Scripture text: John 1:1-18
New Years is a time when we look over the width and breadth of our lives. We review who we are and what we’ve done and ask ourselves, what could we do differently? What could we do better next year? This is, of course, the origin of the often-not-kept-for-very-long New Years Resolution.
When I do this, I don’t find a whole lot of things I’d like to change, or least things I’d like to change that I can. Much in my life, such as my diseases, is largely outside my control. The rest however is something I’m rather content with. I know who I am. I know what I am and what I wish to be.
Now, if I were to summarize all that, who and what I am, I’d have to say I’m a storyteller. I like that. It integrates nearly everything about my life. My hobbies, my gaming, my family, my friends, and my ministry in the church.
Story is vitally important to us, even if we don’t think about it. It’s how we make real that which we want to express: our hopes, our desires, our past, our present, our needs, and our wants. It’s one thing to say to someone “I love you;” Those three words slip off the tongue easily enough. But to have a story of two people who have dedicated themselves to one another, will do anything for one another, will live their lives for one another and those words become real in a way they wouldn’t otherwise. That’s the power of story.
Of course, what we come here to this place each Sunday is to immerse ourselves in a particular story: the story of God and Christ. Perhaps the most important story of them all.
But what sort of story is it? I had an interesting observation this week as I was preparing my sermon. The one game I play, Dungeons and Dragons, along with all manner of fantasy novels and stories, have their origin in what we today call the fairy tale, but what would have been called a few hundred years ago as the medieval romance.
Thank you, Walt Disney, for keeping this literature alive.
A medieval romance has a very simple plot. The hero spies from afar a fair maiden and his heart is immediately captivated and captured by her. He falls madly in love. And he then dedicates this whole being and life to her glory and honor. He will protect her. All his great achievements are done for her. His whole self is hers to his dying day.
Now there’s a catch. Often times, this fair maiden is already spoken for. She is unreachable, untouchable, unavailable. And in only a very small handful of these stories is the hero able to overcome that in someway so that he ends up with his love and has the happily-ever-after. (These are typically the stories we remember from those centuries, but they are the exception rather than the rule.) But that doesn’t matter to the hero. It doesn’t matter that he probably can never have her. He loves her nonetheless and all his life is hers.
This (the Bible) is that sort of story.
God looked out one day and had a vision of you and a vision of me and a vision of the whole human race. And he fell madly in love with us. And he dedicated his whole self to us, to our glory, our honor, our protection,our life, our prosperity. All of his great achievements are done for us. His whole self is ours and always will be.
Not every human appreciates that or even understands it. Many don’t even know that they are loved so passionately, so intensely, by our God. But that doesn’t matter, God loves them anyway.
But God has determined that there will be a day when he will be united with his true love. And so he put in place a plan that would win him his people. He revealed pieces of it through prophecy and promise to people such as Abraham and Moses, Isaiah and David, Jeremiah and Micah. And these wrote parts of the story down and they became the books of the Old Testament. And then when the time was right, he sent forth his angels to search the world for two people, a couple after his own heart, who could help him complete the next step. And these angels found Mary and Joseph. And they were told, you will give birth to the Son of God, to the Christ, God’s love made incarnate in the world.
That, of course, is the part of the story we are most focused on right now. The story of the first Christmas and the birth of Jesus. This was hugely important step in God’s plan, because here he was going to make real in a way he hadn’t before his love for his people. His love would be flesh and blood, something we could see and touch and listen to as if he were one of us.
And then Jesus goes and shows us what it would be like to live in God’s world. The sick are healed. The broken-hearted have their tears wiped away. The dead are raised. The outcast is welcome. All are loved and valued for who they are. In fact, Jesus even shows us that God’s love is so immense for us that he would even die for us. Because he does, on a cross. That’s how far he’ll go.
This is the greatest love story ever written. And you and I and everyone are the recipient of it. This is why Christmas matters. This is why Easter matters. It’s why the whole thing matters. It’s the story of God’s love for his children, for his people, for you and for me. Can you imagine? The Almighty Divine desires you above all else. You don’t really have to imagine it. It’s in his story, the story we hear each and every Sunday in this place. Amen.
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