Almost 40 years ago, in 1982, American physicist Heinz Pagels wrote one of his books about science written to inspire the general public, even though most people, including myself, find it pretty difficult to understand. The book was titled “Cosmic Code,” and it dealt with the general patterns and laws that rule the universe. The book later served almost as an obituary for Pagels; he died a few years later in a mountaineering accident in Colorado. A passionate climber, he had included at the end of his “Cosmic Code” book the following experience or premonition: “Lately I dreamed I was clutching at the face of a rock but it would not hold. Gravel gave way. I grasped for a shrub, but it pulled loose, and in cold terror I fell into the abyss… what I embody, the principle of life, cannot be destroyed … It is written into the cosmic code, the order of the universe. As I continued to fall in the dark void, embraced by the vault of the heavens, I sang to the beauty of the stars and made my peace with the darkness.”
I was reminded of this book and this eerily self-fulfilling prophesy when I read once again the familiar words from the first chapter of John. “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God… All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” People who read the Bible with curiosity have often wondered, “What does this even mean?” How strange that in the beginning was a “word” and not some substance or being. But of course, the Greek equivalent for word ‘logos’ means so much more. Our translation of logos as “word” is an o.k. translation but it is not a great translation. Heinz Pagel’s phrase “cosmic code” may be better. In the beginning was the cosmic code and the cosmic code was with God and the cosmic code was God…” And so, John’s prologue to his gospel is a scientist’s delight. It’s not your regular Bible fare with miracles, Jesus in the crib, wise men following a star, an evil king… it’s somehow bigger than that all of the religious rituals and stories that we have been telling and honoring over centuries and millennia. My gospel, John proclaims, is about the God who created the cosmos. My gospel, John insists, is about the cosmic code. My gospel, he says, big in scope, also describes the most astonishing miracle of all: the incarnation of this cosmic code in flesh and blood. “And the Cosmic Code 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.”
J.B. Phillips, the late English Bible scholar and translator, once wrote a book entitled, YOUR GOD IS TOO SMALL. Well, he could have written another book entitled, YOUR JESUS IS TOO SMALL. How many people still think that Jesus was simply the man who walked on earth? Those who grew up in previous generations – and perhaps some of you can relate to that – often had a Jesus picture somewhere in their home, our Lord depicted with long blond hair, blue eyes, a soft face. Sometimes I see those pictures in Thrift Stores, or in some older parts of a church or in a Jehovah’s Witness magazine. It’s a sweet depiction of Jesus and it’s easy to criticize it from the vantage point of today as being too European, too white, too soft, too much like the people who drew this picture in the first place. But don’t we always picture Jesus in the ways we are used to? And so, we shouldn’t be overly critical with those depictions, but certainly, that kind of Jesus portrayal is too small for the faith that Saint John proclaims to us in his monumental prologue to his gospel: the Word, the Cosmic Code, the DNA of this world, God – becoming flesh! Anything less than that and it’s a reduction of what Christmas means, what Christianity believes, what we are invited into. Anything less than that and it’s just a cute image and a cute story. Anything less and it’s not strong enough to give us divine inspiration and yes, salvation. What does it mean to believe in a God big enough to become small and human, one of us? Remember that pop song, “What if God is one of us?”
Actually, Jesus himself explains what it means, and there is a good chance that his own explanation is hanging somewhere in a Salvation Army office not too far from the old-world depiction of the Jesus with the long blond hair that I just described. The best explanation of what it means that God becomes one of us is given in Matthew 25, in the parable of the sheep and goats. “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’”
I have always marveled at the degree to which Jesus in this parable identifies with those who are poor and in need. He doesn’t say, “If you go out and host some homeless families in your church for a month – something that our Social Ministry Team is looking into – it is as good as if you served me!” No, he is much more direct. He says something like: “When you serve homeless people, you are serving me. I am one of them…” And he doesn’t say, “If you give of your own precious resources to help the poorest of the poor in Haiti that’s admirable and shows your faith in God. Good job! No, he says, whenever you do that, you serve me, personally! We are invited to believe in a God sophisticated enough to be present in human form, including in the most vulnerable of our human brothers and sisters. I need to add here that the miracle of the incarnation it at play not just in the Social Ministries, not just when we help others and are tempted to feel proud of ourselves. It happens whenever we meet another human being with the respect and dignity and wonder they deserve as God’s children.
The incarnation that Saint John describes in his first chapter, “the word became flesh and dwelled among us,” it is a powerful reality today. You can feel that presence in many places and encounters in this world if only you open the eyes of your soul. Martin Luther, in his commentary on this passage, said in his typical medieval way: “If you truly believe that the Word became flesh, that the logic of the universe became a human being, that is powerful enough to drive demons and devils away from you.”
Finally, John’s Christmas gospel includes another beautiful phrase. “And we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” The Greek word for “full,” “pleroma,” is a very important word in the Bible. In the Greek language, especially in classical Greek, the word refers to ships that are full of cargo. It talks about gardens full of weed. The Bible talks about baskets full of food. And it talks about Christ being full of grace and truth. As we begin this new year, which, to many of us may appear as full of scary news and partisan truth, as we watch a leadership struggle in our nation that is not very graceful and often not very truthful, let us drink from the well of the Christian gospel, from the one who is full of grace and truth, who cannot be any other than graceful and truthful, the Lord, the God, the Cosmic Code becoming flesh, the principle that Heinz Pagels in his dream felt cannot be destroyed even when we die. Yes, the Gospel is that big! And it is full pf grace and full of truth. And we are invited to grow on it.
Amen.