Christ has made God’s heart known to us, so now you know, you see, and you can act as God’s beloved child in this world, for the healing of all things.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Second Sunday of Christmas, year ABC
Texts: John 1:1-18; Ephesians 1:3-14
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
God’s will isn’t as complicated as we sometimes say.
When we see evil done in God’s name, we know that’s not what God wants. When the Church acts cruelly or with rigid lack of love, when Christians spout racism and hatred and demonize others in Christ’s name, we know this is not God’s will.
But when it comes our lives, we sometimes act as if what God wants is a mystery. God’s will is complicated, hard to discern, we say, and life is complicated too. So, we say, sometimes things are just the way they are. This is convenient, because if we don’t want to try and understand something we don’t have to. We don’t have to see anything we don’t want to see or do anything we’re uncomfortable doing.
But today John pops that bubble.
John proclaims the unknowable Triune God, the Creator of all things, is now known to us fully. Everything we need to know, everything that is in God’s heart is now evident to us.
“No one has ever seen God,” John writes. “It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made God known.”
If we know the Son, the Word made flesh, if we know Jesus, we know God. If we know Jesus, we know the heart of God.
So here is God’s will, from that heart.
The Son of God, the Word-made-flesh, God-with-us, said peacemakers are blessed and will be called children of God. And said the heart of God is that we pray for our enemies and love them.
That means we can’t play around anymore with the idea of justified war, or condone violence of any kind and say it’s what God wants. Non-violent resistance isn’t passive or cowardly, it’s Christ’s way. Now we know this, we can’t pretend we don’t.
The Son of God, the Word-made-flesh, God-with-us, said God’s full law is completed when we love God with everything we are, and love our neighbor as ourselves. We can’t justify not loving some people anymore, or say we’re not sure how God wants us to act towards some. The One who knows God’s heart opened “neighbor” to mean all people, even those we disagree with, even those who aren’t like us. Now that we know this, we can’t pretend we don’t.
Knowing God’s heart for the world means we see and act through God’s heart.
We don’t see things as we’ve always seen them, now that we know they are destructive and broken and harm God’s children. Seeing through God’s heart means seeing the evils of systems that oppress while making others like us rich, instead of saying “it’s more complicated than that” and letting ourselves off the hook. Seeing with God’s heart means seeing those who are hungry, or thirsty, or sick, or naked, or imprisoned, or a stranger and seeing God’s face. The Word-made-flesh told us to see the ones the world considers the least and the last and we’ll see God.
And if we want to be with God, we will be with them. Because if we can see through God’s heart we are called to act through God’s heart. That also means acting as peacemakers in our personal lives. In all our behavior. In how we challenge our leaders. In how we pray for those who hate us or whom we want to hate. In how we work to change systems that make life impossible for so many. Even if that means loss for us.
Now that we see with God’s heart, we know we have to act as God’s heart.
And the good news is that God wants to give you and me the ability to do this.
Jesus, the Word-made-flesh, said that peacemakers would be blessed and called children of God. But John today says that same Jesus, the Word-made-flesh, the Light no darkness can understand or overcome, will give those who trust in him, trust in that Light, the power to become children of God.
Paul says today that we’ve been adopted into God’s life as children and heirs, born in the Spirit of God. And in the Spirit of God, John says, we are given God’s strength and courage, the power to become children of God who know and see and do all that God’s heart wants done in this world.
Now it’s clear from Scripture that all people are God’s children. And many who aren’t Christian have been led to live as God’s heart by the Spirit. But for you and me, baptized into Christ, this is our calling, John and Paul say. Your calling. To bear God’s heart in the world, to make peace, to heal, to feed and clothe and shelter others, to welcome strangers and to love enemies. To live into the truth of your being a child of God and blessing the world with the love that is the heart of God.
Jeremiah says when God’s heart’s desire comes to be, the world will be full of life.
It’ll be a watered garden, young and old will rejoice to dance and be merry. God will turn the world’s mourning into joy, give gladness for sorrow, and all people will be satisfied with God’s bountiful abundance. This isn’t a pipedream of some impossible future. It’s what will happen when the Triune God gets what God’s heart desires.
And now you know. Now you can see. Now you can act. And you have the power of God-with-us in the Spirit to make you fully the child of God you’ve always been. The one to be a part of the healing of this world. The one who will make God’s heart known to all who meet you. The one God needs you to be where you are in this world.
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
