And the Word became flesh and bdwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Can you hear the excitement in John’s voice? The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory! He sounds like a character on some Christmas T.V. special who saw santa claus. Of course this is actually real. John is a real person. And He really saw something – someone far greater than Santa Claus. He beheld the Word made Flesh. He beheld God in our skin, a beating heart, a smile, a tear. He saw it. He touched it. He tasted it. He experienced God in the flesh! He beheld His glory.

It seems that most adult’s desire during Christmas is to behold the glory of Christmas once again. We strain our minds to remember or recreate the day when we looked at the Christmas tree with wonder. We remember how awesome it was in the past, receiving gifts that magically appear under a tree. staring at the first snow flake and marveling its intricate design as it lands upon your nose.  Movies and evening specials attempt to rekindle the childlike passion of beholding the glory of Christmas.

But every year we mourn our loss of wonder and we complain about how the Christmas comes and goes so quickly. How we have no time to enjoy it. erma bombeck says, ‘there is nothing sadder than to wake up Christmas morning and realize you aren’t a child!” Oh, how we so desperately wish to behold the glory of Christmas again!

Oh, to be John for goodness sake. He was there. He saw him, he touched him, he heard him, he even tasted him on Maundy Thursday. He beheld his glory.  You can hear the excitement in john’s voice as he penned these words. Wouldn’t you like to have that sort of excitement today= this Christmas! Like a child again? As we are troubled by finances- our health – our broken relationships.

But what does it mean, when John says, ‘he beheld His glory? ‘ What did John and the disciples behold? An adorable manger scene? Hosts of angels on Jesus side defeating the devil and his legions?

What glory did John behold?  Sure, he witnessed the transfiguration and the resurrection and the ascension into heaven. But he also beheld the Pharisees mocking Jesus as he taught. John saw Jesus hanging out with the lowlifes around town, talking for hours with a prostitute in public – inviting one to eat with him at a party! He embarrassing himself, embarrassing the disciples. And of course John saw the Word made flesh treated like vermin, spat on, whipped and hung on the cross.

And even consider the first Christmas. It wasn’t some cute scene. They were in a cave where animals belonged. Mary and Joseph didn’t want to be there. They wanted to be in an inn, but there wasn’t any room for them! Mary didn’t look at Joseph and say, ‘o how romantic, we’re in a barn’ it was gross.

                                  

But these things too are what John was referring to when He said, “The Word became flesh and we beheld his glory!”

What greater display of God than a weak vulnerable baby laying in a feed trough, amidst cow manure and sheep slobber! This is what John is so amazed about! The Word took on flesh and dwelt among us!  Not in the wealthy district up town, not in the clouds miles above of us, but among us!

 Not among the best of us either; the cleanest, the smartest, the riches, the nicest. He came plop down into the muck and mire, the crap and urine, the blood and guts, the sin and disease! The manger scene is really a picture of the final scene of Jesus life – rejected by the world, wrapped in swaddling cloths, perfumed with frankincense and myrh, lying in a cave,  with his mother crying over his dead body!

The Glory John beheld is that God took on flesh! God took on flesh and our sin and when He was crucified – you were crucified. When he was punished you were punished! And when He rose from the dead – you rose from the dead! That is the glory of Christmas! Merry Christmas.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory!   John excitedly tells us!

But we want to behold his glory too? Don’t we? Especially during Christmas.

The bookshelves in libraries and bookstores are full of people who experienced the glory of God, near death miracles, a woman goes to heaven and comes back, a fellow teaches meditation steps to channel God. Or perhaps you have been to a Christian worship service where they play cheesy mood music on a keyboard while the praise band leader closes his eyes an sways back and forth, saying, “o father god!’

So many people desperately desiring to see the glory of God, straining their eyes, spending their money, like we desperately make ourselves happy with Christmas presents and decorations.

All the while the glory of the Word made flesh is still dwelling among us.

Right here.  In Cadillac. At Emmanuel. A man is burdened by guilt because of the awful way he treated his wife – and confessing to the pastor, he is told, “Jesus paid for that sin too! You are forgiven!”

A woman watches her husband suffer from cancer and die – and she doubts and she wonders whether she will see him again and a sister in Christ points her to Jesus promise in baptism and the hope of the resurrection

A church full of messed up people and all sorts of personalities, actually works together – not perfectly – and sometimes quite dysfunctional – but most important they do it under His forgiveness. Lo I will be with you always!

