The Sunday Eucharist with Father Dave - January 2nd, 2022

“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 were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of humanity. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never overcome it.” (John 1:1-5)

We start today with the opening paragraph of John’s Gospel. It was read in churches around the world on January 2ne, 2022 - the second Sunday after Christmas.

Why would anyone think that last Sunday was a good time to be contemplating metaphysical mysteries? A lot of us were still trying to get over our Christmas hangovers! Besides, isn’t this still the time for telling stories about Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and the wise men? Where do you put ‘the Word’ in the Nativity scene?

It’s interesting to compare the way each of the New Testament’s four Gospels begins. Mark (the first Gospel written) starts with the beginning of the adult ministry of Jesus. Matthew and Luke go back further and start with the birth of Jesus. John goes back further still – a lot further. John takes us back to the beginning of time, proclaiming that what happened in that stable in Bethlehem was something of cosmic significance, rooted in a reality that existed before the creation of the world!

It’s a spooky thought – that some events, and some people, have a spiritual significance that transcends time. That’s not true for all of us, is it? Or is it?

I feel comfortable with the thought that God loves everyone equally, and that therefore everyone has an equally significant role in the divine drama. The Bible though tells a very different story. God chooses the Jews to play a role in history that is different to the role assigned to any other nation. God changes history through the man, Jesus of Nazareth, in a way that God does not do through anybody else. God also appoints some people to be prophets, priests, kings, healers and preachers (along with a variety of other roles), and yet this doesn’t mean that all such roles are equally important or that everything we do (inside or outside of those roles) is equally significant.

“But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume, and where thieves do not break through and steal” (Matthew 6:20)

The metaphor of ‘storing up your treasure in heaven’ is another powerful one, and reinforces this point that there are some things that we do that have eternal significance, while other things do not. Perhaps we just need to be clear about what these eternally significant things are. The problem is that it can be really hard to tell.

Who would have thought that a child born in a manger in a backwater town in first century Palestine would go on to transform human history in the way Jesus did? It all makes sense in retrospect but, as Kierkegaard would remind us, while life can be understood in retrospect, it unfortunately has to be lived forwards.

Are there things of eternal significance happening around us in the world today that we can be a part of? I believe there are. I believe there are things of eternal significance happening within our own family homes! One thing we learn repeatedly from the Scriptures is that the things that are most significant to God and to humanity are not necessarily the things we read about in the headlines. We need to adjust our eyes to focus on the light that is shining in the darkness, confident that the darkness will never put it out!

Dave
http://www.fatherdave.org
http://www.fighting-fathers.com