"A shout of defiance"

Christmas 1, Year A, 2001

Trinity Cathedral, Trenton, NJ

Reading: John 1:1-18

"The Word became flesh
and dwelt among us,
and we have seen his glory."

It's hard to believe
that's its only 5 days
since Christmas.
Five days
since we opened the last window
of our advent calendars,
five days
since we placed baby Jesus in the mangers
of our nativity sets,
five days since we sang
"Yea, Lord, we greet thee,
born this happy morning;
Jesus, to thee be glory given;
Word of the Father,
now in flesh appearing;
O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him,
Christ, the Lord."

Only five days,
but already on Friday
the tree in the library was being taken down,
and the lights on houses burn less brightly.
Only five days,
but it almost feels
like another life.
The light of Christmas shone brightly for a few hours,
but it was not long
before the darkness
closed in on us again.

It's been a dark year, this year 2001,
a year with more than its fill
of fear and grief.
September 11
is seared in our memories,
and Christmas was only a brief respite
from the excavations at Ground Zero,
where bodies continue
to be found.

Our troops send Christmas greetings
from a country
reduced to rubble,
and the task of rebuilding
a civilization from nothing
is almost beyond our comprehension.

A young man
tries to set his shoes alight,
and want would, just a few months ago
have seemed ludicrous
now sends us looking fearfully at people's feet in airports
and wondering if anything is safe.

A dark year.

But terrorism
is not the only darkness
we've faced.

The economy has nosedived,
and it's not just in the stock-market that it's been felt,
but in the thousands who have lost jobs,
the underground economy which has slowed to a trickle.
The unseasonably warm weather
has been a blessing,
because it means less fuel bills to pay,
but warmer weather doesn't fill a hungry stomach
and food backs
are stretched to our limits.

And the darkness
spreads around us in other ways too.
I've spent the last few days watching
bush fires consume
the place where I was born,
and remembering the three young adults I knew
who died this year
in horrifying accidents.
We have, most of us
had our own tragedies this year,
whether on the large or the small scale,
and darkness as found its way
into each of our lives, and with the darkness
a helplessness,
as we have stared in the face
of evils beyond
our imaginings.

And perhaps that's why
its so important
that we read the first chapter of John
again this Sunday.
Many of us heard it
just five days ago,
read on Christmas morning,
but somehow the resonances are different
five days later.

On Christmas morning
the light shone bright. The grace and truth of the Christ child
lit up our day
and the darkness was pushed back, at least for moment.

Today
the darkness
has crept back.
The assurance
of a Christ who dwells among us
seems less certain,
and the light shining in the darkness
more fragile.
And it turns our attention
these five days later
to the words which John begins his gospel with,
words about a Word
with God
in the beginning,
a Word
of light
which shines
in the middle of the darkness,
and which can never be swallowed up,
no matter how dark
it becomes.

The presents, the food, the commercialization
even the inevitable family tensions,
none of them
can swallow up
the light of this Word;
terrorism and war and recession,
none of them
can swallow up
the light of this Word;
death, and fear
and grief,
none of them
can swallow up
the light of this Word.

In this Word,
God made flesh,
the light of the world is come,
and no darkness
is dark enough
to swallow it up.
This Word
made flesh
is God's shout of defiance
at the power of the darkness
every time
it threatens to overwhelm us.
It's a shout of defiance
which begins with a newborn baby's cry, and ends with an death
on a cross,
a death which tears the veil of the temple,
the shadow between us and God
in two,
a death which burst forth into life
so that death itself
is overcome.

The sixteenth century poet Robert Southwell
says it so well:
"This little Babe so few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan's fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake,
Though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak unarmed wise
The gates of hell he will surprise."

A shout of defiance, this tiny baby,
red and wrinkled in his newborn skin,
lying in a feed trough, and
looking out at the world
with the eyes of God.

A shout of defiance, this Word enfleshed
in a little village on the West Bank
torn by war now as then
as now.

A shout of defiance,
God in frailty
to come among us.

It seems impossible, doesn't it,
not just that God
could take on humanity,
but that this one tiny baby
could make any difference
to a broken and dark-filled world.

But he does. He does.
This little bitty baby
brings light into the darkness
shouting the defiant presence of God among us.
And his shout of defiance rings through the centuries.
He shouts defiance at those
who judge importance
by how much money you have
and how much power
you can wield.

He shouts defiance at those
who use force
to win arguments
and claim violence
as the only way
to deal with wrong.

He shouts defiance at those
who cite oppression
as a safety measure
and use fear
as a weapon of hate.

He shouts defiance,
the defiance
of deep-rooting truth,
of self-giving peace
of out-pouring love,
the defiance
of an eternally burning light
in a broken and dark-filled world.

And he invites us to shout along with him,
to light our lives
from his light,
even though
we can see the darkness threatening around us,
to hold the light of Christ steady,
steadied by the hand of God,
defiantly burning in spite of the darkness,
for all the world to see.

Raewynne J. Whiteley
30 December 2001