You see the Word still dwells in the world today.  And His glory still shines for us to behold it and marvel at it.  That same Word made flesh that chose to dwell among the dirty and down trodden, in the hay and manure. You want to behold his glory? You want to be a child again? Hang out with Jesus church!  You will see amazing things among ordinary broken people!

know thyself! and this is prime
and heaven-sprung adage of the olden time!
say, canst thou make thyself? learn first that trade;
haply thou mayst know what thyself has made.
what hast thou, man, that thou dar'st call thine own?
dark fluxion, all unfixable by thought,
a phantom dim of past and future wrought,
vain sister of the worm, -life, death, soul, clod
ignore thyself, and strive to know thy God!
Samuel Coleridge

hadrian

O Hadrian
You conquered
The ever burning bloodfilled Temple
The frozen walls
Of a seemingly frozen God

Jerusalem drew her sword with zeal
You calmly stepped on her

Your foot upon a crouched boy
your bronze sillouette carried on the seas
to stand triumphant on shore

You re formed the land
With your roman hand
The old crevices and dusty streets
heading upward
Trodded down by dusty worshippers
whom God had left
Though they did not notice
He was missing from their high place

Walking instead toward Rome
Along lonely trails in Galatia
Even slipping down the backroads of Spain
Dining with peasants still sweating from their desperate long day
Laughing in lavishly lost women’s living rooms

Conquering
The conqueror
With warm milk
And embraces
No spears but fishhooks
And gentle hands
And words

O Jerusalem, your rebellion and rage
Your battle and blood
O Hadrian your steady right arm
Chasing victory and immortality



Son of Man




Son of man
Speak
Boy wonder
Show yourself
It has been some time
We have stumbled through all the arguments
We have explored all the angles
We have sung all the songs
We have painted setting suns
from every possible perspective
We even call nothing something and something nothing.
Ex nihilo
Pro nihilists
And we are tired.

We are still dying too young
We are still living too long

And We have told everyone
And we keep telling ourselves
Rehearsing the glorious beginning
Mourning the tragic flaw
Then rejoicing

Son of man
Son of sam
Son of the poor
Son of the weak
Son of the forgotten and the unseen
Son of the diseased
Son of the stigmatized and polarized and hypnotized
Son of the dry creaking bones
Sleeping on the ocean floor
And the devil’s desert
Son of dust

Come
Save
us

Nietzsche is right!

It is not infrequent that a red faced preacher quotes Nietzsche’s famous proclamation “God is dead” to shock his audience with an undiluted taste of our secularized culture. And unfortunately before his gasping spectators, he verbally stabs his invented antagonist, saying, “Nietzsche is dead”.
I have often cringed when I hear this quote in a sermon. Cynically I assume the proclaimer had never actually read Nietzsche but either got the quote from google or worse, lifted it from another red faced preacher.
Though I don’t wear a beret, I thoroughly enjoy Nietzsche’s writing. I don’t agree with his conclusions, but I strongly believe his criticism and observations are worthy with which to be wrestled.
In fact the ‘parable of the madman’ from which the above quote is ripped actually could provide a pastor with some fodder to attack not so much atheism, but what I call the emperor’s new clothes morality. A morality that denies talk of God, yet commits acts as if there is a final judge or divine overseer.
The goal of Nietzsche’s parable is not to support atheism, but to wake up people living in a Christianity or a general moral world of their own invention. What Nietzsche says through the madman is ‘God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”
The Christianity surrounding Nietzsche had become one removed of revelation, miracles, and specifics. Jefferson had removed the miracles from his bible. Kant had invented an inner divinity. Hegel spoke about the evolutionary revealing of the divine. Nietzsche suggests that they had killed God while continuing to maintain a world where He existed!
In the parable the madman shouts at his amazed audience, “We have killed him – you and i. All of us are his murderers…what were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? whither is it oving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space?”
And later, “how shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”
But the madman’s audience was silent and astonished. The madman discovers that his announcement is too early. He concludes, “this deed is still distant from them than most distant stars.. and yet they have done it themselves.”
Of course Nietzsche’s belief was that humanity must truly throw off the bonds to a now dead God. the bonds of morality, right and wrong, abstract purposes, etc. Yet still his message is awakening to those who have casually and quietly defanged the Lion, yet still live in fear of Him. As Paul himself argues in II Corinthians, “if there is no resurrection, than we should be pitied above all men!” Nietzsche would agree.

aphorisms

The health of a society is measured by the manner its members satisfy their basic needs.

Christianity satisfies the mind, body and spirit with words, washing and a supper. Inside and out. Abstract and concrete. Clear and mystical. Universal and particular. Global and parochial. Heaven on earth. Thy Kingdom come.

Much of our conscious moments are spent not on doing something but watching ourselves (and considering how we are being watched) doing a particular action, even the most primitive and seemingly instinctual activity, possesses our attention and observation.

nothing exists by itself, without an interpretation using words.

If a tree falls in the woods with no one to hear it. it fell without a sound. And maybe, just maybe, it didn’t fall at all.

Now, The Son of Man is Glorified

Last week my son’s soccer team won their game. I was even more proud when he scored the first goal! That day I glorified my son. I bragged to others about him. I praised him for his good work. That’s what it means to glorify something or someone – to point it out, to lift it up for all to see.

