"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 was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it...And the Word was made 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 1: 1-5, 14
Merry Christmas! Yep, it's still Christmas. Regardless of what the world around us says,
we know it's still Christmas, right? And
this past Sunday we got to hear my favorite Christmas story: the prologue to the Fourth Gospel.
There is no manger,
no shepherds, no choir of heaven's angels to announce Christ's birth, not even
a Mary and Joseph (they're never so much as name-dropped in the Fourth
Gospel). There is only the Word. Nothing else matters. The only thing that is important to the
writer of this gospel is that the One who was in the beginning, the Word
through whom all things were made, the Light of all people, has come into the
world.
But did you notice
how the text put it? "The light
shines in the darkness, but the darkness did not overcome it." How excellent is that sentence? It doesn't say that the light comes into the
world and destroys the darkness. Doesn't
say that it disperses the darkness. Just
that it shines IN the darkness. The
reality, of course, is that there has always been and always will be
darkness. You can call it the devil, you
can call it life. Whatever you call it,
it's as true now as it was in Jesus' day:
there is always going to be darkness in this world. There are always going to be times when we
look around and wonder how things can get any worse. War.
Disaster. Personal
tragedies. These are unavoidable. They're a part of life, sadly. Sometimes we ask ourselves how it is even
possible for there to be light in such dark times. Yet the promise made here in this piece of
prose that I think is the most beautiful in all of Holy Scripture, is that we
are given the reassurance that the darkness will never overcome the light. Sometimes the light may only seem like a
flicker, but it's there. The darkness
can never, ever overcome it. And let me
tell you, that's a truth that can sustain us and get us through some
extraordinarily tough times in our lives.
I was a hospice
chaplain for one summer. It was my
clinical pastoral education, which is one of the biggest pieces of the
curriculum when you're getting ordained.
I chose to do mine with hospice, which was both rewarding and
heartbreaking. I had one day especially
where I visited several folks who were in nursing homes, folks who didn't even
realize I was there. Then I went to the hospice wing of one of the local hospitals and spent time with folks who had
about a week or less to live. And when I
got back to the house I was drained. I
was so sad. And when you added on the
stuff going on in my personal life, you know, the usual stressful things that
we all deal with, I was a bit of a mess.
I sat down to read Evening Prayer, and THIS was the gospel reading for that
day. I kept repeating that line: the light shines in the darkness, and the
darkness did not overcome it. As I read and reread this sentence I realized that Jesus did not come to make everything in life perfect. There was never a promise from Jesus that life would be smooth-sailing by following him. Instead, Jesus' promise is simply that he will be in the midst of the darkness, still standing there, still shining. I needed
that promise that night. And I've come
back to that promise time and again. I
whisper that line to myself (or to God) when I'm troubled, scared, or feeling
weighed down by the darkness of life.
The light shines in
the darkness. Christmas is the time when
we celebrate that light breaking into our world in physical form in Jesus, but
it's a light that was actually here the whole time. That light burned in the prophets as they
proclaimed God's Good News of freedom.
That light burned in the apostles even after Jesus left, inspiring them
to form the Church as we know it. And
believe it or not, that light is still here.
In a world that mourns over mass shootings, where refugees are turned
away when seeking solace, where politicians pander to people's prejudices and
care nothing for the least of these, that light is still here. It might seem like a small match in the great
sea of darkness that we find ourselves in, but the Christmas hope proclaimed in
this gospel is that that light still shines.
And it always will. It will
because, in no small part, it burns in you.
The light that burned at creation, it burns in you. You.
The Body of Christ. As members of
Christ's body you have that light inside you, and as long as you share it, as
long as you let it continue to shine for others, the darkness will never
overcome this world.
There's a story about
a monastery in the hills of Europe. It
was going through a really hard time.
Folks weren't coming there anymore, so they weren't getting
donations. The brothers were getting
frustrated with each other, and the abbot was really worried. He talked to the bishop, who told him that if
things continued, they may have to disband the order and leave the
monastery. The abbot was at a loss, so
he went down the hill leading to the monastery and went into the town to talk
with the wisest person there: the old rabbi. He came to him and said, "Rabbi, I don't
know what to do. The brothers argue like
they never have. We are not getting
people to come to visit, and I'm afraid we may have to close. What do I do?" The old rabbi, sitting there drinking his
tea, never even looked up. He said: "The Messiah is in your
midst." The Messiah is in your
midst? The abbot said: "You mean that one of the brothers is
the Messiah?" The rabbi never
looked up, but the abbot ran back and shared the news with his brothers. Who could it be? Was it you?
Was it you? No one knew. But from that day forward they treated each
other as though each was the Messiah.
They did everything any of us would do if we knew for certain we were in
the midst of Jesus. The air in the
monastery changed dramatically, and gradually people started coming back. That's the place with those monks who are so
friendly, so caring for each other, they'd say.
And the monastery thrived.
Amazing things happen
when we know that Jesus is in our midst.
They happen when we have the courage to recognize the light of Christ in each other, and
when we dare to believe that it's actually inside all of us, just waiting to be
shared, waiting to bring some light to what can be a seriously dark world. So let it shine! Let it shine! LET IT SHINE!!
