Christ Church

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Sunday after Christmas Day.

“He thought on these things”

Welcome, all wonders in one sight!
Eternity shut in a span;
Summer in winter; day in night;
Heaven in earth, and God in man.
Great little one, whose all-embracing birth
Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heav’n to earth.

Love comes down at Christmas to enfold us in God’s eternal embrace. Christ, the babe of Bethlehem, is God’s “great little one,” in the poet Richard Crashaw’s lovely phrase, who speaks to us even as an unspeaking infant, one who is, literally, without speech. Such are the paradoxes of Christmas, “all wonders in one sight.” The wonder and mystery of Christmas is the mystery of God and the mystery of our humanity, a double mystery, the mystery of God and the mystery of God with us. Today we are meant to be like Joseph who “thought on these things.” What things? Mary being “found with child of the Holy Ghost.” Tomorrow, on the Octave Day of Christmas, we are meant to be like Mary who “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart;” all these things concerning this child. There is something profoundly meditative and reflective about Christmas; the counter and corrective to all our calculative thinking.

Christmas is not about things as objects that can be wrapped in tinsel and ribbon. They last but for a day or a season only to be tossed away on the rubbish heap of the New Year, like Christmas trees, bedraggled and forlorn, lying at the end of driveways before Christmastide has hardly begun. It is as if Christmas is over and done with, merely a passing moment in the endless rush of things that belong to human calculation and interest. This is not Christmas.

It is not simply that there are the proverbial twelve days of Christmas; it is the greater wonder of the meaning of Christmas itself that abides and embraces us in something eternal, something of everlasting truth. In a way, Christmas is the opening to the mystery that cannot be reduced to the parade of things, to objects, or to the thinking that turns ourselves into things, ourselves as objects to be used and manipulated by one another. The wonder of Christmastide is our abiding in the abiding mystery of God. Love is not something which can be wrapped in a box of transitory delights; the chocolates, after all, are already gone.

The readings of the Christmas season show us the wonder of divine love and place us within its embrace. “The birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise,” Matthew tells us in his account of the Christmas story; it signifies the unique and special nature of Mary’s holy child. She is “found with child of the Holy Ghost.” “When the fulness of the time was come,” Paul tells us in Galatians, “God sent forth his Son,” the Son who already was and always is God’s Son, but now “made of a woman, made under the law.” The imagery is rich and profound about what ultimately is professed in the Creed and which we heard on Christmas Eve and Christmas Morn. God’s great little one is “God of God; Light of Light; very God, of very God; Begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father,” and yet, as the Christmas Preface puts it, he was “made very man of the substance of the Virgin Mary his mother; and that without spot of sin.” The mystery of God and the mystery of our humanity are before us in one and at the same time. In Christ.

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Sunday, January 7th, First Sunday after Epiphany
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

The collect for today, the Sunday after Christmas 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.

The Epistle: Galatians 4:1-7
The Gospel: St Matthew 1:18-25

Artwork: Juan de Borgana, The Dream of St. Joseph, c. 1535. Oil on panel, altarpiece from Diocesan Museum, Carboneras de Guadazón, Cuenca, Spain.

The collect for today, the commemoration of John Wycliffe, (c 1320-84), Scholar, Translator of the Scriptures into English (source):

O Lord, thou God of truth, whose Word is a lantern to our feet and a light upon our path: We give thee thanks for thy servant John Wyclif, and those who, following in his steps, have labored to render the Holy Scriptures in the language of the people; and we beseech thee that thy Holy Spirit may overshadow us as we read the written Word, and that Christ, the living Word, may transform us according to thy righteous will; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

The Lesson: Daniel 2:17-24
The Gospel: St. Matthew 13:9-16

Artwork: John Wycliffe, stained glass, Wycliffe College Chapel, Toronto.

