December 25, 2011 – “Christmas Day Meditation”

Christmas Day Meditation

John 1:1-14

Rev. Gretchen Lord Anderson

First Presbyterian Church, Lodi, WI

December 25, 2011

Yes, the Gospel lesson seems to be a little obtuse for a Christmas Day.  We’re looking for something a little more concrete.  When the mid-week Bible study came upon this passage, I saw puzzlement in some eyes as I asked them what it meant to them.  And so I suggested that we begin by re-reading the scripture and substitute the word Jesus every time we came upon the term “Word.”  Let’s do that now, shall we?

“In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus 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.” (John 1:1-5)

And the response I got was one I have heard again and again, “Why didn’t they just write it that way in the first place!  It makes so much more sense!”

On the one hand, making sense of scripture is a lot of what I’m supposed to help you do.  On the other, making sense of scripture is completely the work of the Holy Spirit and any of the rest of us are just tools for getting that done.

I am reminded of that constantly, but a week ago I was having lunch with my dear friend and colleague Pastor Paula Bremer who told me of a story she had read about the last survivor who was pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center after 9-11-2001.  She helped me track it down and I want to share it with you because it provided for both Paula and me the most sensible, sensical, explanation of John’s writing for this Christmas Day:[1]

“She remembers a hand.

“Then a voice.

“His name was Paul. And as he reached through the dusty darkness of the rubble of the World Trade Center, wrapping one hand, then another around her outstretched hand, he asked her name.

“’Genelle,’ she said.

“’OK, Genelle, I won’t leave you,’ he replied.

“But then, as rescuers reached her and took her to a hospital, where she spent the next five weeks, Paul vanished, never to be seen or heard from again.

“’An angel,’” Genelle said.

Genelle Guzman McMillan’s head had been pinned between two pieces of concrete, her legs sandwiched by pieces of a stairway.  “Her toes had gone numb for hours.  Her right hand was pinned under her leg.  Only her left hand was free.”  And so, she reached that left arm through the rubble, reaching toward what little light she could see.

She waited with her arm outstretched. She shouted for help.  She talked and pleaded with God.  And she thinks she slept.  Slept as she lay pinned on top of the body of a dead firefighter.

“In the rubble, she remembers reaching out with her hand. And before the firefighters came and called out to her, she remembers Paul grabbing it.

“’I kept my hand out there, praying to God,’ she recalls. ‘Show me a sign. Show me a miracle. Show me that you’re out there. Show me that you are listening to me.’”

She repeated the prayer, again and again.

“’Before you knew it, someone grabbled my hand,’ she says.

“It was Paul.

“She tried to open her eyes but could not. Paul told her she would be fine.

“’Just hold on to my hand,’ she remembers him saying.

“She grabbed his hand. She remembers he was not wearing gloves – unlike the firefighter who found her. She also remembers he grabbed her hand with two hands.

“’He was holding my hand for a long time,’ she says. ‘And then other workers came and pulled me out.’”

They found her because she still had the ability to shout for help and because a rescue worker saw her hand sticking out through the rubble, reaching for the light.

In the hospital, after surgery on her leg to repair nerve damage and to close a deep cut on her left cheek, McMillan asked about Paul.

None of the rescuers remembered anyone named Paul. No one could remember anyone by that name.  No one saw him.  No one saw anyone holding her hand.

McMillan was, then, 30 years old and a single mom.  She was engaged to be married.  She did, indeed, marry, and now has a stepson in addition to her own daughter and the couple has a child of their own.

It was in reaching for the light that McMillan was saved.

So hear, once again, the words of the Scripture:

“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.  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.” (John 1:1-5)

On this Christmas day, let us reach for the light and continue to reach for the light every day of the rest of our lives.  Jesus came into our world as a human being, comes into our world to light the way for us.  Jesus is the light in our darkness and the darkness does not overcome him.

Amen.