Finding Faith ... in knowing what the 'what' in 'So, now what?' means

EDITOR'S NOTE: On Oct. 23, 2021, I was ordained as a minister of word and sacrament in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and installed as pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. I also served the same church for four years from October 2017 to October 2021 a synodically authorized minister. The journey together these past four years has been an amazing one, full of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on Jan. 2, 2022, the Second Sunday of Christmas.

This week's gospel: John 1:1-9, 10-18

The Word became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

The message:

January 2 … Can you believe it? … The Second Sunday of Christmas already!

It feels as if these past four months of our church year have zipped by!

And I wonder if any of you may feel even just a little bit like I do this Sunday morning. … And that feeling can be best described as “So, now what?”

Let me dig a little deeper to explain.

As I worked through the texts for this Sunday, there was a sharp realization in that I felt as though I have been on a steep, downhill descent ever since our church year started back in September. … Like on a snow sled that has no brakes.

Think back, and in September, we were all excited about the prospects of coming together and doing worship as a community again after such a long time apart, and our church was ABUZZ with activity. … Our Sunday school program geared up, and we kicked off confirmation, and we were off!

Not long after that, we all started to prepare for Thanksgiving and the coming holidays. We readied the church in anticipation of Advent. We worked to establish our slate of Christmas services -- Sunday school program, Christmas Eve and a hymn sing Sunday.

And then there were all of the family side of things to consider. Christmas plans and baking and shopping and wrapping. I’m sure that the holiday pace was as hectic for you as it was for our family.

And now … now we find ourselves here on the morning of the Second Sunday of Christmas, and with good reason many of us are kind of just slinking into this new year, exhausted and thinking, “So now what?”

All of the Christmas presents have been unwrapped. All of the delicious food has been eaten. All of the parties have been attended. And likely most of our families have dispersed again to wherever it is that our kids and grandkids call home.

So, now what?

Maybe, as you looked around your house this past weekend, you realized you have so many decorations to pack away for another year, and maybe there is a pile of presents that need to be returned or exchanged. … But even after that … then what?

You see, Faith Family, what we are experiencing is the effects of how easily we’ve allowed the meaning of Christmas to become about the presents and the dazzling lights and the merriment.

Because that’s exactly what most of the world is doing now, in this time after Christmas. They are dashing forward, looking to find that post-holiday shopping deal or looking forward to that mid-winter getaway to somewhere warm. … Some might even already be turning their eyes to what the lake season will hold this year.

Christmas is checked off the list, completed. … And so they are thinking to themselves, “Now what? … What is the next thing that I need to accomplish … to do … to plan … to check off the list? … What is the next distraction that will fill my days?”

So, now what?

And all of that shows that they’ve entirely missed the point of Christmas -- the entire point of Jesus’ birth -- because all it’s become is a marker of time in their calendar, a celebration to ward off the winter blues for a few weeks, a spark of happiness to get us through the darkest days of our year.

So, now what?

Well, I would suggest that the “what” is given to us in the very last verse of today’s gospel text: “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.”

And I think that this is John’s subtle way of pointing a finger at each and every one of us sitting here today, telling us that the answer to the question “So, now what?” is lying in the secret to Christmas.

We say it in texts and in Christmas cards, and we sing it in Christmas carols that Jesus Christ was born to shine a light into the darkness. God loved us so much, that he chose to come to earth in the form of a mortal man, a helpless baby nonetheless … to help us see what it meant to live in the Kingdom of Heaven … even here on earth.

What John writes is true: None of us, nor any of the faithful believers before us, have seen God. … But, for a very short period of time, there were many who saw and lived in proximity to Jesus, and he helped make God known to them. … That was part of the promise of the Christmas miracle: Jesus was born to bring light into this world, to help others get to know God.

And then Jesus was taken from us. The earthly vices of fear and greed and violence took Jesus away from the believers some 2,000 years ago … and I have to imagine that they felt the very same feeling we do in the post-Christmas period of our lives today.

So, now what?

And it turns out that the answer was the same two millennia ago as it is today. … The answer to “So, now what?” is that it is up to each and every one of us to continue to carry Christ’s light into the darkness. When Jesus was crucified and returned to his Father 2,000 years ago, he charged his disciples with carrying on his mission to the ends of the earth and through all kinds of peril.

And each and every Christmas, in the lull that takes over our church life, our personal lives and the larger community as a whole, that is our time to live out the mission of what Christmas is actually all about.

Now that the wrapping paper has all been thrown away. Now that most of our gifts have already been forgotten about. Now that the family has all gone home. … Now that the lights are coming down and schedules are resuming some kind of normalcy … this is the time that we are called upon to do the work of Christmas.

A friend this past week posted a meme on her Facebook page. It read: “When the carols have been stilled, when the star-topped tree is taken down, when family and friends are gone home, when we are back to our schedules, the work of Christmas begins: to welcome the refugee, to heal a broken planet, to feed the hungry, to build bridges of trust not walls of fear, to share our gifts, to seek justice and peace for all people, to bring Christ’s light to the world.”

That pretty well sums up the “So, now what?” … doesn’t it?

Faith Family, it would be easy to quickly move on from Christmas now that the rest of the world is. Those who see Christmas as nothing more than a secularized holiday -- nothing more than a time to share gifts with loved ones during a dark and lonely part of the year -- will quickly seize the next distraction in their lives during this time.

But it is we -- the faithful -- who are called to answer the question, “So, now what?” with action. … It is we who have to allow our actions, our kindness, our generosity, our light to show the rest of the world that the true meaning of Christmas was the birth of the Christ child. … That the true meaning of Christmas was that our God loved us so much, he was willing to take on flesh and bone and to come to earth to show us how to live for each other.

It is true, Faith Family, that none of us has ever seen God. … But we have seen Jesus. We have seen Jesus in our loved ones, and in our neighbors, and in that person in distress. … And it is also true that others have seen Jesus in us, every time time we’ve taken care of the orphan and the widow, every time that we’ve fed the hungry, or given shelter to the homeless.

All of this is the true work of Christmas, and it never stops, even now as we celebrate the Second Sunday of Christmas. … And that answers the question of the “what” in today’s question of “So, now what?”

And that is the Good News for this Second Sunday of Christmas, Jan. 2 … 2022. … Amen.