In all of the Christmas pageantry, the telling and retelling of the great stories of the beginning of our faith, we often hear the traditional themes of Christmas: Wise Men, Stars, strange and exotic gifts, shepherds and Angels, and even as Pastor Kerra reminded us on Christmas Eve, the painful reminders of the pride of kings and pride’s chilling effects as Rachel weeps inconsolably for the lost children of Bethlehem. The evangelists who wrote Matthew and Luke’s versions of the happenings found it necessary to include the nuances that make for a dramatic story telling, one that would be fodder for playwrights, authors and composers for generations. It is the drama of these events that tends to make Christmas magical for those who like to hear a good tale told well. However as the author of John’s gospel writes, one would think the event occurred with little to no fan fare at all, being just another child born in the most common ways to the most common of parents in a most common area of the world. To the author of this gospel, Jesus appears to have been received by the world as a Divine Nobody!

The evangelist writes to a very particular audience who has an understanding of the universe that has been tempered by Greek language and culture. For John’s audience, the drama takes a different shape that exposes the divine “word” as an incomprehensible and inconvenient truth. In John’s prologue, we learn that the origins of the “Word” goes beyond the manger scenes of Luke and even beyond the genealogy of Matthew that traces Jesus’ lineage all the way back to Adam. John takes it a step further, laying the foundation for a deified Jesus to be introduced later on in the first chapter of the gospel. John’s gospel tells us that this word, sort of an all spark of creation, existed before, during and temporally within creation.

It is therefore understandable that we do not typically read this text during the Christmas season. We like the drama! We enjoy the villainy of Herod, the bravery of Joseph and Mary as they defy social mores and we love to hear repeated the glamour of the angelic band singing Hosannas in the fields to a group of shepherds. It makes for good stories, it makes for good drama. However, John’s version of the events stress the facts that we are a people astute in darkness, used to being without light to such a degree, that when it was shoved forcefully in our faces, we could not even comprehend that the Light of the World had come into our very midst. The incarnation, the act of God coming to sit beside God’s creation, to enjoy it as a participant and not just as an author would enjoy a novel or a painter would enjoy a work of art: God stepped into the canvas and became like God’s creation and even though the Painter walked within the painting, the subjects of the painting did not know it was the Painter and they had no comprehension that the this nobody was the divine one who had brought them into existence.

We, just as the authors of the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament, just like the readers and hearers of the Good News in the beginning, live in darkness and often fail to notice the divine all around us. Our senses are dulled by the darkness within us all, the darkness that allows pride to festers, hatred to harden our hearts against neighbor and to prevent us from taking up the causes of the most vulnerable of our citizens. The darkness we live in is deep and has dulled our eyes to the scenes around us and we are therefore blinded to the needs of our neighbors.

Jim Palmer, the author of the book “Divine Nobodies”, from which I have borrowed today’s sermon title explains his thesis that we have been so dulled by darkness that we often miss the divine “light” in those we encounter every day. Palmer was an evangelical pastor who had it all, as far as evangelicals go that is! Palmer was senior pastor of a large church, had a large staff to lead, had wonderful family and had the status and stature in his community as a spiritual leader, having sway over many who would look to him for guidance. Palmer writes in his book that he had everything he needed to be successful…then he lost it all in one fell swoop. Palmer writes that he had an affair, lost his family, was fired from his church and stripped of all his glory and status. You see, in the evangelical church world, sin has a way of being an intolerable inconvenience and must be something the community of faith must either hide well or avoid at all costs…even the costs of friendships, families and the faith itself!

Palmer began putting his life back together as best as he could…and in the process, he began to see the world through fresh eyes…the eyes that have been illumined by grace beyond one’s ability to comprehend deserving. Grace has a way of making the forgiven see differently. Palmer writes that he began to look at the people around him in a new light. He tells his story about how before his “fall” from glory, he looked at most people as one would normally look at them. His children were annoying, his wife insufferable, his church a burden of spinning plates that must be maintained, his neighbors as inconvenient nuisance to be avoided. Much less regarded were the less familiar people in his life. The grocery story clerk, the waitress at Waffle House, the dry cleaner, the attendant at the theatre, they were even less valuable to him. It was only after his brush with grace that he began to see the people in his life as they truly were: broken down, hurting glimpses of Divinity wrapped in the persons of absolute nobodies!

It began for Palmer when he got to know one of these nobodies by random chance…and seeing freshly into this person’s soul with clean eyes illumined by grace, Palmer was able to see beyond the badge and uniform of a lousy waitress to see God’s self breaking through as a single mother working double shifts to make ends meet to provide a life for children. Palmer began to see God in everyone he met, seeing beyond the darkness that encapsulates us all to the light that dwells within us all, and has since the beginning when the Word spoke it into being!

The challenge that Palmer give me is to look beyond the surfaces that are often so shallow, so thinly disguising the pain and the suffering of those around me and look for the light…the kind of light that can only been seen through eyes that are familiar with Grace and the gifts of Grace that have been lavishly poured out on all God’s people. The challenge is to be so familiar with this light that darkness no longer has the power to overcome us and dull our senses ever again.

John’s version of the Christmas story would probably go something like this: “There were some people who really didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. They weren’t any more special or any more talented than any others in their community. They had a kid, who looked like every other kid in his neighborhood. Everyone was too busy living life in the usual way to recognize that this kid was special. So everyone kept living like they’ve always lived. There laid among them the very creator of their existence and they just didn’t recognize that it was God who cried in the house next door, that it was God who ran in their streets, that it was God who played games with their children. No the darkness was too great for them to see the Light of the World was sitting at their dinner table and eating their food.

How many times have we ignored the “Divine Nobodies” in our lives? How many times have we failed to see the light in others and have ignored the divine in their eyes? The next time you get frustrated because the lines are long, or the traffic is slow or the server at lunch is sloppy or forgetful, remember there is a touch of the divine in all of us. It is only with fresh eyes, eyes bathed in the light of grace, that we can truly see the all the divine nobodies around us.

Amen!