John 1:1-14
Christmas just happens to come towards the end of the
calendar year.
One of the many things that gets pondered and listed at the
end of the year is words.
Different organizations, especially those that publish dictionaries,
pick a most significant word for the past year. For 2016 Miriam Webster picked “surreal.” The publishers of the Oxford Dictionary
picked “post-truth.” The Cambridge
Dictionary picked “paranoid.”
Dictionary.com picked “xenophobia.” The current times are not by any measure the worst of times,
but especially if you look throughout the world these are certainly unsettled
times. Many people are feeling
fear and confusion.
There’s another word that has gotten some year-end
attention. In a poll by the Marist
Institute of Public Opinion, for the eighth year in a row, one word has
qualified as the most annoying word:
“whatever.”
Whatever. It is
annoying. Although I expect, it’s
as much the tone it’s usually said in as it is the word itself. It connotes total, even scornful indifference. Whatever. I’m indifferent to you, to what you just said, to any choice
or decision. I don’t care.
It was the Christmas Day Gospel, of course, that got me
thinking about words.
In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. 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.
Jesus is the word God says to us. This year.
Every year. Every day.
This may seem an odd Christmas message, but: God never says whatever. Jesus is God’s anti-whatever.
The birth of Jesus, the incarnation, express the total
opposite of whatever. God is never
indifferent towards us. Jesus
expresses the depth and persistence of God’s caring and compassion.
John tells us that Jesus, the Word, is full of grace and
truth.
Grace is one of those words that most of us probably
generally understand but would be very hard pressed to actually define. The catechism in the Book of Common
Prayer defines grace: Grace is God's favor toward us, unearned and undeserved;
by grace God forgives our sins, enlightens our minds, stirs our hearts, and
strengthens our wills.
God’s favor towards us, expressed and active.
We matter to God.
God could have said to human kind:
oh whatever, let them suffer and muddle through life on their own. But instead he loves us beyond measure
and shows that love by coming among us.
To share our lives so that we may share his. To help us know him and
find him in an uncertain world. He
came into this world because we matter to him. And how we live matters. God yearns for us to know the blessing and peace of his
presence, to experience holiness.
So remember: even
in the most hip of modern Bible translations, Jesus never says, whatever. To anyone.
He says, grace and peace be with you. In his ministry and in his words, to
each of us he says, grace and peace be with you. You are God’s own beloved. I come to bring you grace and truth and peace.
