As much as I enjoy the Gospel of Luke (Luke kind of tells you what’s going on and always tells you how Jesus is feeling about things. And if you want to know what happened with the women, Luke will tell you), John though, John is always filled with so many layers. Whenever you read the Gospel of John, you can peel back the layers and discover even greater truths, even greater mysteries.
And the beginning, the prologue of John, which we read this Christmas morning is no different. It’s always full of layers.
Do you know what else is full of layers? Christmas. Now that very first layer, if we peel it back a little bit, is kind of close and personal. For me, it’s memories of Christmases spent over the years. And those memories are always for me very pleasant, very exciting.
Years ago, my mother used to call all of us, the three boys, at four in the morning to wish us Merry Christmas. I miss that. I really do. But it was her way of being able to be the first to wish us Merry Christmas every morning.
And Helen and I would go back to sleep for a while until the first of the children would wake up. And we’d hear the scattering of little feet. And we’d say, OK, now the day begins.
And our joy, the memory that we have in this kind of first layer of Christmas, was just watching the children in their excitement around Christmas, gathering around the tree. We would gather together and have our Christmas meal later in the day. And the memory that sticks with me at that level is that we were just immersed in love.
Now, I won’t pretend that this was a perfect kind of image. It’s not like those holy cards of the holy family, where everybody looks holy. Because if you’ve experienced any Christmases, you know there’s a lot of hustle and bustle. And the kids do start to get tired and cranky, and so do the parents. And, yes, the kids will fight over gifts sometimes.
But underneath it all, there’s this feeling of being loved and the joy of being able to reciprocate that love for others. And as I get older, and as I watch our children with their children, we see how they have both rekindled old traditions and created some new ones of themselves. And that’s kind of the first level for me of the memory of Christmas.
But there’s a broader perspective, a deeper level. And that’s why you’re here today. I mean, you could have been at home celebrating the opening of gifts you may already have, or it may be following after mass. But you’re here today because I believe that you recognize that it’s not just about that personal family feeling. It’s about coming together with other people who, like yourself, see a bigger picture to Christmas.
You come here today to say thanks to God, to acknowledge that there is both the spiritual and divine that we are celebrating today. You come here today because you look beyond the simple movements of family and love to see the reason we have Christmas.
And yet, if we peel that layer one more, we see probably the biggest picture. And that is that there is a reality that exists that we call creation. And within that creation, there is a spiritual domain, a larger truth, a bigger perspective. The infinite vastness that we know as creation grew from the tiniest speck and came into being from nothing but had its beginning in the mind of God. And in that moment of creation, so too began your and mine spiritual evolution. And as we grew and evolved spiritually, we began to sense that reality that you and I call God. And so that we could more fully connect with that reality, God became human. God revealed to us God’s very essence at the incarnation in a way that we could relate to.
You see, the birth of Jesus is not just an event in our existence. It is the defining moment of our existence. The moment when God revealed to us God’s very essence. And what is that essence? Love.
So strong, so big that in the blink of God’s eye, a universe was created for you and I to exist in. And as we evolved spiritually, we became ever more able to sense that there is a greater meaning to our lives. There’s a greater purpose in our existence. There is a greater hand guiding creation.
And it is this truth that lies at the core of all of those layers. It’s why we gather as a family on this day to open presents, to celebrate a meal, but ultimately to share love. It’s why we gather in this church right now to share with others and to say thanks to God. And this truth of the existence of the spiritual realm is the very core of why you and I this day celebrate Christmas.