January 5, 2025 – Christmas 2C
“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.] 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. (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.’ ”) 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.” John 1:6-18
There’s an old folk song, titled “Plastic Jesus” that goes in part like this:
“I don’t care if it rains or freezes, long as I got my plastic Jesus
Sitting on the dashboard of my car
Comes in colors, pink and pleasant, glows in the dark cause its iridescent
Take it with you when you travel far”
The song “Plastic Jesus” was written as a spoof against a radio personality — a dentist turned religious fanatic — who, in the late 1950’s was selling all kinds of religious paraphernalia espousing their magical, miraculous healing properties. And, of course, there are plenty of online sites and television personalities that still try to dupe people into buying similar items to this day. No inanimate object will ever be able to give us what the flesh and blood Jesus has and continues to give us. But too many people treat Jesus like a light-up, plastic “Tchotchke”. Perhaps this is why the first commandment G-d gave us is not to make any graven images of G-d — because it runs the risk of being a cheap plastic idol sitting on someone’s dashboard — riding along with the world’s contempt.
The poet Robert Frost wrote the poem “A Passing Glimpse” which goes like this:
I often see flowers from a passing car
That are gone before I can tell what they are.
I want to get out of the train and go back
To see what they were beside the track.
I name all the flowers I am sure they weren’t;
Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt-
Not bluebells gracing a tunnel mouth-
Not lupine living on sand and drouth.
Was something brushed across my mind
That no one on earth will ever find?
Heaven gives it glimpses only to those
Not in position to look too close.
In other words, what he is saying is that our glimpses of heaven are like seeing a beautiful flower from the window of a speeding train. You can’t make a full determination of the flower’s variety. You can only say that for one brief, flashing moment you saw something beautiful, and then it was gone. This is where the plastic Jesus falls flat. It cannot match the beauty of the momentary sight of the magnificent — it becomes too pedestrian.
People of G-d, what G-d has done for the world through Jesus Christ cannot fall prey to a world that ever-more behaves like the crowd at the Roman Vomitorium — gorging themselves on neon and plastic possessions until we disgorge all of our hope and humanity in the trough of waste, decay and mis-placed honor and worship.
The hope I carry with me beyond what the world has done to what we now call “Christmas” comes to me from the Gospel of John – that the light of Christ will persist, will continue to shine at me and you, and to the world as well.
Pastor Dave
Lutheran Schreff 