Month: January 2014

Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday After Christmas

“Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.”

“This thing which is come to pass” is, literally, the saying or the word that has happened, what John memorably identifies as “the Word made flesh.” The birth of Christ sets the shepherds upon a journey, literally leaving their flocks by night, it seems, and hastening to Bethlehem to “see this thing which is come to pass.”

A journey to Bethlehem and yet Bethlehem is more than a destination. It marks another beginning, the beginning of a journey of the understanding. The shepherds go and are changed by what they hear and see. They “returned, glorifying and praising God for the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.” Ideas are communicated to us and they have the power to change us, to change our outlook and our ways.

What we behold in Bethlehem has precisely that kind of power. It is the power of the truth of God with us that so captivates the understanding that we are changed. We embark upon a new journey, not necessarily to a new place but certainly with a new understanding about ourselves, our humanity and God. Such is the radical meaning of the Christ’s holy birth. It changes how we see one another and how we see ourselves. Why? Because Christ’s holy birth bestows an unsurpassable dignity upon our humanity. Jesus Christ is God made man. In Christ our humanity is made adequate to the life of God; even more, our humanity finds its completion and truth in union with God in Christ. He comes to dwell with us so that we may have our abiding in him. How? By paying attention to all the things that are “heard and seen,” as the Shepherds say.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 6 – 12 January

Monday, January 6th, Epiphany
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion

Tuesday, January 7th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place

Thursday, January 9th
3:15pm Service at Windsor Elms
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Sunday, January 12th, The First Sunday after the Epiphany
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
4:30 Holy Communion – KES

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Prayers and liturgy

The Second Sunday After Christmas

The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962) does not provide a collect for the Second Sunday after Christmas, but specifies that the service for the Octave Day of Christmas “shall be used until the Epiphany.”

Pinturicchio, Adoration of the Christ ChildALMIGHTY God, who hast given us thy only begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin: Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Isaiah 9:2-7
The Gospel: St Luke 2:15-21

Artwork: Bernardino Pinturicchio, Adoration of the Christ Child, c. 1490. Fresco, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Octave Day of Christmas

“But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart”

And so must we. It is, in a way, the deep meaning of Christmas. We find our abiding in God by pondering the wonder of God’s Word incarnate in Jesus Christ. It means coming, like the Shepherds on Angels’ wings, to “see this thing that has come to pass” and to ponder its meaning. How? By keeping all the things that are said about Christ in our hearts and minds, to be sure, and even more to ponder them.

It is a strong image. “Love is my weight,” Augustine said, echoing what is said here about Mary in St. Luke’s Gospel. Here is “the world’s desire,” to use the words of Chesterton’s poem and hymn. We ponder the mystery of the Incarnation and what it means.

The Octave Day of Christmas helps to underscore some of the essential features of the Incarnation. Christ is the Word made flesh who came unto his own, a phrase which suggests, first, the ancient people of God, the people of Israel, but, secondly, our humanity in general. But, in becoming flesh, becoming man of woman, means, as it does for all of us, a birth in a particular place, a particular culture, and with a particular history. We may use the phrase ‘a man or a citizen of the world’ but all our lives are inescapably local. This place at this time subject to these conditions. And so, too, for the holy birth of Jesus.

Yet here is the great wonder and truth of the Incarnation: through what is individual and particular we are opened out to what is universal. God makes himself known through the things of the world and nowhere more completely and more strikingly than in the birth of Jesus Christ.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Octave Day of Christmas and the Circumcision of Christ

The collects for today, The Octave Day of Christmas and the Circumcision of Christ, being New Year’s Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us thy only begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin: Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Of the Circumcision:

ALMIGHTY God, who madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law for man: Grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit; that, our hearts, and all our members, being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For the New Year:

O IMMORTAL Lord God, who inhabitest eternity, and hast brought thy servants to the beginning of another year: Pardon, we humbly beseech thee, our transgressions in the past, bless to us this New Year, and graciously abide with us all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Isaiah 9:2-7
The Gospel: St. Luke 2:15-21

Curradi, CircumcisionArtwork: Francesco Curradi, The Circumcision, 17th century. Collegiata di San Cassiano, San Casciano in Val di Pesa, Tuscany.

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