Category: Sermons

“Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it”

Saying and doing. Acting upon what has been said. Does it mean just simply doing what you are told – mindlessly and without thinking? By no means. Epiphany presents us with the great wonder and mystery of God revealed to us through the words and deeds and person of Jesus Christ. The Feast of the Epiphany itself marks the break-out from Bethlehem in the sense of the making known of Christ’s birth to all people. The Magi-Kings present gifts to the Child Christ. They are gifts which teach. Christ is King, and God and Sacrifice. And then The First Sunday after Epiphany presents to us the story of the boy Jesus at the age of twelve being found in the Temple in Jerusalem in the midst of the doctors of the Law. The scene is all about teaching and learning, things which have very much to do with our humanity in concert with divinity. God and Man. Jesus the Divine Teacher; Jesus the human student. What is signaled ever so profoundly, too, is the mission and purpose of Christ’s Incarnation.

“Wist ye not”, he says to Mary. “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business”, or as another possible way of translating puts it, “in my Father’s house”. Epiphany is all about the things of God revealed to us through the humanity of Jesus. Central to the teaching or doctrine of Epiphany is the relationship between power and wisdom. The first article of the Anglican Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, for instance, identifies three essential attributes of God: his infinite wisdom, power and goodness. When wisdom and power fall apart then we have abuse and destruction, bullying and domination – all at the expense of wisdom and truth. It is the story of the 20^th century and continuing into the 21^st. Epiphany, to the contrary, points out the essential and necessary connection between wisdom and power. Such things belong to God and only then by extension to the shaping and ordering of our lives in community.

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“Wist ye not that I must be about my father’s business?”

Jerusalem and Bethlehem. They are the twin poles of Christian contemplation, the twofold centre around which, as in an ellipse, we move in thought and prayer, in love and devotion, in service and sacrifice. Each is bound up with the other – distinct and yet inseparable. Christmas focuses, of course, on Bethlehem as the place of Christ’s birth. Yet his birth is itself a kind of epiphany, a making known in the flesh of our humanity of the things of God. Christmas at once concludes and continues with the Epiphany. And with the Epiphany there is, we might say, the break-out from Bethlehem and suddenly Jerusalem begins to come more and more into the picture.

Epiphany means manifestation. It signals the idea of something that is made known to us as opposed to something that is invented by us. Like Advent, it is a season of revelation, a season of teaching. That is what is so wonderfully and clearly set before us on this day, The First Sunday after Epiphany which often falls within The Octave of the Epiphany. What is the Epiphany? It is the celebration of the coming of the Magi-Kings to Bethlehem and so it connects to Christmas and belongs to the Christmas imaginary. But it is also about going from Bethlehem, “depart[ing] into their own country another way”, as Matthew puts it, after having fallen down in worship before the child, “present[ing] unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh”.

The gifts are symbolic and meaningful. They are gifts which teach; “sacred gifts of mystic meaning” as one of the Epiphany hymns puts it. And that in a way is the point of Epiphany. It is about the making known of the things of God in the world of our humanity. The light of God shines out from within the world to teach us about our life with God and with one another. The emphasis is upon the divinity of Christ made visible through his humanity. Christ is King and God and Sacrifice.

It is not by accident that the Gospel for The First Sunday after The Epiphany focuses on Christ as teacher. Jesus is found in the Temple in Jerusalem at the age of twelve. We go from Bethlehem to Jerusalem in the mystery of the Epiphany. It is, we might say, his bar mitzvah, his coming of age and entry into adulthood. He is found “in the midst of the doctors” of the law, the wise ones of Israel, as it were, “both hearing them, and asking them questions”, Luke tells us for just as the story of the Magi-Kings is told only by Matthew, so this story of the boyhood of Jesus is told to us only by Luke. “And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers”. There is a sense of wonder. Epiphany is the season of wonders and the wonders begin with teaching and learning.

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“They departed into their own country another way”

Unlike Caesar who famously said, “veni, vidi, vici” – “I came, I saw, I conquered” – the Magi-Kings of Anatolia, “viderant, venerunt, et adoraverunt” – “they saw, they came and they adored”. It makes all the difference. Instead of conquest, there is adoration. They saw a star which they followed. They came on a long journey, it seems, to Bethlehem. They worshipped – adored – the child Christ and “they presented unto him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh”.

