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.”
The language and images that belong to the Christmas mystery illuminate and instruct. They do not hide from view the grim and dark realities of sin and evil in its variety of forms, yet they signal a profound note of positivity and joy which is largely concentrated in the idea and concept of Bethlehem. It is the place of our abiding in the mystery of Christmas for the space of twelve days. In and through the great cluster, even a confusion of images, Bethlehem has a powerful symbolic force as the place where the pageant of themes belonging to redemption and salvation meet and cohere in a radiancy of joy and awe.
While the Christmas mystery culminates with the coming of the Magi-Kings at Epiphany, the readings for the Sundays after Christmas enrich our understanding of the mystery of Christ’s holy birth. The Epistle reading from Galatians for the Sunday after Christmas Day affirms the reality of the Incarnation in terms of the sending forth of God’s Son, “made of a woman, made under the Law” to redeem and, even more, to adopt us as the sons and heirs of Christ. The Gospel from Matthew unfolds the story of Christ’s birth, highlighting the uncertainty and compassion of Joseph about Mary being “found with child of the Holy Ghost” who in “[thinking] on these things” is instructed by an angel who reveals to him the essential mystery of the birth of a Son whom Joseph shall call Jesus, meaning Saviour. Matthew offers a further elaboration in parenthesis, quoting Isaiah, that Jesus is “Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us”.
The Second Sunday after Christmas follows upon the Octave Day which commemorates the Circumcision of Christ, a further affirmation of the humanity of Christ, who, as human, is man born of woman. As John Hackett nicely observes, “Christ is man born of woman to redeem both sexes”; it is a kind of testament to the concrete realities of the human condition. “Male and female he created them”. And while that is not everything about what it means to be human, it is not nothing; it is an important affirmation of the embodied nature of our humanity. Those propers, the appointed Collect and readings, are also appointed to be used on this Sunday.
The lesson from Isaiah is especially familiar with the ‘names’ of the child and son who “is born” and “given unto us” upon whom the governance of the world rests. The idea of name here takes us on a deeper meaning recalling the name of God given to Moses at the burning bush; not just the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but “I Am Who I Am” which is further elaborated here in terms of names or titles which signal the divine attributes of power: “Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, the everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace”. They are all terms that contribute to the wonder of the babe of Bethlehem in his symbolic and essential being as God with us and God for us.
