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SERMONS

The First Sunday after Christmas
January 1, 2006

Christmas 1B - John's Prologue

"Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly. Birds fly over the rainbow, why then, oh, why can't I?"

I have yet to meet the human being who does not feel like Dorothy at time.

Looking up into the heavens, or looking deep within ourselves, and feeling some tug to some beyond, a place where the bluebirds fly over the rainbow; a place where there are answers, where there is joy, where there is sanctuary.

Each of us wanders into moments in this life where we feel like strangers in a strange land . . . wondering what in the world, and why in the world am I here? As we look within and without, there is a question mark over every human heart.

"Who am I? What puzzle am I a piece of? What exactly is over at the end of that rainbow?"

Trying to solve the puzzle that is the riddle of our lives is an ancient game. What

is the music within the music? What is the light behind the light? Who is the mover beneath all of the movement of this great splash that we call life? Borrowing a biblical image, "What is the Alpha and Omega of all living?"

In one corner of human history the great minds of the day sought a name for this "first principle," this first push, of all existence.

The name of this deepest meaning of existence was meant to include all that we might think of when we speak of a big bang, or a wave-particle, or E=MC2 . .
. or borrowing another phrase, "May the force be with you." In the world of the ancient Greeks, this beginning before the beginning, this uncaused cause, this being before being, was given the name: logos, literally, The Word.

When the writer of John's Gospel opens his famous hymn, "In the beginning was the Word," he does not simply mean that in the beginning was a noun, a pronoun, adjective, or verb. He does not even mean that in the beginning was the human voice. John is looking over the rainbow, toward the source from which all beginning flow; a sacred and holy place with no other presence than that of God; the one who says, "I am."

Writing some ten centuries later, Saint Anselm would describe what lies over the rainbow in this way, "God is that than which nothing greater might be thought."

Theology, the study of the God's nature, is a slippery fish.

How might we grasp that than which nothing greater might be thought? It is like the old Buddhist koan, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

What is the breath beneath our breathing? What is over the rainbow?

One of the ways I try to explain the discipline of theology is by comparing it to a laser laboratory. The study of pure light is also slippery fish, this game of getting our hands around a beam of light.

One of the ways to study light is to introduce to it that which is not light.

In a laser laboratory, in order to see the beams of light the roomed is pumped full of smoke, a cloud is introduced; we create a shadow, some contrast, so that the beams of light take a form that is perceptible to the human eye. And this is not unlike how theology often works.

God is shot through with a clarity that often eludes the human heart and mind, and so we fill a space with smoke, with contrast, with something perceptible, so that the imperceptible might be grasped for a moment. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory."

For a time, for a season, for a little grain of sand in the whole of human history, God became the smoke, God becomes the flesh, the hurts, the hopes, the joys and the sorrows, so that we might see God's face . . . so that we might have a path over Dorothy's rainbow; so that we might cross over from shadows to light. This is the mystery that John is sharing with us. God, the Logos, that than which nothing greater might be thought, comes for us and to be with us.

The miracle of this mystery is that even though we might not "understand" this Logos, this Word who was with God, he and/or it becomes Jesus so that he might understand us. Even though we may not be seeking the Logos, the Word . . . this Logos and Word is seeking us. We often speak of finding God in our lives, but the longer that I am on the journey the more that I see how often it is God who finds us. Christ is moving in upon us defenseless creatures.

Soren Kierkegaard, one of the great theological smoke machines of the 19th Century tells the story of a prince who is doing errands for his father in the village. Driving through the poorest part of the village, the prince glanced out the window and fell in love with a beautiful peasant girl.

He began offering to do more errands for his father just to have the chance to be near her. But the prince became sad, despondent, "How do I convince her to love me?" "How do I close the space between us?"

Of course it lay within the prince's power to order the peasant girl to marry him. "Marry me or else!" But who wants a love that is leveraged?

Of course it lay within the prince's power to overwhelm the girl with his pedigree, his royalty, his golden coach, so that the prince could appear on the doorstep as the magnificent saviour in the midst of squalor. But would she then love him, or simply love what she could get from him? Who wants a love that comes from nothing but good marketing and press releases?

So the prince pondered and tied himself into and out of many knots. Finally it dawned on him - he must give up his royalty, his wealth, his life, so that he might move to the village and live as a peasant. The prince must share the common cup with his beautiful love; he must breath with her breath, weep with her tears, laugh with her happiness, and hope with her heart. The prince took the leap of faith; and with time the beautiful girl came to know the prince, and one day she came to love him.

"And the Word became flesh and lived among us . . ."

Christ, the Logos, the Word, is come into the streets of our lives. Christ comes to the beautiful and well ordered houses where we live, where the lawns are mown and well kept, where there is no litter in the gutter, where we make our most splendid appearances. And Christ comes also into the mean streets, the forgotten places, the corners and the neighborhoods where we hide, the placed we would just soon forget. And so we must watch, for He is coming. We must make no mistake, for it is all true, He comes for us.

This is the breath before our breathing, this is the thought before our thinking, and this is the music within the music, the love within love, the one who is the beginning of all things. He is passing us in the street; He is looking for you and for me. As one of the oldest of the saints, Athanasius, has said, "Christ became what we are that He might make us what he is."

Yes Dorothy, you can go over the rainbow.