The Third Year of the Monster

These days, I’ve been thinking a lot about the way monster movies end. There’s always that penultimate scene where the monster that has wreaked havoc on the world is finally destroyed and all is well. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief. The monster is no more, and they can get back to the way their lives were before it was unleashed upon them. But then, all of a sudden, the monster springs to life again for one last moment of terror before it’s finally destroyed, once and for all.

The pandemic we’ve been living through since 2020 feels a lot like that to me. We keep thinking, once we get past this, it will all be over, and we can get our lives back. It feels like it’s finally on its way out. And then, it keeps returning for more.

We have now entered our third year dominated by the pandemic. It was a threat to us in 2020, all through 2021, and now, here we are… It’s 2022, and Covid is still very much with us. I think we’re all coming to realize that we won’t be able to finally kill it like a monster in the movies. It will be with us for a long time to come, maybe forever, and we need to adapt our lives to it.

That reality has made it difficult for me to say, “Happy New Year” this year. Instead, I want to say something else. Like “Healthy New Year.” Or “Resilient New Year.” But even those miss the meaning of the moment. Maybe we should just acknowledge it’s a New Year and wait to see what it brings us. So, New Year, everyone! 

As we begin this new year, we gather together and hear the prologue to John’s gospel. A Christmas story nothing like the one we heard on Christmas Eve. Jesus isn’t born in Bethlehem. He always was, from the very beginning. The Word, creating all that is. Saying “Let there be light. Let there be land and sea. Let there be plants and animals. Let there be human beings.” And then, the Word does something radical. The Word becomes a part of their own creation. Entrusting their very life to their creatures.

God chose to reveal Godself in humility. He began  as a vulnerable baby, dependent upon the love of his human family. And his life on this earth ended when he submitted himself to an unjust execution at the hands of those who hated him. That’s what happened when God took on human form. Certainly, not what anyone would expect. But then, that was the point. The word made flesh is not what anyone would expect.

And yet, this first chapter of John doesn’t only tell us about what it’s like for God to become truly human. It also tells us what it’s like for us to become truly human. What has come into being was life, and the life was the light of all people….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 people didn’t accept him. And then, here come the verses that stand out like a giant oak tree in the middle of a garden. But to all who received him, who believed on 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.

Right smack dab in the middle of all this beautiful prose about the word becoming flesh, we read that this wasn’t just an event where God was somehow transformed. It transformed us, as well.

Jesus is our brother. His father is our father, too. We are God’s children. Jesus was born into a culture where connecting with God was all about religion: doing the right stuff, following rituals, obeying laws. Jesus changes all that by showing us that our connection with God isn’t through religion. It’s through relationship. We are children of God.

When the word became flesh and lived among us, it changed who we are. God became like us in Jesus so that we can become like him. We too can turn to God as our loving parent. With our brother Jesus, we too are God’s beloved children. Through Jesus, we don’t just see what it looks like for God to become human. We also see what happens when a human being, someone like us, lives in a complete relationship with God.

That’s the unique challenge for us in John’s Christmas story. We’ve heard all about the angels and the shepherds and the baby born in Bethlehem from Luke’s gospel. But John doesn’t include any of those details in his version of the story. He cuts to the chase. To him, the details aren’t important. What’s important is the significance of it all. What does it mean? What difference does it make?

The essence of John’s message is this. That it doesn’t matter if we’re good religious people. It doesn’t matter if we have our theology right. And it doesn’t matter if we’re good little Christians and follow all the rules. What matters is the relationship we have with God. That Jesus is our brother, and just as surely as Jesus was in a relationship with his Father, God wants that for us, too.  

As we begin a new year together, it’s a hard one. I’m tired of thinking about Covid-19. I’m tired of talking about it. I’m tired of worrying about it. I just want it to go away like a monster finally goes away at the end of a movie. There are days when I’m confident that all will be well and other days when I’m not so sure.

I heard Dr. Jane Goodall on NPR in December, and she was speaking about hope. She used the image of a long, dark tunnel to describe it. That got my attention because that’s the way I feel right now. It’s like we’re all trapped in this long, dark tunnel together. And we can see, way off at the end of the tunnel, there’s a light shining. That light is hope. And here’s what Dr. Goodall said that really grabbed me. She said, "We don't sit at our end of the tunnel and hope light will come to us . . . We've got to climb over all the obstacles between us and that light to get there." We don't sit at our end of the tunnel and hope light will come to us . . . We've got to climb over all the obstacles between us and that light to get there.

Although we may be feeling like we’re trapped in a long, dark tunnel right now, we can trust that there is a light at the end of that tunnel. That’s our hope. But we’re not there yet. We’ve got some serious climbing to do. And living in a closer relationship with God will get us there. It will provide us with the guidance we need, the wisdom we need, the patience we need, the resolve we need as we make our way toward hope.

As we gather today, the first Sunday of 2022, the third year of coexisting with the monster that just won’t die, we hear the beginning of John’s gospel once again. It’s calling us to move toward a closer relationship with God. And hope.

And, that’s it. That’s the greeting I’ve been searching for. A Hopeful New Year to you all!