Sermon for the 31st of December - First Sunday of Christmas

Lectionary Readings for the First Sunday of Christmas

Isaiah 61: 10-62: 3
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is  sown in it to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations. For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch. The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

Psalm 148
Praise for God’s Universal Glory Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights! Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his host! Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars! Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created. He established them for ever and ever; he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed. Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command! Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds! Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! Young men and women alike, old and young together! Let them praise the name of the Lord, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven. He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his faithful, for the people of Israel who are close to him. Praise the Lord!

Galatians 4: 4-7
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.

Luke 2: 15-21
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them. After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

Sermon for the First Sunday of Christmas

Christmas has only begun. Don't throw your gaily decorated Christmas tree into the street--keep it up! Enjoy its colour and its brightness for weeks to come, until Candlemas (that's February 2nd!) Sing those Christmas carols; stretch out the opening of those gifts; share visits of good cheer to those who need them most; continue to feast, with gratitude to God the giver of all good things.

In Church time, now are the days to live out the hope and joy of Christmas. Christmas is a season, not a day.

How do we continue Christmas? How do we continue to live out the transformation this birth has wrought, this birth we have just proclaimed?

God, the Creator of all that is, is present everywhere---at all times, in all places. This is the eternal truth of the universe, God's universe. Perhaps it is only that our sight is dimmed---that we do not see God wherever we look.

At this Christmastime, many people seem to struggle to see that God has already come to us in a form we could receive, if we would. God has already revealed His innermost nature to us in the form of a lived human life--the becoming of a human being like us---an act of mystery and wonder---done so that we could approach him and know him in this way.

How can we recover our sight? How can we begin to perceive something of this mystery---of God's presence with us---despite the protest that we see only absence?

I think we begin by setting ourselves some time
to contemplate the mystery of God's own timing.
What about this phrase from Galatians:
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son
The scandal of particularity.

This is an odd-sounding four words that I remember coming across some years ago. It is an attempt to name one crucial element of the astonishing act of the incarnation-- that it happened two thousand years ago, in a backwater part of the Roman Empire. That it happened then, and not another time, such as the birthday of the Emperor Augustus, or at the height of the achievements of Athens under Pericles. That it happened there, and not another place--Rome, for instance, or Byzantium, or Paris, or London--one of the great capitals of the world.

The medieval theologian John Duns Scotus, who lived in the second half of the 1200s---wrote that God only created particulars and individuals, not abstractions, ideas, or theological concepts. He called this essential truth what we might translate, again, oddly, as this-ness.

God knew that we fragile mortal creatures would have a hard time comprehending the abstract reality of God's own nature. And love Him, as a logical result.

So, out of God's absolutely unconstrained freedom, God chose the particular moment and the particular place for the incarnation to occur, when the time was right. This moment, this place, this Son.

For us, it is hard, no--impossible---to love an abstract quality. We love what we see and know and can embrace. We love persons who can share in that love with us.

God's act of incarnation is, above all, a declaration of love. For us.
It is an act of embodied love---of
love for us as God's beloved creatures
and love for all of God's beloved earth.

Annie Dillard wrote this in her book A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

That Christ’s incarnation occurred improbably, ridiculously, at such-and-such a time, into such-and-such a place, is referred to...as “the scandal of particularity.” Well, the “scandal of particularity” is the only world that I, in particular, know....We’re all up to our necks in this particular scandal.

God has already sent His Son. What more can he send to us?

Well, what do we expect? Angels in radiant glory appeared to simple shepherds in the cold fields of that first night, and reeling from the mystery and awe of that sight the shepherds exclaimed, Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us! They had to get to that place, to see for themselves what the angels promised.

Our sight is dimmed. We seem no longer to see crowds of angels in the sky. We don't even look for them. We contain and control nature in all ways, so that what we see is what we have made as our own product.

We seem scarcely capable of worship. Some, I think, would recognise that worship has only transferred itself to a subtler seeking out of wealth and privilege.

I think it is only by slowing down, by, at some cost, creating a time of silence and distance from all the many things that distract us---insidious as they are---I think that it is only by placing ourselves so that we can pray and listen and hear God's presence again that we can begin to fathom some part of this great mystery of incarnation. I think that it is also in the act of regular worship in the community of faith that we are held up in the reassurance that we are part of that great company of heaven (not only crowds of angels in the sky) that proclaim the greatness and goodness of God. And his continued presence in our world today.

Despite the darkness of the world we see today, that human beings in their folly have so colossally degraded, defaced, and destroyed, despite this darkness, we celebrate the incarnation.

As the idea Shakespeare so famously played out in Julius Caesar---timing is everything.....

In the particularity of Jesus the Christ Child's birth we witness to the truth of God's love. God's concrete, unassailable, never-ending love for us.

And as he came to us in love, so we now go out, in Jesus's name, to love all our fellow-creatures who inhabit the face of this earth. What a cause for rejoicing! And gratitude. May our celebration continue for all this season, and beyond!
Amen!