gospel. It’s one thing to hear the Good News in church, it’s another to be lavished with a delicious meal, a warm bath, a soft robe, a glass of wine, the embrace of a dear friend. (foot washing, oils, wine, water gushing) Can you taste it, smell it, feel it? There is this tactile — incarnational — quality to John’s witness! And the images always point to extravagant grace, beauty and truth. God abides, dwells, “moves into the neighborhood”...do you sense this fleshy flesh quality?
It’s pretty cryptic. Because John was written in the late 1st/early 2nd century, Christians were under persecution, so the community that gathered around this Gospel was small, tightly-knit, deeply spiritual and therefore had lots of “insider” language. Indeed, Jesus’ statements in John often seem pretty cryptic. This doesn’t mean John is trying to be exclusive; it’s just that outsiders can’t understand. One has to be brought in, from darkness of night, from the shadows of ignorance, into the light of truth. From not knowing to knowing God. It’s a major theme: knowing God. “Come and see,” Jesus will say in John.
True for you? Stories of being brought into the light of understanding? Not excluded, just didn’t get it: for me, I think of the process of becoming a pastor, parent...
“John’s purpose was to strengthen the community with words that bear eternal life and love” (my New Testament Professor David Rhoads). The very relationship Jesus has with God — which is intimate, loving, deep — is offered freely for you and me too. And this changes everything: it is salvific! (x2) John’s Gospel guides us into this relationship, dripping with abundant life and grace.
Think Beatles’ song “Love, Love, Love” on both Christmas Day and Good Friday:
Jesus on the cross in John’s Gospel is love, love, love — that’s why we read John on Good Friday.
No infant, baby Jesus stories. Just radiant light: i.e. grace abounding, love overflowing. Then we launch into John the Baptist’s pointing (v.19)…
For John’s Gospel everything is sacramental. Interestingly, there’s no Last Supper, i.e. Passover, in John! They do share a meal where Jesus “sheds light” and washes their feet the day before the Passover and tells them/us to love one another. In this way, John opens all creation up to become a cornucopia of images that bear the love and divine mark of God.
Drinking water, talking late at night, celebrating at a wedding, all eating, shepherding, gardening…
Do you see all things as sacred? Or just churchy stuff? Do you see the God-made-manifest-in-Jesus overflowing in the cooing of an infant, the well-wishes of Christmas cards from distant family, a walk with your dog, the incredible smell of fresh strawberries, a hot tub, or pain in your belly from laughing until you cry? All of it sacrament.
Jesus. Is. God. This truth, one may argue, can be a little more vague in the other Gospels, but John hammers home Christ’s absolute divinity. And this “God from God, Light from Light” (Nicene Creed) has come to dwell with and love us...even here, even now.
It’s a different kind of Christmas message, it’s not as scratchy and rustic and local as Luke’s version. John’s Gospel is smooth and ethereal and mysterious like incense or a candle flame or a glorious high-flying eagle, or a sunrise sky.
And whether you identify with this Gospel or that, it’s all just God’s way of trying to get through to us.
Don’t appreciate it in John’s cosmic, esoteric terms? Then how about Luke’s gritty on the ground version of a poor teenage, immigrant, outsider mother; a smelly stable; farmers with calloused hands, sheep herders with alcohol on their breath? Not that way either? Too scratchy? How about the more geo-political dynamics of international rulers and astrologists traversing the great deserts, and resisting the bully, immature, filthy rich King Herod (who liked to put his name on everything) in order to pay homage to the true king with gold, frankincense and myrrh...in Matthew’s Gospel? Or...let’s learn together this new year about God’s grace, trying to reach us through Mark’s Gospel...
See all of these are God angling this way and that to get the message across that we are loved and that we are not in this life by ourselves. God makes a way and gets this grace and peace, and social justice and righteousness, and forgiveness and love through to us.
See it, hear it, feel it, taste it. Mercy is ours. Mercy is here. Love has come. All we can do, like the shepherds and the wisemen and the “disciples who know” is adore the brilliance that shines in the darkness, the Word that is made flesh. All we can do is celebrate Christmas in spirit and in truth. Deep in our hearts, with our whole bodies in how we love and treat one another and God’s earth. All we can do is praise God.
My favorite German mystic poet Rilke puts it like this, and I conclude:
“Praise, my dear ones. Let us disappear into praising. Nothing belongs to us.”
AMEN.
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