Sermon January 3 and 4, 2009 John 1:10-18 (Prayer on page 153?) Happy New Year! And Merry Christmas! We’re still in the Christmas season. That lasts until January 6. Traditionally, that’s when our family takes down the tree. Although sometimes it happens sooner. And one year, I think it lasted until February. Artificial tree—so no fire danger. We just carry it downstairs, lights and all. But we’re also at the beginning of a new year. If you’re like me, you wonder what 2009 will hold in store for you. What will the year bring? What will be the joys? What will be the sorrows? Who will no longer be with us on this earth a year from now? And what new life will there be by the end of the year? We don’t know. We don’t know what is going to take place in our lives in the next 12 months. We might try to make a difference in what will happen. I gained about 5 pounds between Thanksgiving and now. So, on January 1, I made a chart with my goal to lose those pounds— --and a few more. New Year’s resolutions often don’t work. But it doesn’t keep me from trying— --year after year. But as we face this new year, while still in the Christmas season, it’s a wonderful opportunity to hear the good news once again. Because to say we don’t know the future, is not to say that we know nothing of the future. There are some things we know. And the most important of those is that God is with us. And God will be with us during the year ahead. The good news for 2009 is just like the good news for 2008. God’s love never changes. God’s love for you never changes. And the Christmas season helps us remember that. For our society, the Christmas celebration is over almost as soon as the wrapping paper is off the gifts. How many of you have returned gifts already? I don’t actually do that very often—Ruth does. But she’s taken some back already. How quickly we can forget the Christmas joy. So let’s remember together. Let’s remember the baby in the manger. Let’s remember Emmanuel— --God with us. Let’s hear the words of the Gospel reading for today and remember that: “The word became flesh and lived among us.” The more literal translation of that phrase is this: “The Word became flesh and pitched its tent among us.” Can you picture that? God has chosen to pitch a tent with us. To be with us. To stay with us. To show love for us, by being with us. That’s good news for us. We need to hear that God is with us. We need to hear that God loves us. It is so important for us to know that we’re loved. And God doesn’t just say God loves us. God pitches a tent. God comes to live among us. God takes action to show God’s love— --by coming as Jesus. I read again this week about the romantic young man who wrote this note to his beloved: “Darling, I would climb the highest mountain for you. I would swim the deepest sea for you. I would face the greatest dangers for you. Your ever loving, Jim. P.S. I’ll be over to see you tonight, if it doesn’t rain.” No, we don’t want someone to just say they love us. We want someone who will do something. And God does. Into this need, into our world of sin and darkness, comes a Savior, the Word become flesh. Would you read verse 14 with me: “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.” And verse 16: “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” I love that phrase— --grace upon grace. And the one full of grace is Jesus. Who is Emmanuel— --God with us. Jesus—who is grace, and from his fullness, gives to each of us— --grace upon grace. The image I see is a simple one. I picture a glass full of water. The water is Jesus, filled up with grace. And then, from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The glass overflows. And overflows. And overflows. And the grace which fills up Jesus, overflows to us. All of us. But what is grace? I heard about a video, where someone went out on the streets of Dayton, Ohio, and asked people for their definition of grace. They mentioned grace before meals, they mentioned Grace Kelly. But they didn’t know. That probably could just as easily have been St. Louis. We struggle to know what grace is. Well, let’s try a couple definitions. Grace is God’s undeserved love for us. You can’t earn grace. You can’t do anything to get more grace. The Latin word for grace is “GRATIS”. Gratis is something you get without paying for it. Grace is a free gift. A free gift of God’s love. Philip Yancey says: “Grace means that there is nothing we can do to make God love us more. And grace means that there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.” Or some people remember what grace means by a phrase using each of the letters of the word. Grace is: God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. We feel like we have to do something to be loved. We feel like we have to earn acceptance. We feel like it’s up to us. But God’s grace says something different. God’s grace says it’s a gift. And it’s a gift from God through Christ. It’s water overflowing. It’s Emmanuel—God with us, who lives in us, and flows through us. It’s interesting to me that the word GRACE is so prevalent in this passage in John 1, and then never shows up again in the rest of the Gospel of John. This is the only time the word GRACE is used in John. From a literary point of view, it makes scholars wonder if this section of John was a hymn borrowed to introduce the Gospel. Which is possible. But from a theological point of view, maybe the word is used here, and the rest of the Gospel of John paints a picture— --a picture of God’s love for us --and a picture of what being full of grace could look like in our lives as we Follow Christ and reflect God’s love. Maybe thinking of Christmas can help us here, too. Receiving GRACE, an unearned gift, can be difficult for us. We tend to think of receiving a gift as creating indebtedness. We send a Christmas letter each year to out-of-town friends and relatives. And each year, there are a few folks we’ve lost touch with and take off the list. Sure enough, that’s the time we get a card from them, even though we may not have heard from them for several years. So, then what? Whatever we decide to do, it’s at least partially decided by a feeling of indebtedness— --a feeling of ought to, rather than a feeling of want to. I think what God hopes for us, as the fullness of Christ overflows to each of us, is that we will respond to grace with grace. It’s not complete. It’s not perfect. It may not be without some feeling of “ought to”. But I think God’s hope for us is that it is grace. Recognizing that we haven’t earned it. And therefore recognizing that it is really God’s— --not ours—to give. But we are blessed, because God chooses to give it through us. And that’s even more grace. I pray that my be your Christmas gift from God for the new year— --grace --the grace of God through Christ --the fullness of grace in Christ --from his fullness we receive grace upon grace --grace to know God’s love --grace to share God’s love. At the beginning of 2009, I remember Britain’s King George Who shared these words with his people during World War II: “I said to the man at the gate of the year, ‘Give me a light that I may go forth into the unknown.’ And the man replied, ‘Put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light, safer than a known way.’” We don’t know where this New Year will lead, but we know who is leading the way— --with grace given, overflowing --grace to share. Grace upon grace. In Jesus’ name, Amen