Sermon Archive

Readings for 25 December 2007


Christmas Day



  • First Lesson
    • Isaiah 52: 7-10

    ow beautiful upon the mountains
    are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
    who brings good news,
    who announces salvation,
    who says to Zion, "Your God reigns."
    Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices,
    together they sing for joy;
    for in plain sight they see
    the return of the LORD to Zion.
    Break forth together into singing,
    you ruins of Jerusalem;
    for the LORD has comforted his people,
    he has redeemed Jerusalem.
    The LORD has bared his holy arm
    before the eyes of all the nations;
    and all the ends of the earth shall see
    the salvation of our God.

  • Second Lesson
    Hebrews 1:1-12
    •  ong ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

    For to which of the angels did God ever say,

    "You are my Son;
    today I have begotten you"?

    Or again, 

    "I will be his Father,
    and he will be my Son"?

    And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,

    "Let all God's angels worship him."

    Of the angels he says,

    "He makes his angels winds,
    and his servants flames of fire."

    But of the Son he says,

    "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,
    and the righteous scepter is the scepter of your kingdom.
    You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness;
    therefore God, your God, has anointed you
    with the oil of gladness beyond your companions."

    And, "In the beginning, Lord, you founded the earth,

    and the heavens are the work of your hands;
    they will perish, but you remain;
    they will all wear out like clothing;
    like a cloak you will roll them up,
    and like clothing they will be changed.
    But you are the same,
    and your years will never end."

  • Gospel
    • John 1:1-14
    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 came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

    There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

    He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

    And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.

  • Sermon
    • Sermon

    The Rev. Jack Zamboni

    The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
     
    Many years ago now, Mother Susan began what has become a tradition at the Children’s Sermon at 7:00 PM  Christmas Eve Eucharist. At the end of the sermon, the preacher gives the kids some physical object, some small gift, that we hope will symbolize and make concrete the main point of the sermon. Last night, I gave the  kids a tree ornaments in the shape of a house.  My theme, you see, was home -- how in Jesus, God came to make a home with us, in us.
     
    The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us, St. John says in today’s Gospel.  These are familiar words – but I sometimes think we don’t hear them in the full richness of what John means.  At Christmas time, especially, I assume that we do understand them at least to mean the coming of the Divine Word to live among us as a human being in Jesus. The eternal Son of God was born as a human son to a human mother. He shared our human nature, he lived and died as one of us. In that sense, at the very least, The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
     
    But the Word becoming flesh means more than that. In the later chapter’s of John’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of coming to live within those who follow him. He speaks of abiding, dwelling, making a home in his disciples. Jesus promises that he will come to live within each one of us. The Incarnation, it turns out, is not just about a single human being in whom God chose to live.  Rather, because the Word became flesh in that one human being, the Word also becomes flesh in other human beings who are joined to him in Baptism. The Incarnation is, as it were, contagious! To say that the Word made flesh dwells among us is actually to say the Word mad flesh dwells within us.  
     
    “Oh, of course,” I hear you saying to yourselves: “He means that Jesus comes to dwell in our hearts.” Well, yes, I do, but such language always makes me a bit nervous. It can easily get very sentimentalized – especially at Christmas. We can think Jesus’ indwelling is primarily an emotional thing --  a feeling we might have when we become aware of something good or holy in or around us.  It can be that – but it is much more.
     
     “OK, he must mean that Jesus comes to dwell in our souls – whatever they are.” Well, yes, but that language makes me nervous, too. It can tempt us to a kind of disembodied spirituality; in which Christ’s presence is just some vaguely invisible thing floating somewhere inside us, but not rooted in us; not grounded, not real.
     
     The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Flesh.
     
    The Word of God, comes to dwell not just in our hearts; not just in our souls, but in the whole of our person, including our bodies. It is in our bodies as well as our hearts, souls and minds that Christ comes to live. In Baptism, the Word who became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth has come to make a home in us, heart, soul, mind and body. Christ is infinitely closer, and more intimate with all of our being including our physical selves, than we imagine.
     
    This can be an overwhelming reality to contemplate, let alone experience. This is how Nikos Kazantzakis portrayed it in the Last Supper scene in his novel, The Last Temptation of Christ. After Jesus gives them bread and wine, Kazantzakis writes, “Each of the disciples ate his mouthful of bread and drank his sip of wine. Their minds reeled. The wine seemed to them thick and salty, like blood; the portion of bread descended like a burning coal into their very bowels. Suddenly, terrified, they all felt Jesus take root within them and begin to devour their entrails. Peter leaned his elbows on the table and began to weep.”
     
    Like the disciples, we may well find ourselves ambivalent about such intimacy with the Word made Flesh –of having Jesus that close to us. Such closeness is a challenge to our sense of independence;  to our imagined capacity to live life on our own terms without reference to the God who is our constant companion. And that is a sobering truth.
     
    But it is also a great joy. What a wonder to know that every breath we take Christ shares; every movement of  our body is Christ’s movement; that no matter how hard we may try, we can never separate ourselves from the Divine love that has come to live in us, to transform us and make us whole. Listen to these words of St. Symeon the New Theologian; words that were radical when he wrote them in the 11th century and remain so to this day.
     
    We awaken in Christ’s body
    as Christ awakens our bodies,
    and my poor hand is Christ, He enters
    my foot, and is infinitely me.
     
    I move my hand, and wonderfully
    my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him
    (for God is indivisibly
    whole, seamless in Godhood).     
     
    I move my foot, and at once
    he appears like a flash of lightning.
    Do my words seem blasphemous? --Then
    open your hearts to Him
     
    and let yourself receive the one
    who is  opening to you so deeply.
    For if we genuinely love Him,
    we wake up inside Christ’s body
     
    where all our body, all over,
    every most hidden part of it,
    is realized in joy as Him,
    and he makes us, utterly, real,
     
    and everything that is hurt, everything
    that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
    maimed ugly, irreparably
    damaged is in Him transformed
     
    and recognized as whole, as lovely,
    and radiant in His light
    we awaken as the Beloved
    in every last part of our body.
     
    That, my friends, is the deep truth of Christmas:

    The Word became flesh and dwelt among us – in our hearts, in our souls, in our minds ­and in our bodies. Let us rejoice.


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