This sermon was preached at Christ Episcopal Church Eureka on Wednesday December 25, 2019.
Out of all the Gospel readings assigned for the Christmas feast, my favorite has got to be the prologue to the Gospel of John, which we just heard. Although some people think it is fairly abstract and philosophical, that is not why I appreciate it. In fact, I appreciate it for almost the opposite reason: because it is so affirming of the flesh, because it clearly rejects all those early Christian heresies that denied the full-body reality of Jesus Christ. The Word, John says, became flesh. The Word did not just appear to be flesh, it became flesh and dwelt among us.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple said “The Word made flesh” is the most important phrase in all of Christianity.[1] He then explained, “Christianity is the most materialistic of all great religions…. [‘materialistic’ not in the economic sense but ‘materialistic’ in its affirmation of matter]. Based as it is on the Incarnation, [Christianity] regards matter as destined to be the vehicle and instrument of spirit, and spirit as fully actual so far as it controls and directs matter.”[2] In John’s Prologue, it becomes clear that God loves physical matter. He made it, he became it and he wants us to experience him through it. As Richard Rohr says, “Matter matters.”
Author Alexander Shaia also recognizes this affirmation of the flesh in John and believes that the Gospel invites its readers to appreciate the beauty and wonder of the matter that is all around us and the matter that is us. He says the Gospel invites us to notice the “buzzing of the bees and the rustling of the wind through the leaves…[to] become aware of the remarkable artistry in the veining of every leaf and bird feather…[to] sense the musculature beneath our own thin skin that miraculously holds us at 98.6 degrees in both snow and blistering sun…[to] wiggle our toes and stretch our arms and enjoy the sun or perhaps the taste of a raindrop on our tongue. This,” he says, “is God’s gift of sensuality awakening—becoming more sensitive and appreciative.”[3]
On this Christmas day as we celebrate the mystery of the Incarnation (the Word made flesh), John’s Gospel invite us to receive this gift of sensuality awakening, to practice appreciation of our bodies and to experience our flesh (and the earth!) as sacred vessels for divine life and expression. So what would receiving this gift of sensuality awakening look like for you today and during this twelve-day-long season of Christmas and beyond?
One important way that the Gospel of John invites us to celebrate the Incarnation is by being present to our bodies through our five senses. In John, Jesus invites us to listen to the wind (John 3), to quench our deepest thirst (John 4), to see God at work in the muddiness of our lives (John 9), to aromatize our prayers (John 11), and to touch the Body of Christ as it is made manifest in the beloved community (John 20). Throughout the months of March and April, as we prepare for our next great Christian feast (Easter), we will be reading through these chapters in John and discovering how to experience the glory of God within our very bodies. We will discover, in the words of Thomas Merton, how “to set free the song of everlasting glory that now sleeps in our paper flesh, like dynamite.”[4]
But today, Christmas day, I feel the Gospel of John inviting us to do something that Jesus invited his disciples to do in chapter 15: to rest and to abide (15:4,7). St. John who is the traditional author of the Gospel and who is identified as the “Beloved Disciple” embodies this resting and abiding in Christ as he reclines next to Jesus during their last evening together. St. John rests upon the bosom of Jesus and , according to the Celtic Christians, he was listening to the heartbeat of Christ.[5] So I invite us to receive the gift of sensuality awakening by resting and abiding and listening to the heartbeat of Christ in our own flesh this Christmas day and season so that we, in the poetic words of Merton, “make ready for the Christ, whose smile, like lightning, sets free the song of everlasting glory that now sleeps, in [our] paper flesh, like dynamite.”
[1] “[Christianity’s] own most central saying is: ‘The Word was made flesh,’ where the last term was, no doubt, chosen because if its specially materialistic associations” from Nature, Man and God: Gifford Lectures, Lecture XIX: ‘The Sacramental Universe” (London: Macmillan), p. 478 as cited in Christ In All Things: William Temple and His Writings, ed. Stephen Spencer (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2015), 130.
[2] William Temple, Readings in St. John’s Gospel (London: Macmillan, 1945), xx-xxi. Also in Lecture XIX of the Gifford Lectures, he says, “[Christianity] is the most avowedly materialist of all the great religions” as cited in Christ In All Things: William Temple and His Writings, ed. Stephen Spencer (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2015), 130. This affirmation of the Incarnation and an appreciation for the Gospel of John have remained dominant characteristics within Anglicanism. New Testament scholar Benedict Viviano told me that he thought Anglicans have a particular weakness for the Gospel of John. I think he’s right. We are indeed susceptible to its allure. Michael Ramsey thought John’s Gospel had an appeal more timeless than the other Gospels because of its affirmation of the flesh and because of its universal imagery of light and bread and water and door and way and word. Michael Ramsey, The Christian Priest Today (Eugene OR: Wipf and Stock, 1982), 29.
[3] Alexander John Shaia, Heart and Mind: The Four-Gospel Journey for Radical Transformation (Preston Australia: Mosaic Press, 2013), 218.
[4] Thomas Merton, “The Victory,” The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton (New Directions: 1977), 115.
[5] See J. Philip Newell, Listening for the Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality (Mahwah NJ: Paulist Press, 1997). Also see Bede, Ecclesiastical History 3.25 in which “the blessed evangelist John” is described as “worthy to recline on the breast of the Lord.”
The image above is titled “The Word Was Made Flesh.” Oil on Wood, 24″ X 28″ by Chris Shreve
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 