Today is the first day of your life. It is not the first day of the rest of your life: it is the first day of your life, for “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord,” and our lives will never be the same. Last night, we spoke of the reality of Jesus, truly God and truly human, who was born in a barn and laid in a feeding trough. Today, we speak of the Word made Flesh, present from the beginning of time, through whom all things were made. The first line of John’s Gospel points us back to, “In the beginning.”
In the beginning… all the way back, through the centuries of God’s people turning away and the years of exile; all the way back, back to the Spirit, to the very breath of God hovering over the waters; all the way back, back to the dark that was before the first Word of God came: Let there be light. The first word of God brought light into darkness. John’s word play works as a coiled spring. How far back does Jesus go? All the way back, back to the Beginning. Before God separated the sky and the sea, before God made the land to appear, before God put plants in the garden of Eden, before there were animals to graze on the grass, before there were humans, there was the Word. This beginning stretches back to the dawn of creation, the first breath of the earth. With the birth of this baby, this Christ, the whole world changes, and everything has a new meaning. Each day we claim this promise is the first day of our lives. We begin lives anew, as if breathing our first, because we cling to the promise of Christ’s new beginning.
The Word, through whom all things were made, came in the form of this baby, this helpless child. He is God’s light, come into the darkness of the world. In the words of St. John Chrysostom:
What shall I say! And how shall I describe this Birth to you? For this wonder fills me with astonishment. The Ancient of days has become an infant. He Who sits upon the sublime and heavenly Throne, now lies in a manger. And He Who cannot be touched, Who is simple, without complexity, and incorporeal, now lies subject to the hands of men. He Who has broken the bonds of sinners, is now bound by an infants bands. But He has decreed that ignominy shall become honor, infamy be clothed with glory, and total humiliation the measure of His Goodness.
For this He assumed my body, that I may become capable of His Word; taking my flesh, He gives me His spirit; and so He bestowing and I receiving, He prepares for me the treasure of Life. He takes my flesh, to sanctify me; He gives me His Spirit, that He may save me.
These words are as true today as they were when they were first preached nearly 1,700 years ago. If we are as astonished as John Chrysostom was, we’re not paying attention. It’s amazing: nearly two thousand years of theology, endless divisions of the church, darkness abounding on earth, and still we, with all the company of heaven, transcending division and argument, gather around this baby, this Word, this Christ, just as John Chrysostom and his congregation did in the 4th Century. Eternally begotten of the father, true light from true light, came to us. It is the most marvelous news.
This Word, this Beginning, this wonderful news, seems too good to be true. It is jarring, that this baby took on our body, that he gives us his spirit, that he saves us and brings us life everlasting. It is jarring that the God who could not be touched now requires touch. Sometimes, I think we would prefer a god that would remain aloof, unaffected by human beings, than have a God that cares for us so deeply he would take on the form of a helpless infant. The intimacy of God becoming human makes us uncomfortable: it’s a beautiful idea, but the reality of what it was to be an infant in 1st Century Palestine, in which infant mortality exceeded even the poorest countries in our world today, doing all the things infants do, speaks of a God unlike any other.
Christ came into the world, and we did not know him, and I think part of that is because “we’ve never had a God who did it that way before.” Us not knowing Christ did not prevent him from knowing us. Christ looks at us and says: “I have come as your beginning. Today, and each and every day, you are made new.” This is God’s Word to us: “Today, I make you new; this is the first day of your life.”
The light shines in the darkness - in the darkness before the dawn of creation, in the darkness in our souls, the darkness in our world - and the darkness has not, cannot, and will not, overcome it. The light of Christ is the eternal light, the everlasting, “Let there be light.” Let there be light, as the Word, present from the beginning, is light. Let there be light, as this baby, sleeping in his mother’s arms, is our light. All things find their beginning in His Beginning. All things find their light in his Light. Today, and each and every day, is the first day of our life. As the Christ Child draws his first breath, so we draw ours.
John brings us back to the beginning, back to the beginning of time, but also to our beginning. It also springs us forward: this beginning, stretching back to the dawn of creation, brings us to each new day. Today is the first day of your life, for each day Christ is born in your heart brings you to the Beginning of all things. It brings you to the dawn of creation and the first words of God: “Let there be light.”
Say with me: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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