He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. Well, that’s not our problem, is it?

At first glance it is hard to imagine that anyone doesn’t know Jesus right now! Not after all that we’ve been through since shortly after Labor Day when the stores started spreading Christmas cheer and trying to stimulate the Christmas economy! No, it certainly seems that, while John may have been right when he said that the world did not know him, we have certainly gotten over that in our age.

Or have we?

One of the dangers of the seasons of Advent and Christmas, not to mention the layers of traditions that have accumulated on the story, is that we only know Jesus the child in the manger, Jesus the beloved baby of Mary and Joseph, Jesus adored by shepherds, magi and angels, Jesus the cherished name in Dickens and Currier & Ives moments, Jesus the reason for the season in grainy old 8 mm movies from the ‘50s and ‘60s.

But do we know Jesus the Word, the Light, the Lord of 2010?

Or have we allowed nostalgia to cloud reality?

Well let me suggest that one of the best ways to know Jesus in 2010 can be found in the words of Robbie Burns, the great Scottish poet who compiled, more than wrote, the words that had been floating around long before his time and turned them into a New Year’s Anthem, that millions sing and dozens understand:

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne?

And auld lang syne means days gone by, long, long ago. The question is rhetorical, the answer is clearly “no”! Old friends and old times should never be forgotten, you can’t know who you are if you don’t remember who you were.

My father was born in Scotland, so I was raised in that dour Scottish manner, always anticipating a disaster of one sort or another, and there always were, I was born to be a Giants fan. But there was also that lingering hope, that firm expectation that, sooner or later, at the end of the game we’ll be able to look back at big picture and say well, it was a good time all in all, it was a good trip, a good season, a good career and together we will remember that and share a drink of kindness for all that we have been through. we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

This is Christian faith at its purest, the firm assurance that in our history lies, not just a pleasant memory, not just an inspiring story, but the foundation for our future.

And it is a future of a shared cup.

A future of rest for those who are weary.

A future of reconciliation.

These are things that Christ brings to us. Yes they are the things that he brought to the world, but unless and until he brings them into our lives and relationships and motives, we will never understand them, never know them and never know him.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.

St. John’s gospel is an important balance to Luke and the others who begin with the birth of Jesus and in doing so he addresses one of the great failings of American Christianity over the last few decades: we have replaced Christianity with a Jesusanity that traps the gospel in sandles and tunics so it doesn’t touch our contemporary lives.

We act as if the Christ, the second person of the Trinity, came into being in Bethlehem’s stable, yet John reminds us that this part of God was there at the beginning, active in creation and will be there at the end, active in salvation.

We miss that when we focus only on the earthly years of Christ, we miss the promise that all of our history will find it’s meaning in our reconciliation with him, a reconciliation that begins with this cup and this table, shared here in sips and bits, but shared together in gulps and abundance as we remember these days and we know Christ.

we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

And we will gain rest when we know Christ, again in Burns’ words:

We two have run about the hills

And pulled the daisies fine

But we've wandered many a weary mile

Since auld lang syne.

You see, just as the Church is meant to provide, in the sacrament, the taste of the rich, full future, so we are to provide, in this place, a taste of the rest that we will know when we have stopped chasing across the hills and acquiring flowers.

Again we have often failed at this, we have too often given ourselves, in the Church, the very things that torment us in the world, chasing over the hills of budgets and picking the flowers of buildings and forgetting why we are here. I have never forgotten a man who told me, in the midst of a petty Church blowup, said to me “I get paid to get aggravated at work, I come here to get away from that.”

And as I recall him, I hear Christ telling us “come unto me all you who are heavy ladened and I will give you rest.” We need to get better at that, we need to stop burning each other out by pushing for more and more, and start appreciating what we have, start creating a space where people, whom the world has abused, can come and find rest with us. We can’t find heaven here just by walking in the doors, but by walking in the doors every Sunday morning we can give God the time and space to be with us and heaven will find us with a restorative rest.

And finally God’s future for us is a future of reconciliation, a future where our past and our present come into focus and we see clearly, as Paul would write, all of the things that seem distorted and senseless today.

We two have paddled in the stream

From morning sun till dinner-time

But the broad seas have roared between us

Since auld lang syne.

Broad seas do roar between people, sometimes we understand why, sometimes we don’t, sometimes we overcome them in this life, sometimes we don’t.

And that is especially true in families, but there’s nothing new to that. Remember our Lord’s brothers and sisters, who tried to get him to give up his mission before he got hurt and come back home to Nazareth and carpentry? And he said “no”.

And at the end, they weren’t even there to stand with their mother at the foot of the cross, that was left to John to do.

But that wasn’t the end, was it?

For if you were to flip a few pages further in the NT you find the disciples, in the first chapter of the book of Acts gathered together in the upper room, that had become a sanctuary, devoting “themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.”

Our God is a reconciler, bringing together those of all races and genders and ages and wealth, bringing together shattered families and drifted friends.

Much of it lies ahead, to be certain, but there is enough of it for us as a Church to be supportive of and to provide.

We are the people of the cup, the people of rest and the people of reconciliation.

We are the people of God.

And we will be the people of God in all of the uncertainties of the future that that lies ahead of us this year and in the years and decades to come. Today we are building the old times, the time gone by, as Debi reminds me often, we are building the memories, the Auld Lang Syne that we and others will sing of and speak of tomorrow and years and decades and centuries from now.

Today we can know Christ and be with Christ as he is in our lives, in our Church and in our world, or we can go chasing after what he was so long ago.

But we can’t do it alone.

We need to find ways and words that allow us to do it together or we will never get it done, Christ reminds us where two or more of you are gathered in my name, I am there with you. There is no solo Christianity in the Bible or in history. Let me offer you Burns’ final pledge as the pledge that we need to make to each other:

And here's my hand, my trusty friend,
And give me your hand too,
And we will take a right gude-willy waught
For the days of auld lang syne.

In this season of champagne toasts and Auld Lang Syne, there is no righter, gude-willy waught - a proper good will drink - then the one we will take in a few minutes, and if we give our hands and our hearts to one another, these will be the good old days and we will know our Christ in ways that will brighten our lives and our world in this new year and beyond.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.