Josh Bascom, “The Christmas Story—Your Story”

John 1:1-18

Merry Christmas!

I hope that you have had a wonderful couple of days, that you’re worn out for all of the right reasons, and that the sweet sounds of silent night are still ringing in your ears. I hope that you’ve had some nice time with family and friends, but maybe you’re like Mark Twain who once said, “the more time I spend with my family, the more I like my dog!” And so, if you’re feeling totally burnt, run down, desolate and blue, well, then I’m even more glad that you’re here because today we get to hear the Christmas story from the Gospel of John. It’s a thing of beauty and it couldn’t be more different than the version you see put on display for Christmas pageants, and yet it’s the same story. The poetry of John’s version just takes a giant step back and reveals that this baby born in a manger is the God who created everything, even time, and even you. 

As we get older, the charm and wonder of Christmas tends to wears off a bit. If we’re lucky we get to relive some of it through the eyes of someone else’s or our own child for a few moments, but Christmas seems to pass quicker and quicker with each year and every graying hair. This is a sad reality, at least it is for me. And so reading John’s account of Jesus’ birth is a powerful way for me to snap back into the magic of Christmas, because it reminds me that it’s not just about a baby and some wise men off in some distant, foreign land. The Christmas story…it’s about everything, it’s about the God who created you coming into the world to save you, it’s about your desperate need to be saved and that need of each and every one of us being met very specifically with the grace upon grace of a little baby who would be become our crucified lord. 

This is the story about who we are and who god is. And this is a great story because all of us have our days or our moments or our years when we look in the mirror and we don’t recognize ourselves. Maybe it’s your appearance, maybe it’s your mistakes, maybe it’s your marriage or your career, but you look at yourself and you think how did I get here, how in the world am I going to get out of this? Who am I, what am I supposed to do?

One of the reasons we find ourselves in front of that mirror is that the expectations of the world or our families or ourselves haven’t lined up very nicely with the realities of our lives, with the face staring back at us in the mirror. Or another way of saying that is that the story we thought we were living in, or the story we desperately wanted to be a part of, well that’s not the story we find ourselves in. But all those stories that we tell ourselves, or the Christmas movies or what the folks on Fox or MSNB tell us—they’re not true stories, or at least they’re not complete stories. But the Christmas story, the real Christmas story, that’s a true story and it’s your story, it’s the story of everything. 

The story of everything is a story about all there is. It’s The story that the people of God have been telling one another from the beginning of time. The story of the God who elected Abraham and his children and who raised Jesus of Nazareth from the grave. The story of the god who made everything that isn’t god. There is God and not-God, and that is all there is. The scope, the breadth and width of this story truly cannot be overestimated. It’s the story about everything, it’s the story about you. 

“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… 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.”

There are two things that I want you to get out of this short sermon: 1) that the Christmas story isn’t just a story we think about after Thanksgiving, it’s the story of absolutely everything, even you and me. 2) that the Christmas story is a ridiculous story. 

What I mean with this second point is that everything you and I and everyone has ever thought about God is wrong. The instincts that we have about God are wrong, this is what John means when he writes at the end of the passage, “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God.“ When we say I think God is like fill in the blank, when we come up with our own ideas and understanding of who God is we’re always wrong. We either see God as some distant force mysteriously way out there in the universe, or a closer version of god who is closely watching you like a mean taskmaster who is displeased with your actions. This is actually the really common version of God that comes to mind, because even if we don’t use the language of God we’re all striving to please someone or some standard with our actions, and often failing, and so it makes sense that this is the image we come up with on our own about God. 

But here in the Gospel of John we get a revelation of who God is, a true revelation, a vision unlike anything we could have ever expected, of God being revealed to us in Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth. This is the wonderful and ridiculous and unexpected thing about Christmas, that God comes close to us with grace and mercy, not to judge, but to love and save. 

I’m going to close by doing something I try to never do, and that’s by reading from a poem. But I’m going to do it for two reasons; 1) I’m a little tired and this poem just does a better job of saying what I’m trying to say. 2) it does so by presenting the expectations that we have of god and then quickly revealing to us the ridiculous and yet true nature of God and His grace upon grace for us all. 

It’s a Christmas poem called “Descent”, by Malcolm Guite. 

They sought to soar into the skies

Those classic gods of high renown

For lofty pride aspires to rise

But you came down.

You dropped down from the mountains sheer

Forsook the eagle for the dove

The other Gods demanded fear

But you gave love

Where chiseled marble seemed to freeze

Their abstract and perfected form

Compassion brought you to your knees

Your blood was warm

They called for blood in sacrifice

Their victims on an altar bled

When no one else could pay the price

You died instead

They towered above our mortal plain,

Dismissed this restless flesh with scorn,

Aloof from birth and death and pain,

But you were born.

Born to these burdens, borne by all

Born with us all ‘astride the grave’

Weak, to be with us when we fall,

And strong to save.                             

Merry Christmas and Amen