Have you ever played God?  Not once?  You mean you never loved someone even though he or she had hurt you, you never held the hand of someone in pain so he wouldn't be alone, you never gave someone a ride to church?  You never gave a present to someone you knew wouldn't be giving you anything, you never accepted a gift that was poorly crafted but made with love, you never smiled and hugged a child who had just given a terrible performance at the Christmas play and told him you loved him?  If you did even one of those, you have been playing God.  And I think that God was happy for you.  Let us pray.
Father in heaven, you sent your Son, the Light of the World, to simple people.  Help us to be carriers of your Word, banners of your love, signs of your forgiveness.  Make us true bearers of all that you have sent, that we might make you known among the nations and heard in even the darkest places of the world.  Amen.  Now may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, our Rock and our Redeemer. 
Jim Strathdee wrote a song -- "I Am the Light of the World" -- which is based on a Christmas poem by Howard Thurman. The first verse goes:
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the shepherds
Have found their way home -
The work of Christmas is begun!

Think of that!  And you thought that everything was done but paying the credit card bills.  The work of Christmas is begun!
Every year people bring out their Christmas lights earlier and earlier.  It seems like a race to see who gets the first nativity scene put up.  The Christmas stamps go on sale, the advertisements for the stores are suddenly covered with snowflakes and other "Christmasy" things.  Finally, Christmas is here!  We celebrate with a candlelight service, along with many other churches around the world.
Then comes Boxing Day!  I know the lines at the stores on Boxing Day, I went in to Regina myself this year, stood in line at one store for nearly an hour.  Sometimes I think maybe we need to have a post-Boxing Day service of worship, to bring ourselves and others back from the frenzy of the days.
And today is the Second Sunday after Christmas, and the 12 days of Christmas are officially over.  So the lights go back in the box, the trees come down, the nativity scenes are carefully wrapped and put in the proper place for next year -- except for the ones you can't dig out of the snow yet - and the stores come up with another great reason for a sale, another reason for going shopping. 
And the Church goes on - and we go on - learning the story of the God become Man, and carrying that story into the world.  And how many people pay attention? 
I know, some people get upset about the way it seems that the church is given short shrift, that some people seem to skate right through Christmas without really paying attention to the Christ, the one we are celebrating.  And we think, "It wasn't always like that.  People have changed."
And we are right when we think that - and we are wrong when we think that.  There have been times, and places, where our Lord really did get the respect and honour he deserved.  But it didn't start out that way.  When Jesus came into the world, when he became grown and went out into the world, he was not always loved and appreciated.  Listen to this line from the Gospel for today, words that tell about how well the world received Jesus: 
"He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him."
The Gospel lesson speaks of Jesus as "the Word" - and that is something both hard to explain, and easy.  The hard part I will leave out, because it would take one of those short lessons in Greek which I know would put someone else to sleep.  The easy part is - well - easier. 
Jesus, as the Word of God, is the revelation to us of who God is, what God wants, what God wants for us.  Do you remember when your children were infants?  Those times when they would cry, and you had to try to decipher the cry?  Is it a wet diaper cry, or a hungry cry, or a "bumped my nose" cry, or a lonely, I need a hug cry?  How many of us held our children while they sobbed, saying to ourselves and maybe to others there, "If only she could tell me what this is all about."  But they didn't have the words. 
Remember the joy at hearing the first words of your children?  And how then, you didn't even think about just what they really meant, or about how their vocabulary was limited, because at last they could say, as they hugged you with all their might, "Daddy", or "Mommy."  At last, they could communicate - and it was love they communicated. 

Jesus brought to the world God's thoughts, God's feelings, God's wishes.  And it went the other way, too.  Jesus carried our thoughts, our feelings, our wishes to the Father.  But there had never been any real problem in that direction - it was a problem of our not "getting" what the Father wanted. 

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