Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Octave Day of Christmas
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Octave Day of Christmas.
Sermon for the Octave Day of 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.”
They are the words of the shepherds to one another after the angels had departed from them into heaven. And so begins the Shepherds’ Christmas as they make their way to Bethlehem and “[find] Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger”. Everything converges on Bethlehem, it seems. Such was the Angels’ Christmas on Christmas morning in the angel’s announcement to the shepherds that “unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord”. It is the occasion of great joy in heaven and on earth. For “suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, good will toward men”.
The Angel’s word launches the shepherds on their journey to Bethlehem. And while Luke tells us that Mary’s first-born son was “laid in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn”, in the Christian imaginary, the stable of Bethlehem, too, is a most crowded scene. And we are drawn to that scene to do like the Angels, like the Shepherds, and like Joseph and Mary; in short to behold and wonder “at those things which were told them by the shepherds”. The lowly shepherds have become, it seems, angelic messengers of the mystery of Christ’s birth. For “when [the shepherds] had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.”
Everything converges on Bethlehem and yet everything is concentrated on the child Christ. Everything circles around the child, the center of wonder and worship. As the great mystical and theological definition of God puts it, “God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere”. At Christmas that center is the babe of Bethlehem around whom the whole of creation gathers in wonderment and joy. The mystery enfolds us in the divine love which cannot be constrained and contained by us. Rather it envelops us.
“High and low, rich and poor, one with another,” Palestrina’s great Advent Matin Responsory begins. That crowded scene is not a jumble of indiscriminate things. It is not like Holy Week, the madness of crowds. Rather like Pentecost, it opens to us a wonderful vision of creation restored into unity and wholeness. It sets before us the true vision of the universality and unity of our humanity at one with God and with the good order of God’s creation. Matthew’s account of the Nativity will result in the coming in of the Magi-Kings which in some sense completes the tableau of creation restored. Thus both Matthew’s and Luke’s account of Christ’s Nativity complement the great Christmas Gospel from John which centers on “the Word made flesh”.
Week at a Glance, 2 – 8 January
Sunday, January 8th, First Sunday after Epiphany
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Services to be held in the Parish Hall, 8 January through March.
The Octave Day of Christmas and the Circumcision of Christ
The collects for today, The Octave Day of Christmas and the Circumcision of Christ, being New Year’s 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.
Of the Circumcision:
ALMIGHTY God, who madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law for man: Grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit; that, our hearts, and all our members, being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
For the New Year:
O IMMORTAL Lord God, who inhabitest eternity, and hast brought thy servants to the beginning of another year: Pardon, we humbly beseech thee, our transgressions in the past, bless to us this New Year, and graciously abide with us all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Lesson: Isaiah 9:2-7
The Gospel: St. Luke 2:15-21
Artwork: Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri), Circumcision of Christ, 1646. Oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Lyon, France.
John West, Missionary
The collect for a missionary, in commemoration of The Rev’d John West (1778-1845), Priest, first Protestant missionary to the Red River Valley, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O GOD, our heavenly Father, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst call thy blessed Apostles and send them forth to preach thy Gospel of salvation unto all the nations: We bless thy holy Name for thy servant John West, whose labours we commemorate this day, and we pray thee, according to thy holy Word, to send forth many labourers into thy harvest; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
The Lesson: Acts 12:24-13:5
The Gospel: St. Matthew 4:13-24a
John Wycliffe, Scholar and Translator
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: Ford Madox Brown, John Wycliffe Reading His Translation of the Bible to John of Gaunt, 1847-61. Oil on canvas, Bradford Art Galleries and Museums.
Thomas Becket, Archbishop
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?”
Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Innocents
“These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth”
“Behold the Lamb of God”, we have heard throughout Advent in the witness of John the Baptist. He highlights the deep truth of the meaning of the One who comes. Christ comes as sacrifice. He is the lamb of God.
Perhaps no part of the Christmas mystery is more disturbing and difficult than the Feast of the Holy Innocents, the third of the Christmas troika of celebrations which serve to deepen our understanding of the Christian mystery of the Incarnation. It bids us contemplate the almost unbelievable and unbearable idea of the slaughter of little children, the innocents of the world, those who are the most vulnerable and utterly unable to harm. Such is their innocence.
