This passage from John’s Gospel is so well known. We hear it every Christmas and it becomes so familiar that the depth of it is often lost on us. This morning, I just want to pick up on one verse in the passage: verse 11: “He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him”. What does this mean? And what does it have to do with Christmas?
We often think of the birth of Jesus at Nazareth as being the first time the world encountered the Son of God. But that is not the case. The history of the world is the history of our encounter with the Son of God: John reminds us in this reading that, “He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”
The whole world – and everything in it – whether there’s a Higgs-Boson Principle or not, is an encounter with the creative energy of God through his Son, the Word. Long before the Nativity at Bethlehem, the Word was already active amongst us. The Word of God is the source of all life and the sustainer of all life. But at that first Christmas, the Word became flesh - what an incredible miracle: the Word became Flesh. God walked among us, full of grace and truth.
But there is a sadness in this too because, as John reminds us: “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.”
The Son of God became visible to us and walked among us at Bethlehem but the great tragedy of history is that he was not accepted or recognised. “His own people did not accept him”.
Now this is a really important verse and I want to focus on one aspect this morning: the phrase, “His own…” It’s used twice in this verse: “He came to what was his own…” and then “His own people did not accept him”. There’s a distinction here that is not easy to pick out in the English translation. But in the original Greek, there is a crucial difference in the use of the phrase “His own”.
“He came to what was his own…” The Greek here is gender neutral and plural, which means John is referring to things, not people. “He came to what was his own…” What John is saying is that this world and everything in it belongs to Jesus. It is his own: the world is his possession. He is Lord and King and sovereign over all creation.
But the second time that phrase is used in this verse: “His own people did not accept him” - this time it is in the masculine gender, which suggests John is now talking about people, not things. His own people, the Jewish race, did not accept him. From the very beginning with King Herod trying to kill him, through his period as a refugee in Egypt, through his ministry with opposition from Pharisees and Sadducees, through to his crucifixion on Good Friday - “His own people did not accept him”.
The Christmas story, sadly, is the story of the unwelcome Christ “He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.”
This morning, we come to St. Mary’s to celebrate the Christmas story and the question before us is whether Christ is made welcome here or not; whether we will accept him and welcome him into our lives. It takes a conscience decision to welcome Christ.
That is especially the case for those of us who come regularly to church because we can often get so caught up in our church life that we forget to welcome Christ. Prayer meetings, fabric meetings, tree festivals, sermon preparation, choir practices, school assembly preparation, Deanery Synods, PCCs, youth work, children’s work, pastoral care: this is a busy church. But in our busyness, we must not forget to welcome Christ and have him as the centre of all our activity.
In the Book of Revelation, 3:20, the Risen Christ says: “Behold! I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they will eat with me.” It’s one of those verses that has often been used in evangelical settings to lead people to faith in Christ. But what is most embarrassing is that the Risen Christ speaks these words to the church of Laodicea, to people who are already Christians…but Christians who, in all their busyness have left Christ standing outside the door of their lives.
John says, “His own people did not accept him”. Too often, he is rejected as Lord. Too often, he is rejected as head of the church. This Christmas time, for those of us who profess to be Christians, we are urged to look into our own hearts and attend to our own motivations and priorities and ask ourselves afresh, “Have I truly welcomed Christ into my life?”
Welcoming Christ into the world, into the church, into our lives is what Christmas is all about. Welcoming Christ is actually at the heart of the Christmas story.
There are so many myths surrounding the Christmas story that we often miss what the Bible really says and we don’t look carefully enough at the story and so are in danger of missing the point. The obvious example is the astrologers from the East who are turned into wise men and then turned into 3 wise men and then turned into 3 Kings. But there are other fables too that detract us from the true Christmas story…
How many of us remember the innkeeper in the story at the inn where Mary and Joseph are turned away?
Well, of course, when we read the Gospel accounts of Christmas, there is no innkeeper mentioned and Mary and Joseph are not turned away…
We are told that there is no room at the inn but the word used here for inn is ‘kataluma’ which means ‘guesthouse’. And guesthouses in Palestine in Jesus’ day were on two open floors; the upper floor being bedrooms and the lower floor for cattle and horses. In truth, Palestinian culture would not have allowed the turning away of a guest. Hospitality was taken very seriously. Joseph was back in his home town. Mary had connections there, through her cousin Elizabeth whose husband Zechariah was an important priest in Jerusalem. Perhaps there was no room in the kataluma, the upstairs of the guesthouse, but it is clear that Joseph and Mary were welcomed in even if they had to be in the downstairs part.
Christ was welcomed in at his birth; born into a loving, yet humble home.
And then the shepherds came from the fields; men of poverty with humble jobs and a lowly status in society and they too welcomed Christ.
Ironically, and somewhat embarrassingly, it seems that the humble and lowly houseowner welcomed Christ, the humble and lowly shepherds welcomed Christ but the holy and religious people of God did not welcome him.
What a challenge to our comfort and complacency this story is!
This is an upside-down story – it does not work how we think it should.
Surely the priests and the religious people should be there to welcome Christ - but they are the ones who have missed him. It is the lowly, the poor and the marginalised who recognise the Messiah for who he truly is.
And that becomes the hallmark for the rest of his ministry. Jesus says:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God”.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”.
It seems to me that the message of Christmas does not revolve around the need to be religious or pious in any way. God is not found in our religiosity. God meets us in our humility and poverty of spirit.
So this Christmas is an opportunity for each one of us to welcome Christ. We don’t need to be religious to do that. We don’t need to have a history of church attendance to do that. We don’t need a dog collar to do that or to hold some official position in the church. The complete opposite in fact! Welcoming Christ is something we do out of our poverty of spirit, where we say, “Lord, I don’t have much to give you…I’m not very righteous, in fact I get so much wrong in my life…Lord, I don’t have much to offer you at all but what I have, you can have…” That is the type of welcome that Jesus wants: the welcome of the lowly guesthouse, the welcome of the poor shepherds.
It seems almost too twee, almost too obvious to quote from Christina Rosetti’s poem called, ‘What can I give him?’ But we all know the words:
“What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man, I would do my part
Yet what I can I give him – give my heart”
That’s all he wants…
John writes, “He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him”. Let’s not be numbered amongst those people this morning. Let’s welcome Christ – in the only way we know how: by giving him our hearts this Christmas time.
Amen.