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Thomas Becket (1117-1170), Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr (source):

O Lord God,
who gavest to thy servant Thomas Becket
grace to put aside all earthly fear and be faithful even unto death:
grant that we, caring not for worldly esteem,
may fight against evil,
uphold thy rule,
and serve thee to our life’s end;
through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 1 Timothy 6:11-16
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:37-43

Thomas Becket was a close personal friend of King Henry II of England and served as his chancellor from 1155. When the Archbishop of Canterbury died in 1162, Henry, seeing an opportunity to exercise control over the church, decided to have his chancellor elected to the post. Thomas saw the dangers of the king’s plan and warned Henry that, if he became archbishop, his first loyalty would be to God and not the king. He told Henry, “Several things you do in prejudice of the rights of the church make me fear that you would require of me what I could not agree to.” What Thomas feared soon came to pass.

After becoming archbishop, Thomas changed radically from defender of the king’s privileges and policies into an ardent champion of the church. Unexpectedly adopting an austere way of life in near-monastic simplicity, he celebrated or attended Mass daily, studied Scripture, distributed alms to the needy, and visited the sick. He became just as obstinate in asserting the church’s interests as he had formerly been in asserting the king’s.

Thomas rejected Henry’s claim to authority over the English Church. Relations with the king deteriorated so seriously that Thomas left England and spent six years in exile in France. He realised that he had to return when the Archbishop of York and six other bishops crowned the heir to the throne, Prince Henry, in contravention of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s rights and authority.

He returned to England with letters of papal support and immediately excommunicated the Archbishop of York and the six other bishops. On Christmas Day 1170 he publicly denounced them from the pulpit of Canterbury Cathedral. It was these actions that prompted Henry’s infamous angry words, “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”

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“These were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God,
and unto the Lamb”

No feast is more disturbing and disquieting than the Feast of the Holy Innocents and yet it belongs necessarily and inescapably to the mystery of Christmas. It reminds us in no uncertain terms of the radical meaning of Christ’s holy birth. He comes to redeem and to save by means of his sacrifice on the Cross.

The story is graphic and disturbing but points us in the direction of the doctrine of substituted love. The little ones of Bethlehem are killed in the name of Christ, the one whom Herod fears as a rival to his reign. In his wrath he “slew all the children that were in Bethlehem” and beyond. They are killed in the place of Christ. As the Collect suggests, “out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained strength and madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths.” How are we to understand such disturbing words that speak to the disturbing forms of the destruction of the little ones in our world and day?

The theological point is that their sufferings and deaths participate by anticipation in the sacrifice and death of Christ by which we have eternal life. They are seen in the lesson from Revelation as defined by Christ, as “they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.” He goes to the Cross for the salvation of the world, the whole world, we might say, which includes the past and the future. At the very least, this feast suggests that their lives and deaths are not meaningless but find their truth and meaning in Christ. And so for us.

The Gospel story of the slaughter of the Innocents also highlights the reality of our human griefs and sorrows: “Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted because they are not.” There is no human comfort that will satisfy and overcome our griefs at loss and sorrow. The only comfort is found in Christ and in our being found in him. Such is the radical meaning of Christ as Saviour. He is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

Christ’s “whole life was a continuall Passion … his Christmas-day and his Good Friday are but the evening and the morning of one and the same day,” John Donne observes. Christ’s life is but “a continuous cross.” The Feast of the Holy Innocents reminds us of the serious nature of Christ’s holy Nativity. Christ’s life is but “a continuous cross,” as Lancelot Andrewes notes; the Cross is present even in Bethlehem, he says, referring precisely to this feast. He marks the parallels between Herod’s wrath and Pilate’s indifference towards the innocent. The Holy Innocents share in the innocence of Christ, falsely accused and falsely condemned. But they also share in his glory and life, in the redemption which his sacrifice brings.

“These were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto God
and unto the Lamb”

Fr. David Curry
Feast of the Holy Innocents
Xmas 2023

The collect for today, The Feast of the Holy Innocents, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, who out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast ordained strength, and madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths: Mortify and kill all vices in us, and so strengthen us by thy grace, that by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our faith, even unto death, we may glorify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Revelation 14:1-5
The Gospel: St. Matthew 2:13-18

When wise men from the East visited King Herod in Jerusalem to ask where the king of the Jews had been born, Herod felt his throne was in jeopardy. So, he ordered all the boys of Bethlehem aged two and under to be killed. On this day, the church remembers those children.

The Massacre of the Innocents is recorded only in St. Matthew’s Gospel, where it is said to be fulfillment of a prophecy of Jeremiah.

