“Ruby is a child who sits entranced in the street. She is four or five years old I would think. The street which makes up her home is bordered by dilapidated houses, abandoned cars, stray dogs, and children. Ruby is nearly always dirty and ragged. Today she is clad only in underpants. I don’t know how long it has been since Ruby has a had a bath or had her hair washed and combed. I sometimes think never. I don’t know when she has ever had a good meal or a complete outfit of clothing. Today she sits in the middle of the street, I sometimes wonder if she has not grown to the pavement in a kind of transplant. Ruby is concerned about something she sees in the brick street. She concentrates on it with a peculiar Christ-like, child-like intensity. She gently examines it, is engrossed in it. She does not pick it up, rather puts her hands around it as though to protect it. She is oblivious to me and all the rest of the world. Nothing about her surroundings concerns her in the least. What Ruby has cupped in her hands today is a white wild daisy growing between the bricks. This daisy is a thing of color and beauty to Ruby, and to me. Ruby does not destroy it or injure it. She puts her hands around it as though to ward off the dangers of an environment which she has come to believe is hostile and destructive. She moves closer to the wild daisy, inching forward on her bare stomach, putting the wild daisy against her face, feeling the texture of the petals, smelling its fragrance. Ruby will let this flower grow until it is cast in the oven, for there is something inexorable in Ruby’s soul, which grasps for beauty. I don’t want to ever forget this child Ruby, she, her wild daisy flower, this time in space moment is a unique and heart-stopping thing of beauty, even perhaps a thing of redemption. A unique and heart-stopping thing, a miracle in contrast. A dirty, patty-clad street urchin, in a dying community, in a stifling setting, in a spirit-quenching environment beholding beauty, marveling at life, protecting it, rinsing her soul in the freshness of it.” Yes, a miracle in contrast. Now I introduce you to Ruby to share and share this modern miracle in contrast to make it possible for you to meet another person, and greet another situation as though for the first time, with freshness of thought, openness and sensitivity to the spirit, another miracle in contrast.
See it now in your mind. Another maid at another time, not five years old, 18 perhaps, fresh from the simple life of Nazareth, overwhelmed by what was happening to her. A baby in a room, a mysterious visitation of an angel about the significance of the child she is carrying. With her, the mystified husband, unable to comprehend, but accepting the one he loves, protecting her, as anxious as she about the birth. Their place was not the street or the ghetto, but the small house in Nazareth. And now, at this time of unique and heart-stopping beauty, a cage stable behind an Inn in Bethlehem. “Shelter me now from the cold,” she said, “shelter me now as I bleed and bare the child whose coming is joy. Shelter me now from the sheep and the strangers who sleep in this stable. Shelter me now,” and she smiled. “Lift him now, there is room in the manger.” Mary and Joseph cupped the hands of their hearts around this daisy of their life, a unique and heart-stopping thing of beauty, a miracle in contrast, yes, a thing of redemption.
That’s what it’s all about – this Christmas business. Miracles in contrast. When the writer of the gospel of John told his Christmas story, and we read it in our scripture lesson this morning, he didn’t do it like Matthew and Luke, he didn’t talk about the Bethlehem drama with Mary and Joseph and the baby, the shepherds, the wise men, and the angels, though even there the witness to miracles in contrast is our gift, but rather John began to make some stupendous claims about the life and character of Jesus, this one who came at Christmas time. These are assertions are flung down in a kind of wild abandon and confidence as though the writer is stumbling over himself, rushing hurriedly on, trying to get down on paper every thought that he has, lest he fails to put something down that’s coming to his mind. We almost hold our breath as we read that story, the atmosphere is so charged. Then we come to that mighty assertion in the 4th and 5th verses, and we have to stop to breathe and take a deep breath.
“In him appeared life and that life was the light of mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.” There it is. The miracle. The miracle in contrast. Light against darkness, and the darkness never snuffs it out. Is this what Christopher Frye was trying to summarize poetically. The darkest time of the year, the poorest place in town, cold and a taste of fear, man and woman alone, what can we hope for here? More life than we can learn, more wealth than we can treasure, more love than we can earn, more peace than we can measure, because one child is born. Because one child is born. Born into a world, I remind you, as violent as Israel and Lebanon, Iran and Iraq are today, living among people as poor and as miserable as the people in Cambodia and India, and some sections of Memphis. Dying as violent a death as any we have known in this age of violence.
A miracle in contrast. The miracle of Christmas. With that key, let’s unlock the door of our text. In him appeared life, and that life was the light of mankind. The light still shines in the darkness and the darkness has never put it out. In a great piece of music, the composer often begins by stating the things that he or she is going to work out and elaborate on in the course of the whole work. Now that’s what John does here in the 1st chapter of this 4th gospel. He states his theme, and the theme is life and light, they are the two main things that are going to move through the concert of John’s gospel. The gospel of John begins and ends with life. Here at the beginning, which is what we read for our text, we read that Jesus was life. And then at the very end, we read that John’s aim in writing the gospel was that men might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and believing that might have life through his name. John 20:31. The word life is continually on the lips of Jesus, it is his wistful regret that men will not come to him that they may have life. Chapter 5 v. 40. It is Jesus’ claim that he came that men might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. Chapter 10 v. 10. He claims that he gives men life and that they will never perish because no one will pluck them out of his hand. Chapter 10 v. 28. It is his claim that he is the way, the truth, and the life. Chapter 14 v. 6. In the gospel of John, the word life occurs more than 35 times and the verb, to live or to have life, more than 13 times.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men, and that’s the second of the great key words of John, which we have here. Light. This word light occurs no more than 21 times, no less than 21 times in John’s gospel. Jesus, as John says, is the light of men. And the function of John the Baptist was to point them to that light which was Christ. And twice Jesus calls himself the light of the world. This light can be in men so that they can become children of the light. I am come, said Jesus, a light unto the world. Now this is the reason that we choose this text in the midst of this advent season. This is the meaning of Christ’s coming. The great miracle in contrast. Light and life set against death and darkness.