It is all part of the Christmas pageant, part of the rich tableau of images that confronts us and amazes us at Christmas. For some, Christmas is too much: too much fuss and bother, too much stress and worry. Some are only too glad that it is over and gone. For others there is never too much Christmas, even Christmas in July! But the real spiritual wonder of Christmas is that it lasts for more than a day, more than a week. There are the proverbial twelve days of Christmas! There are even the festivities in parts of the western world of “twelfth night” – not to mention Shakespeare’s play by that name. For the vast world of Eastern Christian Orthodoxy – for Russian, Greek, and Coptic churches, for example – Christmas really only begins with the coming of the Magi-Kings, the Wise Men to Bethlehem. Why? Because with the coming of the Magi-Kings from Anatolia (from the East), Christmas is omni populo, for all people. There is a rich fullness to the Christmas mystery and to the forms of its imaginary. So much is clustered into that simple scene in Bethlehem. A rich fullness in the midst of human poverty.

Only Matthew tells us about the coming of the Magi and yet his simple story has inspired a wealth of other things belonging to the work of holy imagination. The Magi, quite literally, have captured the imaginations of artists and poets from the carol “We Three Kings of Orient Are” to the Huron Carol, from simple crèche scenes to elaborate Baroque-style crèche displays. The Magi-Kings are a major part of the Christmas story. And yet we really know precious little about them. We don’t really know how many. Were there three? The tradition of three is based simply upon the three gifts. But holy imagination builds wonderfully and significantly upon the sparse details of Matthew’s account to provide them even with names – Casper, Balthazar, and Melchior, for example – and addresses in terms of different cultures and races from exotic places. No doubt they would be nowadays equipped in our imaginaries with GPS and cell-phones (in the hopes that they might get there on time, perhaps!).

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The seven homilies delivered during Christmastide by Fr. Curry have been collected into one pdf document, available for downloading here.

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

There is a rich fullness to all of the celebrations of Christmas; a kaleidoscope of images in a whirl of sounds and light surrounds us. How do we make sense of it all or indeed of any of it all? It may seem like a whirlwind of things that serve to distract us either to amuse us or destroy us. How are to make sense of the rich fullness of Christmas especially on this The Octave Day of Christmas? It is a day, to be sure, which is also designated in other terms at once secular and sacred. It is The Octave Day of Christmas which brings us home and into the eternal mystery of Christ’s nativity, gathering into one all of the particulars of our Christmas celebrations. It is The Circumcision of Christ which marks another aspect of the mystery of the Incarnation. And to top it off, it is also New Year’s Day so as to bring the secular ordering of time into the mystery of God with us. A rich fullness indeed. How are we to make sense of it all?

We are to be like Mary who having heard “those things which were told them by the shepherds”, “kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” She doesn’t just hold onto these things zealously clinging to them as we might to our favourite gifts. No, she keeps them “and ponder[s] them in her heart”. It is a very rich phrase. The things that have been said and heard are weighed and considered; they are thought upon. To ponder is to give something serious consideration. It is to be attentive to the meaning of what has been said and heard, seen and done.

For what are “all these things” which she keeps in her heart? They are all the things which cluster around the angelic announcement to the shepherds about “a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger”, a child who is “born this day in the city of David [as] a Saviour, Christ the Lord”. It is “good tidings of great joy”, to be sure, but even more a mystery to be considered. The shepherds say one to another, “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass,” this thing “which the Lord hath made known to us”. They are themselves evangelists, the bearers of good news. They do not keep this to themselves but “made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child”. All who heard it “wondered at those things which were told them”. Mary, too, it seems, but even more she “kept all these things and pondered them in her heart”. That is the mystery of the Church and her purpose and being. We are to be like Mary.

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“Rachel weeping for her children, And would not be comforted,
because they are not”

There is no more disturbing and troubling image than the deaths of the little ones whether as here in the witness of the Scriptures or in the horrendous pictures of the suffering children of the world – in Calais, in Aleppo, in Kenya and elsewhere. We live in a world where children are not only commodities but collateral damage in the pursuit of power and dominance. There is no innocence, it seems.

