PEOPLE'S CHURCH OF DOVER

John 1:1-5, 10-14, 16-18                                                Christmas Meditation
Meditation Christmas Morning, 2011:  The Rev. Dan Griggs, People’s Church, Dover

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.

          He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.  He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.  But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

          From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.  The Law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  No one has ever seen God.  It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

Who are you, Jesus?
Where do you come from?
You lie sleeping in a straw bed like any baby.
There is really no halo over your brown locks.
How can anybody know who you are,
          who you will be?
The Evangelist said you are God’s Word:
          you don’t look like a word—you look like me.
You ARE like my baby grand-daughter—
          tiny hands, puckering lips, gentle cry, diapers.
So God’s Word is like US.
Will God’s Word be like a two-year-old?
          a fourteen-year-old?

Who are you, Jesus?
How far did you have to come,
          stepping down from God’s right hand?
“Not far,” you say?
          closer than a brother?
          but distant as the stars in Capricorn?
                   because we flee away!
By the Word that is you, God created the cosmos,
          and you came among us,
          but we recognized you not.
We should recognize our own—the baby in the hay;
          but we didn’t know you.
How strange it all is!  How baffling!
          a baby, whom only farm workers and dreamers seek!

Who are you, Jesus?
Are you a Second God for us?
Then why do you heal only a few, and so far away?
          Why has your healing stopped? 
          if you are God Two!
When you walked the dusty road,
          did your feet touch ground?
          did your brow perspire?
          did you really weep as they say?
Then how can you be a Second God at all?

Who are you, Jesus?
You say we may enter the coming world,
          and you are the Way?
          You say your words are truth—the BIG TRUTH?
          You say you are Light?
Are we wandering so far, thinking so poorly,
          are we blind?
You say you are the Bread of Heaven:
          Our stomachs are full,
          especially on Christmas:
          what need of bread have we?
You say if you are lifted up
          we all are drawn to you:
          but the earth is not flat,
          there is no real “up”!
          And are we “down”?  We don’t feel “down.”

Who are you, Jesus?
You say, “Follow me,”
          and then you go to die.
          What did you mean—“Follow me”?
You say you are the “Good Shepherd”:
          that’s good, because sheep are simple.
          Why need WE a shepherd?
I look upon you, sleeping infant in a stable,
          and you are beautiful there.
Why can’t you STAY there in our hearts,
          and leave well-enough alone?

Who are you, Jesus, to say WE need a “Word”?
When you were lifted up, was that on wood,
          or did you rise up higher?
Did you become one again with God
          whose presence is everywhere,
          whose eye sees, mind knows, heart breaks?
No Second God—you live in fullest union,
          though Trinity’s a word beyond our ken.
And please, I beg, on Christmas Day,
          will you make a soft small bed
          within my own so-shaken life?
See me, that I may see.
Feel me, that I may feel.
Touch me, that I may know.
Heal me, that I may enter today the coming world—
          which you have said is here, already—
          in you.

AMEN

“Christmas Meditation,” A COMMENTARY:  This poem is an overview of the Gospel of John. 

-“Look like me”—ancient orthodox theology said that “Christ became human so that we might become divine.”
-“How far did you have to come?” – these lines see through the dichotomy of transcendence and immanence.
-“God’s right hand” – see Hebrews 8:1.
-“Closer than a brother” is said of God in Proverbs 18:24.
-“Capricorn” -- an allusion to the magi as astrologers, who “came from afar.”
-“We flee away” – a common expression referring to alienation from God; see Hebrews 12:25.
-“Farm workers and dreamers” – the shepherds and the magi.
-“Second God” and “God Two” – the doctrine of the Tri-unity of God, which so offends Jews and Muslims who share Christians’ Abrahamic monotheism.
-“Heal only a few” – a reference to Jesus’ brief ministry in Palestine.
-“Weep” – “Jesus wept” for Lazarus’ death:  John 11:35.
-“How can you be…God at all?” – Orthodox doctrine denies that God felt sorrow or pain when Jesus was crucified.
-“The coming world” – one way to express “the kingdom of God”:  see Matthew 6:10.
-“The Way, the Truth” – John 14:6.
-“The Light” – John 8:12.
-“Are we wandering…thinking…blind?” – echoes of arguments that the Gospel of John places in the mouths of Jesus’ opponents.
-“Bread of heaven” –John 6:51.
-“Lifted up” – John 12:32.
-“Follow me” – John 1:43.
-“Go to die” – In Matthew 16:24 Jesus’ “Follow me” is spoken in the context of the journey to Jerusalem.
-“Good shepherd” – this image of God’s care for Israel is taken up by Jesus in John 10:11.
-“Stay there in our hearts” – the pious wish to keep feeling the sweetness of “baby Jesus” and not develop a mature faith, as expressed humorously in the movie “Talladega Nights.”
-“Leave well-enough alone” – the purpose of the devil’s three temptations of Christ.
-“Rise up higher” – a reference to the Christian understanding of the Cosmic Christ:  see, for example, the Epistle to the Ephesians.
-“Become one again with God” – Christian doctrine teaches that in the Resurrection Christ entered into the universality of God.
-“Fullest union” – the doctrine of the Trinity, which cannot be explained logically.  Also “spiritual union with God” is the highest vision of Christian mysticism.
-“Make a soft small bed within …” – a reference to the second chorale of the first part of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio”:  “Ah, my dear beloved little Jesus, make for yourself a clean soft little bed, to remain in the shrine of my heart, so that I may never forget you.”
-“See me…feel me…touch me… heal me” – echoes a refrain in the rock-opera “Tommy” by Pete Townsend for “The Who”—about a messianic pinball player.
-“Coming world which you have said is here—in you”:  see Mark 1:15; Luke 17:21; Luke 11:31-32; and the “I am” sayings—John 6:35; 8:12; 9:5; 10:7, 9, 11, 14, 25;  14:6; 15:1, 5.