I think I was in college when I heard a professor say “Life is hard and people are complex.” That is true especially in our current cultural moment mixed with the Christmas season. Often during Christmas we get focused on and are reminded of the problems we can’t solve. The people we can’t control and the expectations we can’t meet. Truth be told at the heart of our dismay is ourselves. I am the problem that I can't fix. I am the person I can’t seem to control and I am the person setting expectations that others can’t meet.
We say Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year but it often does not seem that way. It doesn’t seem that way because of all of the hecktic things happening in our lives. The Christmas season also highlights who is no longer physically present in our lives. It is no small thing then to remember that the Christmas story tells us that God has not forgotten us. God has not given up on us. Instead God has come to be with us! Christmas reminds us of who is for us! The darker and more complex things get at Christmas can be an opportunity to focus on the light of the world that has come into our lives. That light makes an extraordinarily practical difference in our lives.
In the Bible there are four books that contain the life story of Jesus. Those books are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Matthew, Mark and Luke offer similar accounts about the life of Jesus. Each offers their own unique style, themes and emphasis yet they use much of the same material and often in the same sequence. The book of John is different. For example John, unlike the others, doesn’t contain a birth announcement story nor does John have a story about shepherds, visiting angels or foreign travelers bearing gifts.
What makes John’s gospel so unique, especially at Christmas time, is that when John wrote his life story about Jesus he was an old man. The majority of New Testament scholars believe that out of the four life accounts of Jesus, John wrote his account last. While the book of Mark could be dated as early as AD 50 the book of John is dated, at the earliest, to around AD 90. This means that by the time John sits down to write his account of the life of Jesus many of his friends and family are dead. Matthew and Peter are gone. John is more than likely the last living member of Jesus’ original twelve disciples.
I can imagine an older John sitting down to write his account of Jesus. He considers all that has happened. He thinks through all that has occurred and summarizes God coming into the world in one word . . . love. God is love. It is John who said that. And the thing that is so amazing about John saying that is because of what John had seen and experienced in his life. Think about it. John has lost friends. He has lost family members. In some ways he has lost his whole society and culture.
John was alive when Nero sent General Vespasian to Galilee. Vespasian was sent to deal a final blow to the obstante Hebrew people. Rome had had enough of Jewish revolts. Vespasian began to work his way down from Galilee, rolling up Jewish cities by slaughtering thousands of people and sending countless other men, women and children into the slave markets of Rome. John lived through all of that. John lived at a time when Vespasian left his son outside the city of Jerusalem to put it under a siege.
One way or another John experienced Jerusalem being surrounded for seven months while people and children starved to death and diseases broke out. The Roman army built a ditch and a wall around the city in an attempt to breach the walls as well as to not allow anyone to escape. At the end of the Jewish war in 70 AD the city, it’s people and the cherished temple were decimated. The nation of Israel had basically been wiped off the map and its temple left in ruins. Through all of that darkness John says God is love.
In fact at the end of his Gospel John writes “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.” (John 20:30) By signs John is referring to the seven signs (another unique feature of John's book) that John points to in his telling of the life of Jesus. In other words John is saying something like “I have just given you a taste of what I and my friends experienced with Jesus.”
John continues and says “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:31) John is saying something like “I hope that after you read this account of the life of Jesus that you will not simply be impressed but that you will come to know Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God.” Why? Because John wants you and I to know that God is love and Jesus is life. Amazingly John says these things in spite of what he has seen and experienced. Things are dark for John. He has experienced a lot of loss, grief and sorrow. Yet, John still believed that God is love and Jesus was the source of life.
There is something else to consider as well. When Jesus was on the cross he asked John to take care of his mom. How much time John and Mary spent together we don’t know. According to one tradition recorded by Irenaeus and Eusebius of Caesarea (early Christian leaders), teaches that John and Mary lived at a home, along with John's family, in Ephesus. While that tradition may or may not be accurate what we do know is that if there was anyone who could have asked Mary about the birth of Jesus it was John. Perhaps he heard Mary tell the birth story of Jesus over and over again. Imagine all the questions that John could have asked. Mary, what does an angel look like? Mary, what was Joseph like as a husband and what was Jesus like as a child? So many questions. Surprisingly when John writes his story he doesn’t start with shepherds, angels or visits to pregnant relatives. John doesn’t talk about Egypt or Herod. John starts with the significance of the birth of Jesus.
When John sits down to write he is doing so surrounded by a lot of darkness. He does not have many years left to live. His friends are gone. His city is gone. John begins his story of Jesus by saying, “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and that darkness has not has not overcome it.” (John 1:4-5) John thought about the darkness around him. Everyone who had died. Everyone who was executed. His nation dismantled along with the temple. In spite of that John says that there is this light that shines in the darkness. The darkness is out to seize the light. The darkness wants to put the light in a box. It seems like the world and culture has tried everything, including a murderous execution, yet the light was not overcome. In fact the light wins out.
Perhaps with a grin on his face, in spite of everything that this world has tried to do to eradicate the light, John writes the darkness has not overwhelmed it. The darkness has not put it out. Caesar couldn’t do it. Tiberius couldn’t do it. Nero couldn’t do it. The destruction of the temple couldn’t do it. The death of Jesus couldn’t do it. This is the same John who ran to the tomb on the first Easter morning (beating Peter in a foot race) when he heard that the tomb was empty. John ran there and when he looked he saw an empty tomb. This is the same John that had breakfast with a risen Jesus on the beach. It was John that stood and witnessed Jesus die and then saw him alive again. John saw that no matter what happens in this life that there is a light that shines in the darkness and there is no amount of darkness that can put that light out.
During the Christmas season we are confronted, as probably no other time of the year, that there are problems we can’t solve. Perhaps you are a problem that someone else is trying to solve. We are all confronted with people and situations that we can’t control. No matter how rational we are or how many times we explain it to them . . . life is hard and people are complex.
Truth is we don’t control anyone or anything. You nor I can't fix anyone. We don’t have that super power. There are all kinds of expectations that you and I will never be able to meet. There are all kinds of pains we have suffered in life. Yet it is Christmas and we are supposed to be joyful! We are supposed to be happy and have amazing family gatherings like we see on TV. All of this and more creates a kind of darkness in our world and in our lives.
John would like to remind us all that God is love and Jesus is light and life. Light overcomes the dark. There is always hope. Even a small candle when lit chases the darkness away. There is a God who hears our prayers. There is a reason to wake up every single day. Despite the darkness God is love. What makes this the most wonderful time of the year is not what is happening but what happened. “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4-5)
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