10:30 am, 3rd Sunday of Advent, Dec 17, 2023 ~ FBCA

(Is 61:1-4, 8-11; Jn 1:1-9) J G White

Have you ever wished you could talk to someone famous? Meet them, or even just chat on the phone? A great world leader? A famous musician? An amazing author? I have met some famous Christian authors: Brian MacLaren, Dom Crossan, John Spong. And I once shook PM Brian Mulroney’s hand. But who are the top people I want to meet? Hmmm...

Remember last Sunday morning, being second? I’d say it is OK to be ‘second’ when we are friends with the One who is ‘First.’ Jesus, born in Bethlehem. How is He first?

This morning we heard how John’s Gospel begins. Last Sunday Mark started the Jesus story with John the Baptizer and Jesus of Nazareth going public when they were both adults. The week before that, as we lit up our decorations, we heard Matthew begin the whole story with the genealogy of Jesus, His ancestral mothers and fathers. Today, John the gospel writer - not the same man as John the Baptist - starts at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

It is not by chance that John chapter one starts like Genesis chapter one: in the beginning. John the gospel writer starts with the Creator of creation. And Christ, who is the Word, the Life, the Light, is One with that Creator. (You’ve heard that when everything started, there was baseball? In the big inning.)

I wish I could show you a picture right now, a photo of me and Marlene Knowles at a little restaurant in Edmonton. ‘The Burger’s Priest’ it is called, and it is filled with little touches from churches, including hymn boards. They serve a ‘Vatican burger.’ Marlene and I had our photo taken in front of a wall in the diner that has a Bible paragraph of Greek text and the English translation. Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without him not one thing came into being…

Jesus, the Cosmic Christ, there at creation. The Father, the Son, the Spirit, all there making a universe! And you know, like I do, how mind-boggling this universe is.

A celestial sight last week was the Geminid meteor shower. I did not spend a lot of time staring up into the sky, but I did see about the best shooting start I have ever seen. And that was just something in the sky quite nearby - in our atmosphere. Look at all the true stars beyond. And consider the billions of galaxies of stars we are told are out there. The new James Webb telescope is peering deeper and clearer into the universe, and looking far back in time.

Have you been in awe, lately, over what is out there, how small we are, how much we now know about space, how beautiful it is, and how much we don’t understand?!

This month, Advent, I have been taking in some webinars about the Cosmic Christ. I find it very hard stuff to understand! Suffice it to say that Christ is about all of time and space. He is the Alpha and Omega, as the Bible says, the A to Z. On Christmas Eve we will hear from Hebrews chapter 1: in these last days [God] has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.

At Christmastime we celebrate the fact that with Jesus the Christ we have personal access to the Creator of the cosmos. One modern thinker who recently died would speak of God as ‘Reality with a personality.’ (Michael Dowd)

John starts his Gospel, reminding us that it is the CREATOR we meet in a human body, in time and space, limited. Of course, that lifetime is long over, those 33 years in a small part of the Middle East. Now unlimited, the Holy Spirit connects the human God with us all.

On Friday evening here, Rachel MacLean beautifully sang that Amy Grant song about Mary, the mother, seeking the help of the Spirit during her pregnancy.

Breath of heaven, hold me together

Be forever near me, breath of heaven

Breath of heaven, lighten my darkness

Pour over me your holiness for you are holy / Breath of heaven

Perhaps the last question about the way we relate to God and the cosmos is to wonder, are they for us, or against us? Good or bad or indifferent? It is said that Albert Einstein posed this question: “Is the Universe friendly?”

Our Christian answer is ‘yes.’ Our Christmas answer is ‘yes.’ Romans chapter 8 declares, with a rhetorical question: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (8:31)

People need this good news. For many people today, it is not very believable: that the world and its greatest Power is actually good and is for them not against them. So many folks are beaten down, hurt and hurting, violated, have lost their way, or are troubled. The sadnesses and struggles of the whole year can pile up now, in December, in the face of all the happiness that is supposed to happen.

Christmastime does not have to be wonderful and joyful. Sometimes it is hard. But the Christ of Christmas is still good, thru the pain and problems. I want Christ of the cosmos to be close at hand.

Look at our new carol. I live into the hope that this is true. Words, mostly from Cynthia:

Our very first gifts were wrapped in light

The very first light was sent with love

The very first love was shining bright

Those words take me back, not just to Bethlehem, but to creation, the very beginning, with Christ.

John said, poetically, What has come into being in [Christ] was life, and that life was the light of all people. The One who is First, the Light, is touchable, reachable, relatable. Shining in us. And beautifully good.

Jesus started his preaching, at about age thirty, saying: “Make a turn around, the Kingdom of the Heavens is at hand!” If you need to refocus and find Christ, the One who is First, may you do it. And as you bless someone else with some little bit of the goodness of God, all the better. May the great goodness of the universe, of all creation, come to a point in Jesus, this season, and in our New Year!