So, Now What?

Sermon for the First Sunday After Christmas

Saint Peter's | Arlington, VA

John 1: 1-18

Isaiah 61:10-62:3

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Good morning, Saint Peter’s—and a Merry Sixth Day of Christmas to all!

Preparing for and celebrating this season has been altogether joy-filled and deeply moving.

But now the bustling energy of the annual Pageant and the quiet stillness of candle-lit services is behind us. And even though Christmas is not yet half over, perhaps some signs of a mid-winter malaise are already showing. So...now what? What comes next?   

As far as the Gospel of John is concerned, what comes next is, well, more of the same... Which is to say: the thing ahead of us is the same as it always has been: a new beginning.

Other gospel accounts begin the story of Jesus’ birth with a historical or genealogical emphasis. But for John anything less than poetry and mystical wonder is insufficient. This opening prologue we’ve just heard soars with a kind of “celestial flight”—which is in part why the symbol of an eagle is attributed to John the Evangelist.

John doesn’t merely tell us factual information about a birth in Bethlehem. Instead, he aims to sweep us up into experiencing a dynamic reality. So, as he begins the story: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

These words clearly harken to the opening of the Hebrew Bible: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” And this is no mere coincidence.

Genesis tells a story about how—in the words of the Eucharistic prayer we will hear in a moment—the very “source of life abundant” “moved over the deep” and brought forth “every living thing.” Later, in John’s Gospel, Jesus’ incarnation is merely another act, so to speak, of this story that is continually becomings.

There is a reoccurring pattern to everything that happens in between Genesis and John. First, from God’s creativity comes something new. And then, when banishment and exile, bondage and despair eventually follow, God creates yet again a new way toward freedom.

Wherever forces constrain the life of God’s people, the very source of life is relentless in expanding what has been limited. This pattern repeats throughout all of scripture, and is well established by the time we arrive at the gospel narratives.

So, as the Roman Empire eventually rises and with it an all-too-familiar context of occupation, it is of no surprise that something new takes place in the very midst of a dire situation.

But this time though, the creative, life-giving action of God is revealed differently. Rather than a mere word, a thunderclap, a foggy cloud, or a quiet silence, instead it comes with flesh wrapped around it. And Divine action takes on human form not just in a historical moment: but within a particular sociopolitical context—and within the particularities of a brown-skinned, Jewish body subjected to powers of violence and domination.

To know this Jesus, as the conclusion of our gospel lesson suggests, is to know God, the source of abundant life—from which ever new beginning emerges.

Now, here’s where I have to admit: throughout this week, I have struggled with this...

It is now nearly two full years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In that time, over 10,000 civilians have been killed—including more than 500 children.

It is now nearly two full months since Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel. In that time, it is estimated over 20,000 Palestinians have been killed—including more than 9,000 children.

My soul is made weary by war making.

Just days ago, Kesher Israel, the orthodox synagogue two blocks from my home, suffered an antisemitic attack and its worshippers assaulted with death threats.

And over several months now, hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers have been bused across the country—imprints of God’s divine image reduced to mere political pawns.

This is to say nothing of doubts and fears that creep up in personal concerns. My soul is weary; perhaps yours is, too. No doubt, there are many burdens held within this room.

Is this what new beginning looks like? Will God make a way where it seems there is no way, even here, now—in our lives?

No matter how well established the pattern, it can be quite a challenge to hold onto this truth. Because while the claim that is deep in the marrow faith claims that just as God has moved throughout history to bring deliverance, God is still leading us toward healing and wholeness—there is clearly no lack in data to the contrary...

But in much the same way: new beginnings do not take place in the abstract. The evidence for how God is indeed at work is made known in what is concrete.

It is for this reason it is often necessary to return something we have encountered in our lives. To a concrete truth made known through a particular experience.

So, as I have pondered John’s Gospel and God’s faithfulness this week, an image has continually resurfaced...of an especially vibrant and color-filled springtime.

To be a bit more specific: There has never, ever been a more stunning spring-bloom than there was in the spring of 2017—at least not one to which my life can attest.

In the months preceding that season, a long-avoided truth had become abundantly clear to me: my unraveling marriage had reached an end. So, that March, on Ash Wednesday, a sobering pilgrimage led to a courthouse, paperwork was filed, and a reckoning set in motion.

It was an ending that brought profound loss. And let me tell you: much of that time felt like a suffocating death. Yet, in the very midst of that decay, I promise you cherry blossoms have never bloomed so vibrantly. I will never forget it. The new life bursting forth from the oak trees and southern magnolias surrounding my home is an image seared into me—as is the overwhelming feeling of God’s comfort and enduring presence.

It is precisely within the concrete realities of our lives that God meets us, and through these situations that the Spirit leads us forward.

Good news takes place within the particular. And this is what makes John’s Gospel is so striking.

Incarnation is the radical claim at the core of Christian faith. It is the very thing that animates the story around which we gather: that the same loving life-source from which we come continually bids us to return and abide in Love—and even risks itself to reveal a path when we cannot see it on our own.

When we are hopeless to find our way and it would seem we have reached a dead end, Love intervenes to create a way toward new beginning, yet again, over and over. This is the story we remember, retell, and rehearse in our liturgy each week.

But, I wonder: what does it look like for us to respond to the story?

On this New Year’s Eve, as we take stock of the year behind and make preparations for that ahead, it is worth considering what might be on the horizon in 2024?

What are the particular needs this particular body of Christ is uniquely positioned to bring “more of the same”? Where might there be opportunity for us to enter God’s story more fully so that we might inhabit an ever larger creative, life-giving Love?

It is precisely this abundant life that John’s Gospel aims to sweep us into, and for which Christ came. More than an abstract idea or intellectual exercise, it is a dynamic story of a living God that we participate in.

As the fourth-century theologian and bishop Athanasius of Alexandria puts it:

“he became human that we might become divine.”

Or, in the words of St. Theresa of Avila:

Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours, Yours are the eyes with which he looks Compassion on this world, Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, Yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

As we enter this new year, may it only be ever more so.

Amen