Power to Become Little Christs

A Homily for Christmas 1 

December 29, 2013

From the words of the Gospel: 

"But to all who received him, ... he gave power to become children of God.” 

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Why is the process to Christhood so hard to achieve - if we ever get to Christhood? 

I’ll bet you remember that question. Ever since someone contributed that question last spring, and I agreed to address your questions during the year, this one has come up several times. Our scriptures may not answer all our questions. In fact, the real function is to question us rather than just to answer us. But this question about Christhood is one that scripture continues to address over and over.

  

In the reading from the Gospel of John this morning, it is the indeed the prime question… Why is the process to Christhood so hard to achieve - if we ever get to Christhood?

   

So let’s see what we can do with it. 

  

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Just to get started, let’s get a grip on the unique context of John, which is quite different from any of the other gospels. 

In particular, this account of the incarnation from John is quite different from the account of the incarnation we heard from Luke on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. 

  

Luke tells the story of Christmas on a very small and humble scale, as a drama acted out on the stage of the little town of Bethlehem, by a cast of three.  The principle role is that of a baby.  The location is a stable, the cradle is a manger, and when additional actors appear, they are only shepherds, poor, homeless shepherds, who turn out to be the ones who were filled with the wisdom of God, and who interpreted this wisdom to Joseph and Mary, who pondered these things in her heart. 

  

John tells the story of Christmas from the grandest possible scale.  This is a cosmic history,  sweeping from the dawn of creation to the realization of the glory of God in the face of Jesus the Christ…  (“In the beginning was the Word…”)

  

Luke stresses the newness of the Christmas event.  It is the story of a new baby and a new sign, of unexpected joy and the amazement of the shepherds.  On the other hand, 

John stresses the oldness of the Christmas story. It is eternal.  Jesus has not introduced a novelty; he has just laid bare the inner meaning of the universe, the Logos, translated, the “Word,” but also translatable as the “grammar,” the “self-expression” the “underlying logic and purpose” of the universe. It is a synonym of Sophia, which means “wisdom.” 

  

This Logos is not only with God, but IS God, and this inner meaning of being has now been exposed in and through a human person.  Everything Jesus stands for has always been there; but now it is profoundly visible and knowable.  Now the inner meaning of the universe greets us, loves us, confronts us, as a human being. 

  

That’s John. 

  

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Here is some further context. 

  

This was not the original Christian gospel.  The original Christian gospel was the proclamation of the death and resurrection.  It was in the death and resurrection  that the first disciples saw the fulfillment of the prophecy of Psalm 2 - “You are my son, today I have begotten you.” 

   

However, even before the Bible as we know it had been put together, Christians had become discontented with this concentration on the end of Jesus’ life. They wanted to show that he had also been functioning as Lord and Messiah (or Christ) in his teaching and healing.  They wanted to demonstrate that he had always been Lord and Messiah, that he had been born as God’s son, not only from the empty tomb but also from the womb of Mary. 

  

And so the stories of Jesus birth and infancy came into being through Matthew and Luke, woven beautifully from the threads of Jewish expectations in the Hebrew Scripture (which came to be called the “Old Testament”), threads which include oriental magicians, a star, shepherds (who among other things, represented the true Israel of God), a young maiden (which came to be translated as “young virgin”), and many other symbolic elements.  

  

And yet, embedded in these birth stories were the major elements of the gospel of the resurrected Christ.  From his conception, the Messiah (the Christ) was born to be a liberator, but the liberation he would offer was not to be merely political.  It would be, as Zachariah proclaimed, an inner liberation as well as an outer one, “for he will save his people from their sins - their inner failings and shortcomings.”  He would save people from themselves. 

  

It would be, as Mary sang, a liberation for the poor, the hungry, and the oppressed, and not just for the successful and powerful. 

  

And the means of the Messiah’s coming would anticipate the paradoxes of the rest of his life: out of poverty comes inner wealth; out of weakness, strength; out of humility, a new destiny; out of danger, wisdom and maturity. 

  

So these birth stories of Matthew and Luke were a little gospel in themselves. 

  

But John’s birth story is not about what happened one dark, cold night in a stable in Bethlehem, that transformed some shepherds and wise men. 

  

John’s meditation on the birth of Jesus is an eternal event, that transforms human beings in every time and place.  At its heart re the words, “To all who received him… he gave power to become children of God.”  Not just human beings born of the flesh, but divine beings born of God. 

   

Those who received the “thought,” the “wisdom,” the heart of God - not just those who believed that in Jesus, God was with us, but to those who trusted in the potential within us 

as it was manifest in Jesus, and who were open and inspired to realize that potential in themselves - to them he gave the power to become sons and daughters of God, to become collectively the Messiah (the Christ) of their own age, the agents of liberation of prisoners of sin, poverty, and oppression of their own time.  

  

To receive the Christ is to be the Christ, to participate in the Divine nature, to share in the Divine vocation of transforming the world.  That is the huge, mystical, cosmic reality of the Christmas story in the Gospel of John. 

  

As St Athanasius so succinctly put it, “God became man, so that man could become God.”  Or St Peter elaborated in his second epistle, “God has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness… that through them you may become participants in the divine nature.”  Or St Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.”  

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For those who just want a sentimental Christmas that celebrates the birthday of baby Jesus, the Gospel of John disturbs us. For those who take solace in quips like, “We’re only human,” John pushes out of our comfort zone.  Even for those who believe that in Jesus, God is with us, John invites us to a totally new possibility - the potential of God within us. 

  

At this point Christmas loses its cuteness, its greeting card quaintness, and becomes a time of challenge.  To truly see Christ is not to imagine him in that poor and lonely stable, but to see him in ourselves, and in one another.  The stable is where we live and work. The shepherds are our friends and neighbors.  The call is to transform the world. 

   

So the question for today is Why is the process to Christhood so hard to achieve - if we ever get to Christhood?

How could we answer that question?  How does it touch us?  What does it invite us to do, or be, or change?  Now that we’ve got a taste of what that means for John, what does it mean for you?  Or what new questions do you have now?  Let’s take a few minutes to share. 

  

[DISCUSS] 

  

For myself, the challenge to Christhood is not so much in trying harder to act like Christ outwardly. It’s in the simple act of remembering that I am a little Christ.  Since my deepest identity is not obvious to me on the surface, I have to take time to retrain my consciousness, or as Jesus would say, to “raise” my consciousness. 

  

Partly I do that in the same way I used to try to become a man - I took time to look at things the way my Dad did, which is what I think people are doing when they stop and ask, “What would Jesus do?” 

  

But I also have to practice things like Centering Prayer, walking the labyrinth, and slowing down, and other practices that simply create a space for my consciousness to be raised, practices that make it possible for me to experience my real self, my Christ self. 

  

And the other challenge for me is to remember that I can’t do this by myself. I live in an individualist, competitive culture.  But I have to remind myself  that Christhood is a collective process.  It is not I, but we, who are called to Christhood - together. 

So my calling is not just to be Christ to others, but to see Christ in others, and to receive Christ from others, and to inspire Christ in others, and to remind others of their deepest and truest identity. 

Christhood is all for one, and one for all.  And that collaborative interdependency is another whole process of remembering and retraining.  It is also a confession that I am not complete, I am not whole, without you. 

  

But that’s the great cosmic miracle of transformation, that for John is the true miracle of Christmas… "But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become their true child-of-God selves, who were born, not of blood nor of human will, but of God.”

   

Unto Him be worship and power, dominion and splendor, for ever and ever.  Amen.