Sermon - Sunday January 3, 2010

Year C - The Year of Luke - Christmas 2

As the Christmas Blizzard of 2009 began to fall, I found myself growing more and more gloomy. As Christmas church services began to be canceled, I felt buried by the snow. The entire season of Advent had been building up to the celebration of Christmas worship. To have the snow blow in and cancel the worship was like preparing a great dinner and dropping it on the way to the table.

A the sense of gloom settled in, I remembered an article I read a couple of years before. It said that it is the duty of every Christian to seek happiness. The reason is that unhappiness gives us the excuse to do things that are contrary to our values. The alcoholic will use an unhappy event to have a drink. Unhappy people devote their energy to making others unhappy or finding fault in others. An employee who is unhappy will use his or her unhappiness to pilfer from the company or do sloppy work.

There is truth in what that article said. The pursuit of happiness is an important part of human morality or immorality. It is part of human weakness or strength. The question becomes, "What kind of happiness are we perusing, and how do we peruse it?" We need to look at the Gospel of John for and answer.

One of the striking features of the Gospel of John is the way it depicts the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. The other gospels usually tell us stories about Jesus. Then, like the disciples, we are left to ask, "Who is this, that wind and sea obey him? Who is this who feeds the multitude on a couple of loaves and a few fish?" However, in the Gospel of John, there is never a doubt who Jesus is, because he tells us. Usually he does so with a statement that begins with the words, "I am." Put Jesus in a situation and he will clarify who he is and what he has come to do.

Jesus can be in the desert surrounded by people who are chronically unsatisfied, and Jesus says, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty" (John 6:35).

Jesus can be in the midst of people who are confused, people who ask, "Who are you, Jesus? What makes you different from all the other teachers, rabbis, and religious leaders?" In response Jesus says, "I am the gate for the sheep. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture" (10:7, 9). 

One can place Jesus at a graveside, in the midst of grief-stricken people, and Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live" (11:25).

Jesus can be in the midst of people who feel disconnected by life's difficulties, and Jesus says, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing" (15:5).

In the Gospel of John, in one situation after another, Jesus defines himself and says, "This is who I am...." In the eighth chapter, Jesus says, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life" (8:12). His words echo the opening words of the Fourth Gospel, where the writer defines the person and work of Jesus in terms of light. "What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people ... The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world" (1:3-4, 9).

Jesus says, "I am the light of the world." This is the kind of thing we might expect to hear in these days after Christmas. The Christmas season is rooted in the words of the prophet Isaiah who said, "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light." For this reason we celebrate Christmas as a festival of light. We string lights on trees. We light our houses. We burn candles in the windows and plug in GE bulbs on the shrubbery. Jesus is the light of the world a light who has come into the darkness.

The Gospel of John is always contrasting light and darkness. The self-centered pursuit of happiness will lead to unhappiness; it is born of the darkness. However, the pursuit of happiness seeking the goodness of life; this is born of the light.

Christ came not to press us into a state of unhappiness. He came to save us from the darkness of the world. He came so that we might see the goodness of this life, and the promises of the life to come. He came so that we might have life, and as Jesus says in John's Gospel, "we might have it abundantly." Jesus came to free us from ourselves and the ways in which the world attacks who we are as God's children. Christ is the beginning and end of our pursuit of happiness. It is through him that we have meaning in what we are and what we become.

Snowstorms, disappointments, and rainy days will always be part of our lives. However, in Christ we have a Savior who will take us beyond those things and into the light of his love, joy, and kingdom. Amen.