There is blood in Bethlehem. To be sure, we have already seen blood, as it were, in the martyrdom of St. Stephen who was stoned to death confessing Christ and in imitation of the sacrificial sufferings of Christ. But that was in Jerusalem. Here we have the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, as they have been called, in Bethlehem, killed as a policy of infanticide in Herod’s effort to eradicate a potential rival to his kingdom. Herod’s policy to kill all the little ones, two years and under in Bethlehem, echoes the policy of infanticide by Pharaoh to control the population of the Hebrews in Egypt out of which came the birth of Moses. Thus we are made aware of a deeper theological idea, the idea that God and God alone can make something good out of the machinations of human evil.

“Never that which is shall die”, a famous fragment from the Greek poet, Euripides, avers. In a way, the Christian story both challenges and confirms his poetic insight. Christ, the everlasting Son of the Father, comes to redeem and save by dying for us. His rising to life again though is testament to the greater power and truth of God who ever is, the God who negates the negation, as it were. The death of death itself is accomplished in the passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. “Never that which is shall die” because it dies and lives again for it is what lives forever. Love conquers all because love never dies.

This is all part of the dark mystery and wonder of the disturbing Christmas feast of the Holy Innocents. They are innocent because in truth they are unable to harm and yet they are seen as a threat to Herod just by virtue of being infants like the child king sought by the Magi. They are already viewed as in Christ and that is the deeper wonder that redeems the horror and their slaughter. Their deaths, like the deaths of the little ones throughout history, are not without meaning. They share in the infancy of Christ and so in the purpose of Christ’s coming.

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“Even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written”

“Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh,” Ecclesiastes observes, an observation, no doubt, with which many a student would concur. John, too, at the very end of the last chapter of his Gospel reflects on the writing of books; somehow the reality and full meaning of Christ would comprise more books than what the world could contain. There is always something more and more to the meaning of Christ as Word.

The Word proclaimed “at sundry times and in diverse manners … unto the fathers by the prophets”, Hebrews reminds us, “hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” That Word and Son is the Word made flesh, as John reminds us in his powerful Prologue read as the great Gospel of Christmas Eve. There is a focus on Word; Word proclaimed, Word made flesh, but also the Word as written “even if the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.”

The Feast of John the Evangelist belongs to our Christmas observances. His Epistles and his Gospel provide the strongest testimony to the idea and reality of the Incarnation, the greatest insight into the mystery of God with us in the humanity of Jesus Christ. “That which was from the beginning,” he says, echoing at once the opening words of his Prologue but also the opening words of Genesis, “which we have heard,” he says, “which we have seen with our eyes,” he says, “which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life,” he says, that is what “declare we unto you.” And to what end? “That ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” It is a remarkably concise and stirring theological testament to the Incarnation and the Trinity, to the deeper mystery of Christmas.

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“Lord, lay not this sin to their charge”

The words of the kneeling Stephen as he dies echo Christ’s first word on the Cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” It is no accident that the first of the holy days of Christmas is The Feast of St. Stephen. It signifies two things that are of the greatest importance. The first is that without the Cross there is no manger. The second is that Christ’s holy nativity inaugurates the mission of the Church. We are to follow in the steps of Christ. He is, as one of the Eastertide collects puts it, “both a sacrifice for sin and also an example of godly life” (Easter 2). The Feast of Stephen the Martyr reveals the real depth and meaning of Christmas.

It is about sacrifice and about a new orientation to life, a living for others in the spirit of forgiveness. Stephen is the proto-martyr, the first witness of Christ in the form of the giving of his life. In a way, he marks the beginning of a significant tradition, the tradition of the saints. What is that about? Simply the living reality of Christ in the body of his Church and in the lives and actions of his members.

Christmas celebrates the mystery of God with us. Part of its radical meaning is that Christ lives in us. His Incarnation marks his being with us but for a purpose. It is redemption. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given”, to be sure, but born and given for what? To suffer and to die for us. Why? To show us the true life which God seeks for us – life with God. To show us that sin is the negative feature of our humanity and not its real and radical truth which is found in our being with God. Sacrifice, meaning the giving over of ourselves to the one who has given himself fully for us, becomes the true measure and meaning of our lives. It is ‘another who lives in us’, the other who is Christ Jesus the Lord. Herein lies the importance of the Feast of Stephen.

