Category: Sermons

“Lord, lay not this sin to their charge”

The readings for the Feast of Stephen are in stark contrast, it might seem, to the feelings of good will and good cheer associated with Christmas. How strange that the wonder of Christmas night and Christmas morn should be followed by the stoning of Stephen as recorded in Acts and by the dire words of Jesus about “kill[ing] the prophets, and ston[ing] them which are sent unto you”? Images of stark and disturbing violence. How is this good news, we might ask? How to reconcile this with the Christmas messages of peace on earth and good will toward men? And yet, the Gospel insists that these things are really all a blessing.

“Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord”. The three holy days of Christmas illuminate the radical meaning of Christ’s birth. It is not about ignoring and denying the realities of sin and evil, the realities of the cruel suffering inflicted by humans upon humans. Rather what we see is what is proclaimed in carol and song: “Christ was born for this!” Born for what? Born to bring redemption and healing to a broken world, born to suffer and die that we might have life in him.

In a profound sense, St. Stephen’s Day illustrates the meaning of the Christmas anthem from 1st John. “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world that we might live through him”. The love of God means loving your enemies and blessing those that persecute you. Such is the radical nature of divine love which alone transcends the divisions and animosities of our hearts and world in disarray.

Stephen is the proto-martyr, the archetype of Christian witness, not simply by being killed, but by the spirit in him by which he faces death. Another lives in him, we might say, and that other is Christ. Christmas is really about our lives as lived in the love of God; God with us and we with God, we in him and he in us. That sense of co-inherence and mutual indwelling establishes an entirely different perspective on how we think about the darkness and evil of our souls and our world. Stephen’s words deliberately echo Christ’s words on the Cross, the words of forgiveness. Those are the words of love conveyed towards us as sinners which in turn shape our words towards those who seek our harm.

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“Fear not, for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy,
which shall be to all people”

It is really all about what we behold. And what we behold is what has been given to us. “Love is in the nature of a first gift through which all gifts are given,” the great Medieval theologian, Thomas Aquinas notes. His words capture something of the wonder and the mystery of the Christian celebration of Christmas but extend as well to the sense of the awesome mystery of life that belongs to the other great religions and philosophies of the world. It is about the awareness of what is greater than ourselves.

One of the passages of Scripture which always catches my imagination at Christmas is from the Wisdom of Solomon. “When all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of her swift course, then thy almighty word leapt down from heaven, from thy royal throne” (Wisdom 18.14-15). It awakens us thoughtfully and prayerfully to the presence of the wisdom of God in the world, an image that counters so much of the hype and busyness of this time of the year in our distracted and now much divided and hostile world. While in its context in Wisdom, “thy almighty word” leaping down from heaven refers to a “stern warrior”, it has become associated with the gentleness of wisdom embodied in the Incarnate Christ at Christmas, the Word made flesh. The gift of God’s own givenness.

This sense of “the givenness of things”, to borrow a phrase from the American novelist and theologian, Marilynne Robinson, is part of the greater wonder and mystery of Christmas, part of the greater wonder and mystery of the wisdom of the ages. The simple givenness of things in which we find wonder and delight stands in contrast to the idea of life as simply that into which we have been thrown, the ‘thrownness’ of things, as it were, in which we find only alienation and despair, a sense of nihilism. It also stands in contrast to the contemporary illusions of the radically autonomous self, freed to its own projects and interests to be whatever it chooses to be regardless of the givenness of things in creation; in short, as if we were self-complete. But this is all a lie and a delusion. It is equally nihilistic.

The simple givenness of things is about life as a gift, about life as light and love. The simple givenness of things is the love through which all other gifts are given.

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“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us”

“Love is in the nature of a first gift through which all other gifts are given”, Thomas Aquinas remarks. Christmas makes that gift visible in Christ’s holy birth. What it means is captured in the great Christmas Gospel that builds on the thundering words of Hebrews. Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh. There is really nothing very cutesy and cuddly about that statement though it belongs to the radical nature of God’s engagement with our humanity. God with us, Emmanuel, in the simple and lowly humanity of Jesus, means God’s embrace of the human condition in all of its forms. Such is the divinum mysterium. God becomes man without ceasing to be God. That is the gift that changes everything. It is everything. God does not change but everything changes for us. Jesus is both God and Man yet one Christ, “not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh”, thus being collapsed into the world and ceasing to be God, “but by taking of Manhood into God”, as the Athanasian Creed puts it. Everything changes for us.