Let’s focus even more specifically. The core of it all, the seed miracle in contrast is this, human babe, divine incarnation. Human babe, divine incarnation. Ask a Buddhist what he thinks about God being born a baby. Ask a Hindu. Some time ask a Muslim. You might even ask a Jew. Ask any devotee of a religion rather than Christianity, what they think of a God who would come to earth in a little baby. After a while, it may begin to dawn on you that this is the pivotal truth of Christianity. It is the crucial event, the miracle of the incarnation which is a miracle in contrast. Human babe, divine incarnation. No one has captured this more grippingly than Robert Southwell, the religious poet of the 16th century. He wrote most of his poems while in prison, and in the midst of 13 applications of torture. He was finally hanged and quartered, but not before giving the world a great legacy of beauty and truth. He expresses this miracle in contrast in some haunting minds.
This little babe a few days is come to rival Satan’s fold.All hell doth at his presence quake,
though he himself for cold do shake.
For in this weak, unarmed wise,
the gates of hell he will surprise.
Don’t miss that this advent. He himself for cold do shake. Isn’t that what we need to know? Deep down. Isn’t that what we desperately long for, deep down at the center of our being? We need to know. We need to experience that God has come to us, has identified himself completely with our life. It really doesn’t help us too much to know that there is a God somewhere. Or to be told any number of nice things about him. Until we know that the cold blasts of wind that shake us, shake him. There is a cold wind of impersonality that blows through the business and social worlds where we all live. We watch it strike our friends and in middle life they lose their jobs. Friends turn cold and we feel left outside circles we think we’d like to be accepted in. We go to our rooms at night and look out on the lights of the city, people pass, but they don’t look. Dare we believe that the God of the universe himself for cold do shake?
There is a cold wind of anxiety that turns the soul purple with chill. It does it when we announce a fear, it really is more than a fear, it is death itself. And we all know about that kind of fear, first hand in our own life or in the lives of others we love. A friend’s 16 year old son commits suicide. Our beloved Sandra Brady continues a valiant battle with malignancy. And just Thursday of this week, one of the closest friends of my son, Kevin, killed in an auto accident, and we could go on and on. Can any self-respecting God admit that he himself shakes at the cold wind of anxiety, fear, and death? It would help us if we could believe that, wouldn’t it?
Listen to those texts that dramatically punctuate the Gospel and you’ll see what Christmas is about, and who God is. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our lives. In him was life and that life was the light of mankind. He rescued us from the domain of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his dear son, in whom we have release and are assured that our sins are forgiven. For in him, the complete being of God, by God’s own choice, came to dwell. Human babe, divine incarnation. All hell doth at his presence quake, though he himself for cold do shake.
It is from this miracle in contrast, to which we give joyous witness this Advent, that other miracles ensue. In what order would we name them? Could we ever finish their enumeration? You think about them. There is the dark night of sin and guilt, broken in upon by the bright dawn of forgiveness and acceptance. The tears are hot, but the insides are cold as frozen hell. When I admit to myself the guilt of my sins, it’s a cold I dare not admit to anyone else, hardly even to myself. If there’s no friend on earth with whom I will share this most human of all moments, is there anyone else? If Christmas is true, the answer is yes. Is anything more desperately needed? The barbed wire of estrangement, separation, conflict, crisscrosses our lives. The guilt of missing the mark, betraying ourselves and our highest values, selling out to immorality, and so our need desperate forgiveness and acceptance.
In Christ, God speaks that forgiving word and here again is the miracle in contrast. Dark night of sin and guilt, bright dawn of forgiveness and acceptance. Look again, in this weak, unarmed wise, the gates of hell he will surprise. What a strategy on the part of God, to take hell by surprise, and all our hells. What is the focus here? Another miracle in contrast. Strong powers of physical strength, military might, intellectual acumen, economic power, in contrast to weak babe, with only love as a weapon. But here is the strongest power in heaven and on Earth, this is the reason the gates of hell is taken by surprise. When the cold wind of impersonality blows through the world where we live, what warms us? Love. When the cold wind of anxiety turns our soul’s purple, what warms us? Love. When guilt chills us into utter loneliness, what forgives us and thaws us out into freedom? Love. That’s what we’re celebrating here. At Christmas, God is whispering to every person, I love you. Miracles in contrast, and we could go on and on. But I have to close, so let the text say it for us again. In him appeared life, and that life was the light of mankind. The light still shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out. And let the poet’s word picture be framed on the wall of our hearts. The darkest time of the year, the poorest place in town, cold and a taste of fear, man and woman alone, what can we hope for here? More life than we can earn, more wealth than we can treasure, more love than we can earn, more peace than we can measure, because one child was born. Glory. Hallelujah. Amen.