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“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour,
who is Christ the Lord”

We meet in the contemplative wonder of Christmas morn after all the excitement of Christmas Eve. “And so it was, that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her first-born son”. He is “the only-begotten of the Father full of grace and truth” as we heard last night from the heights of heaven, as it were. We come to Bethlehem. Why? What does it signify?

We contemplate the great wonder of the unity of God and Man and the whole of the created order. There are the three great masses of Christmas: first, the proclamation and celebration of the eternal Sonship of the child Christ which we heard last night; second, the story of his actual birth made known in the songs of the Angels in the gospel this morning; and, then, later, the Christmas of the Shepherds to whom this angelic news from heavenly heights is proclaimed and made known. The three masses of Christmas present to us something of the fullness of this wonder and delight. Bethlehem is paradise restored, to be sure, but Bethlehem is something more. It inaugurates a new vision and a new life, the new vision and the new life of what has been made known to us, God with us and God for us. “Unto you”, the Angels say to the Shepherds and to us, “unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord”.

We are in the company of the Shepherds, it seems; only so, it seems, can we be in the company of the Angels; and even more, unless we are in the company of Angels and Shepherds, we shall not be with the holy Child who comes to us. The Angels proclaim something great and wondrous for us. Their words are strong words of proclamation that point to a wonder and mystery. They say it is for us. And for them? Only through us it seems, for in what they proclaim and make known we see the unity of the whole of creation with its Creator. The Angels, too, are part of that order. They do simply what belongs to their office and being, to their ministry, as it were. They are the messengers, the audible and visible thoughts of God made known to us.

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

She was an old woman, weary and worn, burdened with the cares and worries of life. She paused for a moment before a Crêche scene in the park of a big city. It was a time when such things were more common and were yet to be regarded as politically incorrect. She put her bags down and looked upon that quiet scene in the midst of the city’s bustle. I watched as she slowly crossed herself before picking up her bags and shuffling on. A Christmas blessing, I thought.

Christmas seems sometimes just too much. Perhaps some of you know what I mean. Kathy and Scotty Cameron have a pillow inscribed with the letters OCD meaning Obsessive Christmas Disorder! All the hustle and bustle, all the frantic press and bother, all the manic shopping and travel, all the tinsel and wrap; all too much. Not to mention the great plethora of images, the sights and sounds that surround this thing we call Christmas. Not to mention the sad array of images of violence and destruction, of war and sorrow that equally confront us and which stand in such glaring contrast to the claims of peace and prosperity, goodwill and charity. All too much, it seems. No time to stop and think.

Such a rich fullness of images. Are we simply to pick and choose whatever suits us or whatever happens to come to the surface of our hearts and minds? Are we like Dylan Thomas in his celebrated poem “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” simply to plunge our hands “into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea” and see what comes out? What comes out is “Mrs. Prothero and the firemen” attending a kitchen fire on Christmas day, a memorable event, no doubt, but it is the question which Jim’s aunt raises, Miss Prothero, who “said the right thing, always” which frames the narrative. “Would you like anything to read?” she asks.

Christmas Eve is about something read. “How do you read?” Jesus asks a questioning lawyer, meaning how do you read the Law, the Torah? He draws out of him what is known as The Summary of the Law, the ethical and spiritual teaching which is at once common to Judaism and Christianity, to Islam and to Greek philosophy and which connects to the teachings of the great religions of the world. The love of God and the love of humanity are somehow inescapably bound together. The lawyer’s answer, itself a collation of passages from Deuteronomy and Leviticus, two of most your favourite books, I am sure, leads to another question by the lawyer, “and who is my neighbour?” Jesus responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan. It is, we might say, part of the Torah of Jesus. Torah properly means instruction or guidance, an instruction and a guide for life. How you read is also about what you read. It leads to how we live. As we read so we do, as it were. In the mystery of Christmas, God becomes neighbour.

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