Wednesday, January 3rd
6:30-8:00pm Brownies – Parish Hall
Thursday, January 4th, Epiphany (anticipated)
3:15pm Service – Windsor Elms
7:00 Holy Communion
Friday, January 5th
6:00-7:30pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall
Sunday, January 7th, First Sunday after Epiphany
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Today we ponder with Mary the things that were said about “this child” by the Shepherds who have now come to Bethlehem to “see this thing which is come to pass”. Yesterday, we were with Joseph thinking “on these things”, namely the difficult mystery of Mary’s being with child of the Holy Ghost. There is an inescapable intellectual quality to Christmas.
So much so that the ideas about its meaning go before us in our coming to Bethlehem. In the linear narrative, it is only in the Gospel for the Octave Day that we have the shepherds going now “even unto Bethlehem”. Like the Easter mystery, so too with Christmas, we witness to the way in which the mystery comes to light and takes birth in our souls. We witness to the ways of pondering and thinking upon these things in the discovery of their truth and meaning.
Truth and meaning. These are inseparable. Meaning by itself might simply mean what is true for me which is not necessarily truth at all. But put truth and meaning together and then you have something powerful and wonderful, something worth pondering about our commitment to truth without which it has no meaning in us. Truth and meaning together have entirely to do with our participation in the mystery of Christ and his holy nativity.
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: Luca Signorelli, The Circumcision, c. 1490-91. Oil on canvas, mounted on board, transferred from wood, National Gallery, London.
In terms of the infancy narratives in Christmastide, should we be so wedded to such a linear way of thinking, we have yet to get to Bethlehem! Apart from Joseph and Mary and her first-born son, the only other visitors to Bethlehem in the readings for this past week have been those whom Herod sent forth who “slew all the children that were in Bethlehem,” a gruesome, yet significant and important Christmas story, and one that is largely overlooked and ignored in our contemporary celebrations of Christmas. It is, perhaps, somewhat remembered by way of the carol, Puer Nobis Nascitur, “Unto us a Child is Born”, in the verse “Herod then with fear was filled:/ ‘A prince’, he said, ‘in Jewry!’/ All the little boys he killed /At Bethlem in his fury.” Not exactly the most familiar and comfortable of carols yet profoundly concise about this aspect of the Christmas mystery.
No, in the narrative sequence of the Christmastide Gospel readings, it will actually only be tomorrow on The Octave Day of Christmas that the Shepherds, the representatives of our common humanity, will actually “now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass.” Even the Christmas angels, it seems, were only in the countryside round about Jerusalem, the one announcing to the Shepherds about the sign of “good tidings of great joy” in the birth of a Saviour in the city of David, “who is Christ the Lord”, only to be joined by “a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, good will toward men.”All rich and wonderful words and saying, events and thoughts, which illumine for us something of the mystery of Bethlehem, the mystery of Christ’s nativity. All about its meaning and significance, and less about a linear account. All about the radical and disturbing meaning of the Incarnation and its deep joy for us in the redemption of our humanity which it reveals and makes known.
But only through the compelling way in which we are drawn into the mystery – through its significance and meaning first and then in terms of the narrative sequence. Today we have Matthew’s account of the infancy narrative and yet, even with Matthew we do not get to Bethlehem. We – meaning aspects of our humanity who witness to the birth in some way or another – don’t get to Bethlehem until the coming of the Magi/Kings. And they are, to be sure, both the proverbial “Come-From-Aways” as well as the “Johnny-Come-Latelies”. But with Matthew’s account today, we confront what appears to be a scandal. It is not too much to say that his account presents us with more than one scandal, humanly speaking. With Matthew we see a certain intellectual wrestling with extraordinary matters all of which belong to the theological mystery of the Incarnation.
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: Domenico Guidi, The Dream of St. Joseph, 1686. Marble, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome.
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.
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?”
Christmas is for children, it is frequently said and rightly so bearing in mind that we are all the children of God and especially at this holy time when God became a little child. And yet, so much for children in our violent and brutal world where the innocent little ones are all too frequently the casualties and victims of horrendous acts of violence. And so, too, in the Christmas story.
The most troubling scene in the Old Testament, it seems to me, is the story of the Levite’s concubine. Abused and ravaged, she dies with her hands outstretched on the threshold of her master’s house; her body then cut up and circulated to all of the tribes of Israel as witness to the collective betrayal of the Law and of the universal laws of hospitality, the like of which had never before been seen in Israel. But the most troubling scene in the New Testament, it seems to me, is the story of the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem, killed because of Herod’s envy and fear about a rival King, on the one hand, and out of unbridled power without truth, without justice, without compassion, without restraint, on the other hand. Just so it speaks to our disordered world.
That this story belongs to the Christmas mystery is itself most telling and most moving. If it is the most troubling scene, it is also one of the most moving. It shatters all of our sentimental nonsense about Christmas. In this story we confront the deeper meaning of Christ’s Incarnation and face the realities of human wickedness, then and now. We don’t want to hear it and many are utterly unaware of it. And yet it marks the last of the three special Holy Days of Christmas, all of which comment upon the deeper meaning of Christ’s holy birth.
At issue, I suppose, is whether we are up to pondering this mystery. Almost universally overlooked, this story more than any other speaks directly and powerfully to the worst of the worst in our sad and troubled world, fractured and broken, violent and destructive. Christmas by virtue of this Christmas story is not a distraction but a condemnation of human folly and its violence. None of us escape this story. It belongs to the sad and sorry pageant of human violence, to the continuing spectacles of genocide and destruction that more than any other age belong to the story of the last one hundred years. It speaks as well to all of the deaths of the little ones in the name of convenience and expediency however complicated and complex the context. To ponder this story is to enter more fully into the Christmas mystery such that joys tinged by sorrow are deepened into faith and worship.
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 historic 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: Léon Cogniet, Massacre of the Innocents, 1824. Oil on fabric, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes, France.
John is the great Evangelist of the mystery of Christmas at once soaring into the heights of divinity on eagle’s wings and with an eagle’s sight and witnessing to the reality of the Incarnation. “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 … declare we unto you.” His Gospel and Epistles testify to the nature of the Incarnation and counter the earliest debate and heresy known as docetism which argues that God could not be God and engage our humanity by becoming human. Spirit and matter are utterly opposed; there is a fundamental dualism to reality in such a view.
John the Evangelist argues to the contrary that the mystery of the Incarnation of God’s Word and Son reveals the greater mystery of God himself. God does not cease to be God in becoming man. In the life of Christ as the Gospel reading makes clear “there are also many other things which Jesus did” and, no doubt, said, that have not been written; indeed so many “that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” The mystery of Christmas is about the inexhaustible mystery of God in the wonder of his intimate engagement with us in the humanity of Christ. The Word made flesh, that Word “which was from the beginning,” from the principle of all life and thought, “was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.”
Things have been written in witness of these things “and we know that his witness is true,” John says about himself it seems. We may think that is a kind of special pleading but it is in the context of Peter following Jesus and asking about “the disciple whom Jesus loved following,” the disciple “which also leaned on his breast at supper” and as John tells us, the disciple who said at the last supper “Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?” They are all strong arguments about the person of the Evangelist and about what he has heard and seen, and even more, what he has come to understand and believe. The Gospel reading belongs to the resurrection appearances of Christ and reflects on the theme of betrayal and crucifixion – all testament to the reality of the body of Christ at the same time to the divinity of Christ. All things which belong to the witness of John the Evangelist, he who wrote these things.