But what does it mean to celebrate Christmas in a post-Christian and post-secular world? Simply this, to ponder the mystery of the Christmas gift of God himself. No greater antidote to the myths and misconceptions about the Church, about the Christian Faith itself, and about our current angst and unease in the myths about culture and identity. Christianity, Judaism and Islam are all religions of the Word albeit in different registers of emphasis and meaning. Christianity is the religion of the Word made flesh. That highlights the order and unity of the intellectual and the sensual. Christ is the Word made flesh. He is the Father’s Son and Word “incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary,” and “made man”, as the Creed puts it.

The challenge is to think and feel this mystery, the mystery of God, on the one hand, and the mystery of God with us, on the other hand, in the intimacy and wonder of Christ’s birth. To think and feel. To feel the thought, the intimate association of intellect and sensibility.

Christmas is not simply about the narrative story of Christ’s birth so familiar to you in carol and song, and in the various crèche scenes of Bethlehem that traditionally belong to the cultural landscape of Christmas. Such things all belong to the greater mystery to which they point us. Christmas Eve goes to the heart of the matter without which everything else is but tinsel and wrap. The great lesson from Hebrews sums up the pageant of law and prophecy in God’s eternal Word and Son while the great Christmas Gospel highlights that God’s Word and Son is “the Word made flesh … dwell[ing] among us”. The wonder of this holy night is what we behold, “the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth”.

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“My Lord, and My God”

Thomas, called in the Scriptures, Didymus, is more commonly known as “doubting Thomas”. He is the apostolic Advent saint, par excellence, since his commemoration always falls in late Advent, indeed, close to the winter solstice, the darkest time of nature’s year, and the longest night. Yet there is a wonderful paradox. Somehow, through Thomas’ doubting or questioning, we are, as Thomas Aquinas puts it, provided with a greater confirmation of faith. The Collect picks up on that sensibility and understanding.

Advent is the season of questions. The story of Thomas belongs to the accounts of the Resurrection and to the struggles of the disciples about the meaning of Christ as Lord and God. Thomas was not present with the other disciples huddled in fear behind closed doors on the evening of the day of Easter when Jesus revealed himself to them. Thomas has heard from them about what they saw and heard “but he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into his side, I will not believe”. He seems to be insisting on the reality of Christ’s bodily existence. “Eight days later, [the[ disciples were within and Thomas with them, then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst”.

The marvel of this account is that it is preceded by Jesus’ encounter with Mary Magdalene whom he commands noli me tangere, “touch me not”! Here Jesus bids Thomas to do the exact opposite, namely, to touch and see, specifically with respect to the wounds of his crucifixion. In a way it is a testimony to the bodily reality of the Incarnate Christ and to his Resurrection. Once again, we are reminded of the inescapable connection between Christmas and Easter.

In that sense his feast day belongs to the last days of Advent in the near approach to Christmas, to the birth of Christ, to the Word made flesh. That Jesus says one thing to Mary Magdalene and another to Thomas in the same chapter of John’s Gospel recognizes the different forms of human knowing. He speaks to each according to the capacity of the beholder to behold, we might say. His doubting is really his questioning about the nature of God’s engagement with our humanity. Theologically, it is a telling rebuke to what will become one of the earliest heresies, Docetism, which denied that God could become human, denying the engagement of spirit and matter, of God and man, seeing that as unworthy of God thus maintaining the complete separation of both.

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“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”

It is known as the witness of John. In answer to the questions about who he is, John the Baptist instead proclaims his mission as vox clamantis in deserto, “the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord”. He humbles himself in order to point to the one who comes after him, “whose shoe’s latchet I am not worthy to unloose”. Only at the end of the passage is it revealed who that is who comes after him and yet is ever prior to him. Jesus. Thus what John says is particularly arresting. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”. His witness is really a confession, confession in its truest sense, a confession of the truth which is greater than oneself.

We need the strong objectivity of the Advent Gospels. They point us to the radical meaning of Christ’s coming. The image of the Lamb of God is particularly telling. It counters all of the false sentimentalities of the Advent and Christmas season which are often more about ourselves in the quest for a sense of coziness and comfort, hyggelig, as the Danish call it, but only, it seems, for some and not for all. The humility of John in pointing to Jesus and not to himself points to the greater humility of God. God comes in the lowliness of our humanity as sacrifice. Only so is he Lord and Saviour. Only so is God revealed to us. This is not exactly hyggelig, however much we may seek it for ourselves. It belongs to a deeper consolation of the soul but only through confession.

