Some Assembly Required – Epiphany Sunday (John 1: 14-18)
I’m sure we are all familiar with the stories of Christmas mornings where a parent spends the better part of the day putting together the brand-new toy. They were so excited to give this toy to their child. They were sure that they had picked out the perfect thing. On Christmas morning, the child tore into the gift, opened it with excitement and then set it aside, moving on just as excitedly to the next gift. Now the parent is spending their holiday putting it together, setting it up, checking that all the pieces are accounted for, and making sure everything is just right. Meanwhile, the child who this gift is for is having the time of their life playing in the box that it came in, letting their imagination run wild.
Giving and receiving of gifts is a big part of how we celebrate Christmas. The sense of satisfaction we get when we find the perfect gift for a loved one. The gratitude we feel upon receiving something from a loved one. The anticipation a child feels as they approach Christmas morning. The joy and laughter that is shared in the giving and receiving of gifts. All these things have come to define the feelings surrounding the holidays, the feelings we look forward to experiencing all year long. Now that we have been through Christmas, we have experienced the anticipation of the Advent season, we are left with a bit of “What now?” feeling. At least that is the way it often feels to me. Luckily, we get this time of Epiphany at the end of the Christmastide to consider that question. Now that we have received this gift of Jesus Christ, God’s only son, to all of us, for the love of the world, what now? Of course, there are many ways to answer this question. Today let us focus in on that mess that is the aftermath of Christmas morning, after all the gifts have been received.
God has given us all many spiritual gifts beyond the gift of the Christ child we celebrate at Christmas. Think about that child playing in a box while the parent tries to assemble the gift that came in the box. For the parent, it may be frustrating in the moment, because the child has moved on from the “real” gift, perhaps their excitement has tapered off a bit. But that child has received her gift gratefully and is using her imagination (which is itself a spiritual gift) to create something new and unexpected. And it is wonderful to think of our spiritual journey, and our new life in Christ in this way, but let’s not forget about that parent though. Dutifully, lovingly assembling the present that came in that box. This is the less whimsical and romantic reality of Christmas morning. It is the practical reality that for some gifts some assembly is required, and it takes a dedicated steward of that gift to assemble it to its fullest potential.
The gift of God’s love incarnated in Jesus Christ is like the child with the box, and like the parent putting together the toy. Like the child playing with the empty box, Jesus’ divine nature and identity as the son God calls us to see the gift of God’s love in new and imaginative ways, beyond the reality of what we can see with our eyes or understand with our un-awakened minds. On the other hand, like the parent assembling the new toy, some assembly is required. Jesus is also fully human, and God sent him to live as one of us. Part of being human involves the practical reality of putting together the pieces. Doing the things that need to be done, the legwork that can lead to bigger things. This work is part of our response to the gift of a Christ that is fully human. The experience of living on this earth is indeed a gift, but it is also often feels messy and incomplete, so some assembly is required.
In our reading this morning from the Gospel of John, we read from the final third of the prologue to that Gospel. It is John’s attempt to deal with the origins of Jesus, if not his literal birth story. So, we are presented with the idea that Jesus, the Word, becomes flesh and lives amongst us. And when that happens, it is God coming to live in the messy incompleteness of humanity. We are called to welcome this gift, and to accept the idea -the fact- that God might actually choose to live as one of us. So, in order to realize the full potential of this gift we must accept God into our imperfect reality. And when I say ‘accept God,’ I am not talking about accepting that God is real, or accepting Jesus Christ as the son of the living God, or that he is Lord and Savior. The way I’m talking about it, accepting God means asking ourselves, “Will we let God be a part of the messiness?” It’s not about accepting God as an entity, a being that who is out there somewhere, detached from us but still out there guiding our lives, controlling our lives, judging our lives. Instead, can we accept that that God, from out there in the heavens, would want to come here and be so close to us, so intimately involved in or lives, be so close to us that we could hurt him. So close we could make him suffer and die. Can I accept that that is what God wants? That whole messy human experience?