We glorify people and things all the time. We have three women in our congregation who have been glorifying their engagement ring to the rest of us – showing it off for everyone to see. Not their fiancée, mind you, but their ring. We praise sports heros and brag about them to others. We glorify many different people and things.

And of course we glorify Jesus! He is the one most worthy of being glorified. He is the Son of Man, Son of God. He is the Author of creation and its redeemer! Everyday we are called to glorify the Son, Jesus Christ in Word and Deed!

In today’s gospel lesson Jesus says to his disciples, “NOW the Son of Man is glorified! And God is glorified in Him!” When we hear that we imagine the tombstone laid aside, and the resurrected Lord marching out in victory! NOW THE SON OF MAN IS GLORIFIED! Or we imagine His ascension into heaven and His placement upon the right hand of the father with a scepter in His right hand from whence rules heaven and earth for His church. NOW THE SON OF MAN IS GLORIFIED!

But what great event had just happened to cause Jesus to say, “Now the Son of Man is glorified.”?

Judas had just left to finish his betrayal of our Lord by bringing the guard to arrest him! And what happens immediately after today's text? Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him 3 times and that all the disciples will scatter.

The whole organization is breaking down and falling apart. Yet Jesus says, “NOW the Son of Man is glorified!”

Jesus talks as if He is at the height of his glory and we cry out, “the titanic is sinking! Get out of the boat. It’s all ruined. Your empire is crumbling beneath your feet." It looks like Jesus darkest hour.

Yet Jesus proclaims, “NOW is the Son of Man glorified.”

It is when we see Jesus suffering and at his lowest that He invites us to praise Him with the loudest voice! In the deep darkness we see the piercing light of His love! The strength of His love. The endurance of His love. The depth of His love. The patience of His love. And the sacrifice that is His love!

Here we see Jesus loving people at their worst! their ugliest. their darkest. Here it seems that everything is at its worst! Yet Jesus goes to the cross without complaint. And on the cross He takes Peter’s place, Judas place, Barrabas’s place, and your place.

In the valley. In the crisis. In the worst of moments is when Jesus is glorified. Not after He rises again from the dead, but when He hangs on the cross! There we see the love of God!
Now is the Son of Man glorified. Now does God's love find it's beginning and end.

But the same goes for Christ’s body, the church.

Jesus invites us share in His glory in this world when He instructs us saying, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

We are called to love one another not on the mountaintops and in the easy place, but in the valleys and dark places.

Jesus does not qualify the objects of our love. He simply says love one another as I have loved you.

We think we know what love means. But how quickly we forget His command when loving is not easy. How quickly we stop short of loving when the going gets rough!

We stop short of loving, when to love someone means to sacrifice stuff we want for others. To love someone does not mean to given them your leftovers.

We stop short of loving, when to love someone means to look foolish and naive to the world. Our friends whisper to each other, “look at how she is being taken advantage of” or “How naïve of her to help that drunk woman, who just goes around from church to church asking for money” or "why is he speaking so well of that man when everyone knows he'll just stab him in the back."

We stop short of loving, when to love someone means to love someone who doesn’t love us back. Or to give to someone who does not give back. Even well intentioned Christians like to say, "it's good to forgive or its' good to give because it makes you feel good"

We stop short of loving, when to love someone means to walk with them for the extra mile. How easy it is to throw a dollar at someone or shake their hand or tell them you'll pray for them. How hard it is to walk with them in their footsteps through the valley.

Jesus is not glorified when we love people who are easy to love! Anyone can do that! Jesus is glorified in the difficult situations – when we love people who don’t love us. When we help our enemy. When we embrace the denier and the betrayer. That is when the Son of Man is glorified.

In 1940, Nazi Germany had brilliantly taken over central Europe. All that was left was Great Britain. And things looked hopeless. Winston Churchill stood up in parliament and said this, “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour." Churchill does not point to the day of victory or celebration, but he points to the day when things were at their worst, but great Britain did not give in or run away – that darkest and most difficult hour would shine brighter in history than a million victories.

How tempting it is for a church and a pastor to run away from challenges and difficult situations. How quickly I get mad when I see people not getting along and I just want to say, “what’s wrong with this church?” “What’s wrong with me!” It's all falling apart! Yet it is in such situations that we are called to embrace and love and have compassion! For there God is glorified!

We are not the church of the successful and the strong. We are not the church of the perfect and mighty. We are the church of the Judas’s and Peters. And today the Son of Man is Glorified as he comes to us in our despair and sorrow. In our darkest hour and he says, “take and eat, this is my body given for you.” “Take and drink this is my blood shed on the cross, for the forgiveness of all your sins.” Today, even we who fall short of love receive the gifts of forgiveness and eternal life. And again today the Son of Man Glorified. May the brightness of His glory reflect upon us and to others.
AMEN.