Christ as the Lamb of God turns the world on its head. John’s witness convicts us far more than we realize because it is a standing rebuke to our humanity in all ages but especially our own. The Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world. This is a different kind of triumph and glory because it happens through the encounter with sin and evil; in short, through suffering, a counter to the illusions of the self in claiming to be whatever one chooses to be and in denial of the givenness of things. We are not autonomous, self-complete beings. That Christ comes as the Lamb of God, as Sacrifice and Saviour points to the nature of our mutual interdependence with God and one another, and, even more, to the forms of our co-inherence with God and creation. This reveals the true meaning of God as love. Love gives of itself but without losing anything of itself. Christ’s Advent seeks to embrace us in that all-enfolding and never-ending love of God in contrast to our empty illusions and narcissism.

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“Art thou he that should come?”

The questioning of John the Baptist about Jesus as the Messiah is complemented by Mary’s questioning about the Annunciation to her which is about Christ’s conception. “The Lord is with thee” the Angel Gabriel said. “Art thou he that should come or do we look for another?” John asks in prison, sending two of his disciples to Jesus. Mary, as we will hear in this week’s Advent Ember Days, “was troubled at the Angel’s saying” wondering “what manner of salutation this should be”. It leads to her question recalled in the great pageant of Advent Lessons and Carols, “how shall this be seeing I know not a man?”

These questions highlight Advent as the season of questions opening us out to the kingdom of God and reminding us of the darkness of doubt and uncertainty. John the Baptist and Mary are the outstanding figures of the landscape of Advent. Their questions point us to the radical meaning of the coming of God’s Word in judgment and hope, in grace and salvation, in Word and Sacrament, and, ultimately, as the Word made flesh. That coming is at once in the body and in the mind. Holding the intellectual and the sensible together in creative tension is the meaning of faith: “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11.1). By way of John the Baptist and Mary we learn about the nature of our spiritual lives in faith. It is very much fides quaerens intellectum, faith seeking understanding. And that requires repentance and rejoicing. Such is the witness of John the Baptist and Mary.

And such are the spiritual principles that define our souls in the pageant of Advent. “Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”. “Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel”, the refrain of the Veni Emmanuel exults, echoing the Introit Psalm for this Sunday, “Rejoice in the Lord”. But how? Through Mary. Only so is Christ “Emmanuel”, God with us who comes in the very substance of our humanity as the Word made flesh. Yet only so through Mary’s ‘yes’ to God, her strong affirmation of what defines faith: “Be it unto me according to thy word”. Mary’s Magnificat belongs to the high note of rejoicing on this Sunday known traditionally as Gaudate Sunday, one of the Latin words for rejoice. We repent with John the Baptist in looking towards and learning about the need for a Saviour. We rejoice with Mary in the mysteries of God’s coming to us. Both belong to the ministry of the Church in preparing and making ready God’s way to us and in us. How?

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“My words shall not pass away”

We live in the end times. That is actually a striking feature of Christian hope and witness because it is not simply about the passing events of the day but the constant hope of our looking to God now and always. In short, it is about our awakening to the eternal Word and truth of God as that by which “we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life”. Hope and comfort in the face of darkness and despair. Indeed, as Luke puts it, “this shall be a time for you to bear testimony” (Lk. 21.13). In other words, it is not simply the events and circumstances of our times that define us but how we face them.

That has very much to do with the witness of the Scriptures to “the God of patience and consolation”, “the God of hope”. In the Epistle reading from Romans, the word hope predominates. It appears four times. The resounding note of hope is emphasized as essential to the whole purpose and meaning of God’s Word written. “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning,” Paul writes, referencing, paradoxically, the Hebrew Scriptures, what Christians call the Old Testament. The things written for our learning will come to include Paul’s words which comprise such a large part of the Christian Scriptures of the New Testament. There is an important emphasis on the theme of Revelation, what is mediated by God to us through the Scriptures.

Our readings this morning open us out to the doctrine of Revelation, to the idea of the Scriptures received and understood in the Church as “a doctrinal instrument of salvation”, to capture in a phrase both Thomas Cranmer and Richard Hooker. As such, the Scriptures are neither an arbitrary collection of texts nor a mere reservoir of information; instead, they set before us a whole way of thinking upon God and his will for our humanity. This is succinctly and wonderfully expressed in today’s Collect which is, perhaps, the most well known of the twenty-four original Collects composed by Thomas Cranmer. It reveals his distinctive signature of drawing upon the appointed Scriptural readings. It is about praying the Scriptures understood credally.

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