December 22, 2024
Advent 4

“Of the Father’s Love Begotten”

John 1: 1-14

by Rev. Stephen Fetter

There is something sacred about a birth. For those of us privileged to have been present – either as a mother or as a participant in the labour and the anxiety and the flurry and the waiting and the exhaustion and the relief at the borning cry – it is as much a spiritual moment as one grounded in this Earth. All ordinariness gets set aside in those hours, and the wonder of a new life emerging takes over. Surely God is in this place. It is a glimpse of Eternity, and a connection to the One who has created things “good” since the very beginning of time, and has done it yet again in our presence.
 

All of that is true, and yet birth is often messy beyond belief too: painful, frightening, risky, confusing, exhausting. Sometimes fatal. There is blood as well as joy; fear as well as hope. To ignore the imperfect aspects of this holy moment is to sentimentalize it, and lose the profoundness of the moment. God is present at the most intense moments of terror as well as of peace, of hope as well as of uncertainty. And the love that wells up in us when the worst is past and the miracle is squirming in our arms is glimpse of the love that has also held us from before our own birth. It is the love that brought the world to birth in the beginning, and imbues each birth since with possibility. In moments such as this we know the transforming power of love to banish fear and draw the best out of us.
 
It is out of love such as this that each of us was born.
 
For Mary and Joseph and Jesus, the birth we celebrate this week was as messy – or more so – than many of ours. Their world was fractured, conflicted, and in pain. The parents were alone, far from home, shuffled off among animals into the filth of a barnyard. Powerbrokers were crude, and life was cheap. There was every reason to suppose this birth would go badly. When we tell the story, glory in the Love that it witnesses, but don’t ever sentimentalize it. This was hard – for Mary, for Joe … and for God too. What a breathtakingly strange way to bring hope to the world! Could anything be more loving, for God, than to pay that heavy a price? Imagine giving up all that divinity provides, to enter our filthy, frightening world in such a helpless way. Would any of us, loving as we are, be willing or able to give up so much, in love?
 
“Of the Father’s Love Begotten” is the first line of one of our most ancient Christmas songs. Long before the Medieval church leaders began to portray God as wrathful and punitive, 4^th century Christians sang of this transformative Love: a love that comes in spite of the darkness we live in. A love that comes because we live in darkness. A love that comes because only love can overcome the darkness. A love that comes to help us become what we were always meant to be: children of God.
 
Come join us on Sunday as gather to light the fourth Advent candle and wonder at the Love that lies at the root of this story. Come not to sentimentalize that love, or to sterilize the impurity of the events. Come instead to see how this event marks the beginning of Jesus’ whole journey to bring healing, health, possibility, restoration, and life as it was always meant to be into our tarnished world … beginning and ending with Love.
 
And then join us again on Christmas Eve as we light our candles, and feast on communion with God and with each other, and glory in the wonder of a Silent Night that brings Joy to the World.