Sermon Archive
Readings for 31 December 2006
First Sunday after Christmas
Year C
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.
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian.
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.
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. (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'") From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.
The Rev. Susan Norris
In the name of our God who has come and tented among us, Amen
Christmas by John Betjeman
The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.
The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
'The church looks nice' on Christmas Day.
Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says 'Merry Christmas to you all'.
And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.
And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say 'Come!'
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.
And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?
And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
On Thursday evening, Scott and I had a delightful time watching the Grinch strut up and down a stage on 42nd Street.
He’s a bit of grump, my favorite Dr. Seuss’ creation – but he got one thing right.
Christmas simply comes.
One day, it is just there.
As the Grinch himself pointed out, “He couldn't stop Christmas from coming, it came. Somehow or other it came, just the same.”
Skip all the rituals, food, presents, and lose even the hope of happiness, and still, Christmas comes and here it is.
What has come?
Grace – in things large and things small,
Laughter, tears, beauty, joy, small children’s delight and our elders quiet joy.
Hope has come - the presence of goodness and strength unseen,
and the promise of wholeness and new life to come.
Love has come, the deep connection, which ties us to each other and to God,
whether or not we see it, feel it, or admit it exists.
If what we proclaim is true,
If as St. John tells us, the Word whose power spoke us –
and the whole creation - into being
has come down to talk to us, to share creation with us, and to love us,
through all our tragedy and folly;
If that is true, then we have ultimately nothing and no one to fear.
Then we are free to rejoice and grow, because behind every atom of creation are the grace, power and love of God.
If it's true - ah, there's the rub . . .
Sometimes our celebrations are,I suspect, attempts to cover up our own personal versions of the poet's question:
"And is it true?? Oh, is it TRUE?
The maker of the stars and sea
Become a CHILD on EARTH - - - for ME?"
So this morning, because it's hard, indeed impossible,
to compete with St. John’s glorious rewriting of the Creation Story,
or even with the smells of balsam and incense in this parish church,
This morning, this preacher wants to tell you only one thing:
"Yes, my much loved people,
Yes, my brothers and sisters in Christ,
The Incarnation IS True.
Yes, there is a light shining in the darkness,
A light we ourselves have seen, or glimpsed, or felt,
and neither our questions,
nor our relatives’ deaths,
nor our changing lives,
nor wars, poverty, famine, and disaster
nor illness,
not even mislaid good intentions
not the threat of a terrible apocalypse
not even the coming of darkness itself
NOTHING
has ever been able to put it out,
will ever be able to put it out.
Yes, Yes, Yes
It is true – every bit of it, and no one and nothing can stop it from coming.
Remember that always.
For when we humans can hear the “Yes, it's true,"
all else falls into place.
The sweet and silly Christmas things
The family gathered - or not -
the carols, the food
The Christmas services
and
All the other corners of our lives, where joy and sorrow are all mixed up, and into which light seems rarely to penetrate.
When we remember the "Yes, it's true” all those places and things and people of our ordinary lives become potential Bethlehems, possible stables for a baby's birth.
For the light, and the one in whom it dwells and through whom it was created is everywhere.
It fills and permeates earth and "stars and sea" as the smell of balsam and the candle light
invade our church,
our bodies,
our very senses and our beings
But is it true?
The poet Ann Weems asked the same question in a different way:
“If Christmas is not NOW
if Christ is not born into the everyday present,
then what is all the NOISE about?”
Ann, the noise is about a child,
about the light in a stable in Bethlehem.
I asked children one fourth Sunday in Advent what was "wrong" with the “set-up-but-still-empty” manger at the time
Clinton responded, "There is no light."
Clinton was right on, the bulb was not plugged in
But listen, all you Clintons, there's something more to say.
There is a light,
Grace, hope and love have never vanished from the earth.
There has always been a light
A Light that was first spoken into the chaos of nothing.
There will always be a light.
The light that shines on into our darkness
and which that darkness has never been able to completely put out.
At Christmas we celebrate this truth, this gift of light from God.
For "it” is true,
“This most tremendous tale of all
Seen in stained-glass window's hue
The Baby in the ox's Stall." . . .
"God was Man in Palestine
and lives today in bread and wine."
Then welcome, all, to the table of the Lord Jesus Christ in this, the festival of his Nativity.
And may God grant to us all, and to all of Creation a Blessed, Holy and Light-filled Christmastide, and a Faithful and Happy New Year.
In nomine…
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