Sermon for Christmas Morn
And the angel of the Lord came upon them
From the thunderous and majestic words of the great mystery of Christmas night of “the Word made flesh [who] dwelt among us”, we come to the quiet wonder of Christmas morning. A quiet time of contemplation, a time to think with the angels.
The logic of Christmas in the classical Common Prayer tradition, liturgically and theologically speaking, is quite instructive. We proceed from the eternal birth, Christ’s eternal Sonship, on Christmas Eve with its focus on the Incarnation as grounded in the life of God, God as Trinity, to the Christmas of the Angels, as it is sometimes called, who reveal to the shepherds the birth of a Saviour; “a multitude of the heavenly host praising God” in the ringing words of what will become the Gloria. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” This in turn leads to the Christmas of the Shepherds on The Octave Day of Christmas who say “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us,” words which follow directly upon this morning’s gospel. This logic is the reverse of an older and a modern more linear pattern of celebration but as such grounds everything in the life of God. That is the intriguing and important feature and one which redeems all the wonderful complexity of the images of Christmas, both religious and secular in all of their various forms.
Here we have some of the more familiar features of the Christmas story as told by Luke in a remarkable economy of expression. “A decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed” sets Joseph in motion “with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child” to Bethlehem. There “she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” Such are the basic elements of the story. Matthew will also provide an account read on The Sunday after Christmas but no mention of a manger or ‘no vacancy’ signs at the inn. Only with the story of the coming of the kings after the birth do we even get the mention of Bethlehem. Joseph, though, is told that the Son “conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost” and that his name shall be called Jesus, “for he shall save his people from their sins,” and all this in fulfillment of a prophecy from Isaiah that “a Virgin shall conceive … a Son” who shall be called “Emmanuel” meaning “God with us.” Another layer of essential meaning to the basic story, we might say, without which it is not much of a story. Such things complement the real story of Christmas in John about “the Word made flesh.”
