We Too Are Born This Day: A Sermon for Christmas Day

When it came time to tell the story of how Jesus came to be, John the Evangelist took an entirely different approach from that of Matthew and Luke. When we compare today’s “birth” narrative with Luke’s from yesterday, we notice some stark differences.

As Luke was prone to do, he gave us a lot of specific details in his telling of the story. He oftentimes wanted to make sure his readers knew exactly when and where an important event took place.

So, when he told the story of the birth of Jesus, Luke made sure that we knew that it was in the day when Augustus was the Emperor of Rome, and Quirinius was governor of Syria. We know that Mary and Joseph left their hometown of Nazareth in Galilee to the town of Bethlehem in Judea. In other words, this event happened in a place that can be found on a map and during a time of history that can be looked up in a history book.

John wasn’t interested in that kind of detail. For John, the most important thing to communicate was the cosmic significance of who Jesus was and how he came to be. Jesus’ existence didn’t begin when Mary gave birth to him on that cold night in Bethlehem. John reminds us that God’s Word – the Divine Logos - preexisted creation. Jesus – the second person of the Trinity - was the Divine Word that spoke creation into existence. He was there before, during, and after the creation of the cosmos.

And following this cosmic theme, John goes on to proclaim that “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” In other words, the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ wasn’t just a local phenomenon in a particular time and place for a particular people. In the Divine Word becoming flesh, John is asserting that God didn’t send his Son to save only Israel; God sent him to save all of God’s creation. And that is the beauty, power, and cosmic significance of the prologue to John’s gospel.

But is John’s prologue a Christmas story? Is it a birth narrative? What about those of you who didn’t come to church last night? Well, one thing we know is that you were given the gift of ample parking and ample seating today! But you are not getting the beloved story of Jesus’ nativity that we hear from Luke. No angels; no shepherds; no Mary and Joseph; and not even a sweet baby Jesus in the manger.

But while John didn’t intend tell us the time and place when Mary gave birth to Jesus, I do believe that his prologue is indeed a birth narrative. It just happens to be our birth narrative – yours and mine.

Towards the end of the prologue, John writes, “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.”

When we receive Jesus, the Divine Word of God, into our hearts - into our selves, our souls, and bodies - we are born again in the Spirit. We become children of God. This is our birth narrative; or perhaps a better way to say it is that it is Jesus’ birth narrative within us.

And when this miraculous birth happens, we are not left to fend for ourselves in the sin sick world that surrounds us. We are adopted into God’s family as God’s very own children. We have a heavenly parent, and we have an earthly family – the Body of Christ.

So today, some 2,000 after the Divine Logos ascended into heaven to sit at the right of his Father in Heaven, we – the Body of Christ - are God’s incarnate, enfleshed Word. As such, the Christmas story is our birth narrative too. May we, during this Christmas season and beyond, make room for Jesus to be born within us, so that we may be born again. And may we again and again receive him and believe in his name, and go forth rejoicing, so that we may be a light to all people.