But in the story of the flight into Egypt and Herod’s endeavour to seek the young child, Christ, to destroy him, that leads to the mindless slaughter of “all the children that were in Bethlehem”, we see something of the radical meaning of Christmas. It speaks to the hardest and darkest things of our world and day, a world which continues to witness to an horrific extent the deaths of countless little ones, both born and unborn, in the dystopia of our world. The Christmas mystery does not hide the realities of human sin and wickedness which implicates us all in one way or another.
What this feast shows us is that the little ones are not unknown or unloved by God despite our evils and despite the limits of human justice and compassion. This feast, like the Feast of Stephen and the Feast of John the Evangelist, reminds us of the greater depth and meaning of Christ’s Incarnation. It reminds in a most poignant and painful way that suffering and sacrifice are inescapably part of the human condition, but, even more importantly, they are part of the story of human redemption.
Herod’s actions are a retelling of Pharaoh’s attempt to control and annihilate the Hebrew people in Exodus through a policy of infanticide. Infanticide is not unknown in our world and takes different forms. They all involve the privileging of some lives over and against others and often the claims to the complete autonomy of ourselves as agents freed to the pursuit of our own immediate interests even at the expense of the lives of others. In other words, Holy Innocents is a strong indictment of our culture and world too.
But the greater lesson of this disturbing yet necessary Christmas feast is what is seen in the lesson from Revelation. What it reveals to us is that the little ones are in Christ and participate by anticipation in the purpose of Christ’s coming. This is to suggest that we are always more though never less than the things which happen to us, whether they are the things over which we have no control, such as the little ones who are most vulnerable, or the things for which we do bear some responsibility or other. The striking feature of this feast is that nothing falls outside of the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. In other words, “nothing can separate us from the love of God”.
We confront in this feast one of the most difficult and horrific aspects of our humanity and yet we confront as well the idea that these little ones participate in the sacrifice of Christ. The one whom they precede they follow. The love of God in Christ defines us even as it defines them.
“These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth”
Fr. David Curry
Feast of Holy Innocents, Xmas 2022
The Innocents’ Day
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: Giotto di Bondone, Massacre of the Innocents, 1304-06. Fresco, Capella Scrovegni, Padua.
Sermon for the Feast of St. John the Evangelist
“These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.”
The Feast of St. John the Evangelist belongs to the Christmas mystery and deepens our understanding of the Christmas Gospels about the Word made flesh proclaimed by John himself and about Christ’s nativity conveyed to us by Luke and Matthew. The point of emphasis is on his testimony and by extension on the witness of the Scriptures themselves to the Revelation of God in Christ.
Something great and wonderful is revealed to us. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life”, John states in his 1st Epistle. It is the strongest possible affirmation of the Incarnation and here he signals to us the end or purpose of what is revealed and made known to us: “that your joy may be full”.
And yet, as John himself also reminds us, what is made known of the mystery of God with us in Jesus Christ in no wise captures the fullness of the mystery of God himself. It is an important cautionary note, a recognition that the truth of God is by definition always greater and more than human knowing. We do not possess the truth, the truth possesses us. We are opened out to the inexhaustible mystery of the wonder of God, a mystery which the world cannot contain and possess. “The world itself could not contain the books that should be written”, he says, about the “many other things which Jesus did”.
Yet what has been manifested to us and what he says, “we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you” is “that eternal life, which was with the Father”. It belongs to our fellowship with the fellowship of the Trinity, “that ye also may have fellowship with us”. This is the deep joy of the Christmas mystery: our fellowship with one another in fellowship with God.
This is what the Collect means about our “being enlightened by the doctrine”, the teaching of John. His teaching illuminates the wonder and mystery of Christmas, the wonder and mystery of what is revealed in all of the images that belong to the scenes of Christ’s holy birth. There is more to what we see than what meets the eye. We behold in all of the stories of Christmas nothing less than the Word made flesh. We are enfolded in the mystery of God himself. This is our joy and end, the light of everlasting life.
“These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.”
Fr. David Curry
Feast of St. John the Evangelist, Xmas 2022