“Loved From The Very Beginning”

John 1:1-14a

At the time of the first Christmas, it is written that Wise Men from the East came to Jerusalem seeking the Christ Child. They came because they had seen a star all the way over in their home country – ancient Persia – and something about the star caught their attention. Perhaps its brilliance – or its peculiar position in the heavens – or something about its conjunction with other heavenly bodies made them look up and take notice.

And the star spoke to their hearts. In its light, the Wise Men found a message of love from God!

And that’s more miraculous than you might realize!

You know, Alpha Centauri is the star cluster nearest earth. It is actually not one, but three stars. The dimmest, Alpha Proxima, is the closest to our planet. The others, Alpha Centauri 1 and 2, are a close binary system, and appear as a single, very bright star. The star system is about 8 TRILLION miles away from us. That’s four and a half light years! And that means something fantastic! The light you and I see when we look up at Alpha Centauri actually left the star four and a half years ago to reach our eyes now! I hadn’t even turned 50! Puckett hadn’t even turned 100! Steve hadn’t even arrived here yet, and now he’s leaving – for Syracuse!

Can you imagine all that?

Now we don’t know what the star was that the Wise Men saw, but we can speculate on something really cool based upon what we know about Alpha Centauri! It must have been at least four and a half years before the Wise Men ever saw that star in the East, that God released a pulse of light from it’s surface! And that light traveled over unbelievable distances, and through incomprehensible difficulties, and all sorts of interstellar challenges so that, one night – timed to the exact second – that light passed through the earth’s atmosphere, just as a hole appeared in the nighttime overcast, and these three guys stepped out of a bowling alley to go home for the night. And in that exact instant, that little burst of light from four and a half or more years before penetrated the corneas of their eyes, passed through the lens which focused it on the retina, stimulating the optic nerve – and THEY SAW IT!

“Look!” they shouted.

And the rest is history!

Can you fathom the science of Christmas?

And the light of that star, reaching the eyes and hearts of the Wise Men at just the right moment, sent their lives spinning in a whole new direction that led them to a life-giving and life-changing encounter with the Christ Child born in Bethlehem!

What a super-duper science project God put together in Christmas!

But it doesn’t end there with the Wise Men.

Tonight, Christmas arrives once again in our lives. You and I gather together on December 24^th, 2003. Once again, Mary brings forth her child, Joseph stands watch, the angels sing, the shepherds come, the Wise Men journey, and the message of God’s Love is repeated for all to hear. The light of Christmas glows in the manger, and shines upon you and me tonight.

And, like the sparkle of the star the Wise Men saw, the light and love of Christmas that comes to us tonight started it’s journey toward you and me a long, long time ago. How long ago? Well, listen:

“In the BEGINNING was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

You see, the light and love of Christmas that reaches your eyes tonight was launched on its way not just four and a half light years ago, but before the world and the stars even came to be! Before the Big Bang Banged and the primal gases and subatomic particles even started expanding into what we now know as the universe, the Christmas light started its journey toward you. Why, way back in the BEGINNING, God calculated a rendezvous with YOU…tonight!

And I wonder why would God go to all that trouble?

You know, tomorrow morning, the Beagle 2 – a British spacecraft in the shape of a disk – is expected to land on the surface of Mars. Scientists don’t know if it will be successful because such a rendezvous with Mars is extremely complex. And Mars is just a stone’s throw away!

How much more critically complex the arrival of Christmas light tonight for you! Why do you suppose God would undertake such a project?

Maybe God knew – all those millions of years ago – that on the evening of December 24^th, 2003, you would be facing a battle with cancer, and really needing a Friend tonight.

Maybe God knew – all those millions of years ago – that on this night you would be sitting in a pew at the Community Church holding in your arms a newborn baby, needing wisdom and patience and love beyond your own abilities to nurture such a little one into all God created her or him to be.

Maybe God knew – all those years ago – that you’d be struggling tonight under the grip of alcohol or drug addiction, and that inner part of you that is the true you would be ready to begin the journey to wholeness and sobriety. What an amazing thing – that God, so long ago - would begin a journey across time and space to meet you tonight to help you on the way!

Oh, maybe – all those millions of years ago – God knew that you would be here tonight…alone, spending your first Christmas without your beloved husband or wife. And way back then, God decided, “I want to be there on that Christmas Eve to touch that person’s heart with a gift of their loved one’s presence!”

Why do you suppose God launched the Christmas light that arrives here tonight as we gather to worship?

Perhaps God knew even way back then that we would be living in such a broken world as we do, with the terror threat level set at orange, and so many hurting and hungry people all around us. Maybe God knew that people like us were going to need spiritual strength in this time to help find the way to Peace, and to keep alive the Hope of the kingdom of God.

Why do you suppose God went to all that trouble millions and millions of years ago to get Himself to us tonight?

Maybe God knew that tonight was the night that you would be ready to accept Christ, or be ready to answer a calling to follow Him into ministry or some other sacred vocation. Maybe God knew that tonight was the night you just really needed Him in your life!

I don’t know what’s going on in your life tonight – December 24^th, 2003 - but I do know this:

Millions and millions and millions of years ago – long before you were even born – God launched a Light that he intended to rendezvous with you tonight.

It is a Light shines in the darkness and says, “I love you. I am with you. Believe in me, and walk with me into the future!”

I hope you will respond to God’s light tonight.

Accept Him. Believe in Him. Follow Him. Trust Him.

Because the simple truth of Christmas is this:

God has loved you…from the very beginning!