Well, I hope we can, because that is what God is offering us in the birth of Jesus. An offer to be part of the messiness. An offer to come alongside us in completing what might never be complete. To be human is to be messy and in need of some assembly. That is the ongoing challenge of being human. It is a challenge that also brings hope. It is a hope that with some assembly, a little work and faith, we can create and grow closer to the life we seek. It is a hope that is affirmed by God’s gift of Jesus, the human and divine son.
To say, as the Gospel of John does, that the word became flesh and lived among us is to accept that God would incarnate as human. With this belief we are also claiming our own humanness, and acknowledging it as wonderful and full of potential. After all it is of God, and in the Incarnation God chose to experience it, so how could it not be wonderful and capable of great potential? Yet we don’t always look at our humanity that way. Instead, we focus on our weaknesses and vulnerabilities as humans. We think a lot about our failures and our sins. We give so much of our lives over to navigating the messiness or stressing over our incompleteness.
In John 1: 14 the word “lived” comes from a Greek word that might be better translated as to “pitch a tent.” This recalls episodes in the Hebrew Bible when divine presence tented among the people, such as when they were in the desert for forty years. YHWH told Moses to have the people make a tent of tabernacle, a place to hold the Ark of the Covenant, and a dwelling among them for the presence of the Lord. So, the birth of Christ was not the first time that God attempted to be with the people on earth. God seeks to be with us. Part of our feelings of incompleteness are an acknowledgement that we seek this as well. We feel this absence and incompleteness in our own lives, some more than others. So, we seek to reconcile ourselves through closeness to God. Can we experience this closeness when we do not make time to focus on our potential or the wonderful parts of humanity, and instead focus on our limitations or our failings? God gave us much more to experience. Do we allow ourselves to take in the fullness of our gift of human life?
The stories of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ are an opportunity to do just that. Jesus shows us the layers of God’s love and how it touches the human experience in ways that we may not have been able to see before. Jesus shows us that we can make a difference with little more than a carboard box, if we approach it with love, gratitude, and a little imagination. Christ also shows us that for all the gifts God has given us some assembly is still required. The gospels do not hide the ball in that way. We have received the gift of God’s love, but that does not make things easy, and it does not make the world perfect. We are called to do more with it. We are called to share it with others, to make a world that is more just, peaceful, and loving.
Part of the way we can do that, is by passing on the words and the stories about Jesus that we find meaningful. For instance, the words of John 1: 14-18 are not a narrative about the birth of Christ, but a testimony of a belief in Christ and an experience of Christ. This testimony has been passed down through the generations. It is the gift that faith communities through history have passed down until it has reached us here today, and for many of you this is not the first time that you have heard these words. It is a gift that we can pass on as well. The gift of the story of Jesus, the Incarnate Word. The story of the Word of God becoming flesh and living among us mortal, messy, and imperfect humans. It is a story to show future generations and communities the value and possibility and blessing of being human in God’s world.
It is a wonderful gift to pass on, because it is a story that can reframe our perspective and help to remind us that the human experience is part of how we come to know God. Some will say that knowledge of God is not something that comes from human achievement or reasoning by itself. This is fair, true even. The only reason we know God as we do is because God has revealed Godself in Jesus. Jesus knows God because he was with God. We know God because Jesus was with us and we know him. In Jesus, we can see our humanity, but also recognize the divine. Through the gift of Jesus Christ the Son, we come closer to the unknowable parts of God, the parts that spark our imaginations and our hopes for what’s possible, and we also come to know the practical and knowable side -the human side- that shows us how God’s gifts can be used in the world now. Even if that means just making our corner of it a little less messy or one thing a little more complete.
If we can’t do that then it is as if we are returning the gift. Except I think we would find there is a no return policy on this gift. God’s love is with us, and there is nothing we can do about it. It anoints us. The gift of the Good News in Jesus Christ has arrived. So, let us share it, pass it on. Let us assemble, let us build, the world God showed us was possible on that night in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.
Amen.