John 1:1-5, 10-14, 16-18
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 came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
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. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 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.
I want to start by sharing a video with you – it’s short and sweet, just 4 minutes – about grief, from someone who has done some serious thinking about and living with it in just the last four years. Her name is Nora McInerny and I’ll let her tell you what you need to know…
For what it’s worth, there is more to this Ted Talk – another 10 minutes, or so, to be exact – if you want to look her up on your own. She also has a podcast called, “Terrible, Thanks for Asking,” which seems interesting enough, if you’re curious. But this caught my attention a couple of weeks ago and I think it’s so much of what brings us here tonight.
When we started having these “Blue Christmas” worship services 10 years or so ago, they were new to me – and kind of a new thing in this neck of the woods, as far as I could tell at the time. And what started – in my mind – as a special kind of service, meant to serve a small, niche of a target audience – has become, in my mind, something I believe is – or should be – for anyone and everyone – because grief is or will be for every one of us at some time or another, if it hasn’t crossed our path just yet.
And I believe it is a hard and holy and faithful practice to own our grief, the way Nora McInerny describes it. Whatever it is that brings us here – or whatever griefs that find us in this life – the death of loved ones (or the fear of losing ones we love), the loss of jobs, the troubles of our children, the struggles of addiction, the fighting in our families, the ending of relationships, whatever it may be – these events mark us, indelibly. These events and experiences make us and reshape us as people in the world and as children of God. And it’s silly, if not delusional, to pretend or to believe or to behave otherwise.
So, my hope for tonight is never to prevent grief, or to fix grief, or to pretend that struggle and sadness are not part of life in this world or part of our life in this season. In fact, tonight is about precisely the opposite. It’s about naming just exactly for what and why God showed up, in Jesus, in the first place. Jesus wasn’t born just for the fun of it – for the sake of celebration and joy and mistletoe and silent nights, remember.
Jesus was born for such a time as this – as much as anything else. Jesus was born for the sake of the lost and lowly, for the sake of the grieving and struggling, for the sick and lonely, for the dark and despairing. And tonight is about remembering the truth of that and the hope there is in that truth. And it’s about letting our faith – and our friends who share it – surround us in ways that we trust together, and hope together, and endure together. And, if you’re not sure you have it in you to trust or hope or endure or believe at every turn these days, tonight is about letting someone else trust for you, or hope for you, or endure for and with and alongside you, if that will help.
Because, if we’re honest, this season is about multi-tasking with more than just the shopping lists and the food prep and the visits with family and whatever else keeps us so busy. This season is also, very much about multi-tasking our emotions.
It’s about holding our grief and our fear and our struggles in one hand, even while the world around us is trying to hand us cookies and smiles and celebrations and all kinds of wonderful reasons for very real joy. Like so many shopping bags, though, it can be hard to carry it all at once. But we can do it – we are called to do it – together. God doesn’t ask us to set aside or to set aside or to move on from our grief in order to hold onto all the other stuff, too. God gives us Jesus whose coming reminds that we can move forward with it, with hope for something more to come.
I like how Nora McInerny talks about how she catches herself referring to her deceased husband in the present-tense at times; how she used to feel guilty or, at least, self-conscious about that – until she noticed that everybody does it. And how she realized that that’s because the loved-ones we’ve lost – or whatever struggles and sadnesses shape us, in this life – are very much a part of who we are and who we continue to be, as they should.
And it made me think of how often – especially at this time of the year, in these Advent days of waiting and hoping and longing for the coming of Christ’s birth – I like to refer to Jesus as “the one who was, and who is, and who is to come.” That phrase always reminds me about the nature of the God we’re waiting for in Jesus: a God who indeed was, and who is, and who, indeed, is to come.
Just like whatever grief we carry with us tonight was… and is… and is to come? So is Jesus.
Just like our struggles were and are and are yet to be … so is Jesus.
Just like our sadness, our brokenness, our loneliness; just like our fear, our loss, and our despair; just like all of it was and is and is to come … so is Jesus.
And God comes, in Jesus, not to deny it; not to make it easy at every turn; not to call us away from what grieves or hurts or scares us most. But Jesus comes to call us forward with it, so that it – and we – might be transformed by the grace of God; grace which always was and always is and is always on the way.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
