If you were
in church on Christmas morning, you are probably saying to yourself, “wait a
minute, didn’t I just hear this gospel reading on Christmas morning?” No it is not simply a case of déjà vu; you
did hear this passage from John. But
unlike television, this is not a mere rerun or simply a way to take it easy on
what is traditionally a Low Sunday. We
have four gospel stories, each with its own way of telling us the good news of
Jesus Christ. Over the course of the
three year cycle of our lectionary we hear each gospel in its entirety, for
there is much to learn from each one.
But the beginning of John’s gospel is so rich, so full of import for our
understanding of Jesus, that it is repeated. Indeed, I could preach on the beginning of
John for a full year and still have only scratched the surface of its
significance.
I don’t know
how other preachers handle their preparation, but I like to read the lessons
several times over a number of days and see what words or message resonate with
me. Each time I do this, I find some phrase or nuance that I have not noticed
before. Far more than simply a story or
a collection of advice, the Bible is a living document; it is God’s message to
us that informs how we live our lives.
That is why reading the Bible is a lifelong pursuit, for unlike a Dan
Brown novel; it does not have a beginning, middle, and an end. The words in the Bible are the same, but their
meaning is revealed to us in different ways as our lives change and our
understanding of ourselves and our relationship with God deepens.
Two phrases
caught my attention this week. John
tells us, “He gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood
or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” And Paul echoes this in Galatians when he
says “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a
woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so
that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God
has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba!
Father!" So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then
also an heir, through God.”
Children of
God. It is easy to focus on Jesus in the
gospel, but we too are included in the Good News. We call Jesus the son of God, but John
reminds us that we too are children of God.
By taking on our mortal form, Jesus the Immanuel makes us God’s
children. As God’s children, we are not
slaves or outsiders. By giving us the
gift of Jesus, God has accepted us as his own and this is vividly demonstrated
as Jesus assumes our flesh and blood.
For if God becomes one of us then we too become part of God. As slaves or outsiders we have no right to
expect anything from God, but as his children we then may claim the inheritance
of a child. The inheritance of God
Immanuel, who rose from the grave to show us that death was defeated and that
eternal life with God is our destiny.
The second
phrase that captured my imagination was “From his fullness we have all
received, grace upon grace.” Grace upon
grace. What a lovely phrase. But what does it mean? Grace seems to me to be an absolute term; you
either have it or you don’t. So what
could John mean by this phrase?
Many years
ago I was in New Orleans for a weeklong conference. I had never been there before, but had always
heard that New Orleans had some of the best restaurants in the country. I was not disappointed. The first night there, I had the best meal I
had ever eaten in my life. I remember
going back to my room, absolutely full to bursting and thinking “I will never
have such a wonderful meal again, that was as good as it gets.” The next night, as you can probably guess,
the food was even better. It got better
each progressive night, and I had to constantly reevaluate my thinking that
this was as good as it gets.
Grace upon
Grace is something like that. For grace
is not a binary proposition. It is not a
“take it or leave it “proposition. Grace
is like that first meal in New Orleans.
A wonderful experience that exceeded anything I had ever had in the
past. But unlike my thinking that this
was as good as it gets, Grace just keeps on getting better. Grace is not simply enough, it is more than
enough. Grace is an inexhaustible supply
of abundance that overflows our ability to experience it. God’s fullness of grace is more than we can
imagine or experience. It fills us and
washes over us in its abundance.
Tying the
two images together helps us to understand the concept of Grace upon
Grace. Through the incarnation of Jesus
we are children of God. As children, we
are not yet prepared for all of the grace that God has in store for us. For just as a newborn is not yet ready to
dine on Prime Rib, we are not ready from birth to experience all of God’s
grace. As a child must learn to crawl
before they can walk, we must learn to comprehend the idea of a relationship
with God. As infants we have a
relationship with our parent. But that
relationship changes as we grow and mature.
The same is true of our relationship with God. And it is only as this relationship grows
that we can even begin to appreciate the idea of grace upon grace.
Indeed, as
our relationship with God develops, so does our need for Grace. We need one type of grace in times of
abundance and a different type in times of peril. A prayer of thanksgiving for all of God’s
gifts is quite different from the cry for help when one is in need. Both are calls from a child to a parent, but the
response is different based upon the situation.
Grace upon grace assures us that the inexhaustible supply of Grace will
be there for us no matter our circumstance or the level of our relationship with
God or one another.
“In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” This Christmas let us remember the coming of
the savior, who made us children of God and heirs of his grace upon grace.
