Day: December 12, 2010

Sermons

Sermon for the Christmas service for Atlantic Ministry of the Deaf

“Of his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace”

The Advent and Christmas season is a busy time with all manner of expectations, all manner of anxieties, all manner of fears and worries. There is a rich fullness, to be sure, to Christmas itself.

It is something which one day cannot presume to capture nor that even twelve days with all the festivities of our social, family and communal gatherings can ever hope to exhaust. Such things belong, to be sure, to the rich fullness of this season, but only as attendant events. They circle about the central scene of Christmas. In a way, the businesses of the Advent and Christmas season are really only our poor attempt to capture something of the rich fullness of the Mystery of Christmas.

In truth, there is but one poor, humble scene of Christmas. It is the stable of Bethlehem. Therein lies all the rich fullness of Christmas. That poor, humble scene contains a great crowd of scenes, a great gathering of Christmasses; in short, it opens to view a rich fullness of grace, even “grace upon grace,” to use John’s arresting phrase. There is more here, we may say, than meets the eye. It is altogether something for the soul. We are bidden to ponder the Mystery of the Word made flesh. The attitude of the Church is an essentially Marian attitude. “Mary kept all these things” – all these wondrous things that were said about the Child Christ by Shepherds and Angels – “and pondered them in her heart.” And only so can they come to birth and live in us.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday After Advent

“Art thou he that should come?”

Questions upon questions upon questions. Advent is the season of questions, questions that open us out to the majesty and the wonder of God. “How shall this be seeing as I know not a man?” Mary asks, and in this season of questions, everything, we may say, hangs upon her answer, “be it unto me according to thy word.” But to enter into this mystery, the mystery which takes flesh and comes to birth through her at Christmas, we need the figure of John the Baptist as well.

Mary and John. There is a pattern here, we may say, a pattern woven out of the coincidence of names: Mary and John the Baptist in Advent; Mary and John the Beloved Disciple in Lent and, most especially, at the Cross on Good Friday. Two different figures named John but one Mary, the Mother of God. Yet somehow this coincidence of names helps us to appreciate the role of Mary, on the one hand, and the complementary voices of prophecy and discipleship, on the other hand. And such things are very much to the point of the Advent season and especially on the Third Sunday in Advent. They remind us of the dual nature of the ministry of Word and Sacrament.

John the Baptist points us to the one who comes both by his questions – “art thou he that should come or do we look for another?”- and his declaration, “behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” Question and answer, in a way, even as Mary’s question leads to the response about “the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit” by which “the Lord shall be with thee.” Yet it is only through her answer: “be it unto me according to thy word” that this will be accomplished. Somehow John the Baptist and Mary complement one another to form the delightful and wonderful tableau of the Advent of Christ.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 13-19 December

Tuesday, December 14th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies/Sparks Mtg.

Thursday, December 16th, Eve of Ember Friday
7:00pm Holy Communion

Friday, December 17th
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
3:30pm Holy Communion – Gladys Manning Home

Saturday, December 18th
9-11:00am Men’s Club – Decorating for Xmas

Sunday, December 19th, The Fourth Sunday in Advent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
7-8:00pm Readings from Dorothy L. Sayers’ “A Man Born to be King”
(Hot mulled cider & Cookies afterward)

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Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday in Advent

The collect for today, the Third Sunday in Advent, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

Gruber, St John the Baptist in PrisonO LORD Jesu Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to prepare thy way before thee: Grant that the ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in thy sight; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5
The Gospel: St Matthew 11:2-10

Artwork: Johann Erhard Gruber, St John the Baptist in the Prison, 1700. Wall painting, Church of the Jesuits, Nagyszombat (Trnava, Slovakia).

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