The church has kept this feast day since the fifth century. The Western churches commemorate the innocents on 28 December; the Eastern Orthodox Church on 29 December. Medieval authors spoke of up to 144,000 murdered boys, in accordance with Revelation 14:3. More recent estimates, however, recognising that Bethlehem was a very small town, place the number between ten and thirty.

This episode has been challenged as a fabrication with no basis in actual historical events. James Kiefer has a point-by-point presentation of the objections with replies in defence of biblical historicity.

This is an appropriate day to remember the victims of abortion.

Artwork: Guido Reni, Massacre of the Innocents, 1611. Oil on canvas, Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna.

“That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you”

The Feast of St. John the Evangelist is part of the mystery of Christmas. It echoes and amplifies the meaning of the great Christmas Gospel from the Prologue both in the reading from his first Epistle and from the last Chapter of his Gospel. They illuminate the deeper teaching and understanding of what we have come to call the Incarnation.

The Epistle reading testifies to the humanity and divinity of Christ: “that which was from the beginning” echoes “in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” It is the Word, he says, “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled,” the word which he terms here “the Word of life.” It is a strong affirmation of “the Word made flesh,” an affirmation at once of Christ’s essential divinity and his essential humanity. In that Word, he says is “eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.”

This captures the meaning of Christmas in terms of our fellowship with one another through our fellowship with God. What is declared unto us by John is for the sake of our fellowship with one another and with God. The Epistle goes one step further and states that “these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.” God seeks our joy in our fellowship with him and with one another. The reading ends with an echo of the light that shines in the darkness “and the darkness overcame it not.” Here God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. All a kind of commentary on the Christmas mystery and its witness to the true humanity of Jesus united to his true divinity. But it also underscores for us its meaning for us: our fellowship and our joy.

The Gospel reading for this feast is John’s witness to his writing about Christ but with a certain note of humility and caution. He does not pretend to have captured all the things which Jesus did (and said), suggesting that “even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” Christ, the Word and Son of the Father, cannot be contained or exhausted in the writings of even the evangelists. What they open out to us are the truths to which they bear witness and the teachings which illuminate our souls in grace. They belong to the fellowship of the Church, which is itself, as John himself indicates elsewhere, the body of Christ in which we participate sacramentally. “Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”

Word and light. Word made flesh. Word as eternal life. These all speak to the true meaning of the Church and our fellowship in the body of Christ; he in us and we in him as we pray in the Prayer of Humble Access.

“That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you”

Fr. David Curry
Feast of St. John the Evangelist
Xmas 2023

The collect for today, the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

MERCIFUL Lord, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church, that it being enlightened by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 1:1-5
The Gospel: St. John 21:19-25

John and his brother James (St. James the Greater) were Galilean fishermen and sons of Zebedee. Jesus called the two brothers Boanerges (“sons of thunder”), apparently because of their zealous character; for example, they wanted to call down fire from heaven on the inhospitable Samaritans. John and James, together with Peter, belonged to the inner group of the apostles who witnessed the Transfiguration and the agony in Gethsemane. It was John and Peter whom Jesus sent to prepare the final Passover meal.

In the lists of disciples, John always appears among the first four, but usually after his brother, which may indicate that John was the younger of the two.

According to ancient church tradition, St. John the Evangelist was the author of the New Testament documents that bear his name: the fourth gospel, the three epistles of John, and Revelation. John’s name is not mentioned in the fourth gospel (but 21:2 refers to “the sons of Zebedee”), but he is usually if not always identified as the beloved disciple. It is also generally believed that John was the “other disciple” who, with Peter, followed Jesus after his arrest. John was the only disciple at the foot of the cross and was entrusted by Christ with the care of his mother Mary.

After Christ’s resurrection and ascension, John, together with Peter, took a leading role in the formation and guidance of the early church. John was present when Peter healed the lame beggar, following which both apostles were arrested. After reports reached Jerusalem that Samaria was receiving the word of God, the apostles sent Peter and John to visit the new Samaritan converts. Presumably, John was at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15). He is not mentioned later in the Acts of the Apostles, so he appears to have left Palestine.

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