We retreat to the Hall for services in January, February, March, & April 6th, returning to ‘Big’ Church for Palm Sunday, April 13th, 2025.
Sunday, January 5th, Second Sunday after Christmas
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: Gerard Seghers, Dream of St Joseph, c. 1625-30. Oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
The Christmas Feast of Holy Innocents operates on at least three levels. There is, first of all, the overarching and controlling concept that the Holy Innocents are “the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb” of the redemption of our humanity. There is, secondly, the purported event of Herod’s fear of a rival to his political power that leads to the slaughter of “all the children that were in Bethlehem” – the harming and destruction of those who can do no harm, hence the innocent – understood as the precipitating event of the flight into Egypt of the Holy Family and as fulfilling Jeremiah’s prophecy about mourning and loss, on the one hand, and Hosea’s prophecy about the God’s love and compassion that delivers Israel, on the other hand. This aspect highlights the theme of loss and mourning as leading to redemption and restoration. And, thirdly, there is the moral application of the whole event in the Collect in which “babes and sucklings” who are weak and helpless are strengthened by God and, though infants, who are by definition unspeaking, nonetheless, “glorify God by their deaths.” This becomes the basis of the moral charge to us about “mortifying and killing all vices” in ourselves so that being “strengthened by grace, the innocency of our lives and the constancy of our faith, even unto death,” we, too, “may glorify thy holy Name.”
In one way, it is all rather complex, a bit complicated, and profoundly troubling. It offers a reflection on a way of understanding the interplay of scriptural passages, particularly between the Hebrew Scriptures and the emerging Christian writings. It is, a rather disturbing and disquieting story that challenges our thinking about the radical meaning of Christmas. It is meant to be troubling and yet realistic about the forms of human suffering, especially of the little ones, the ones who can do no harm and yet are harmed by others, subject to agendas and purposes in relation to which they are simply collateral damage and regarded as disposable, as nothing worth.
This is the theological challenge of Holy Innocents Day. It points us to the radical meaning of human redemption. It suggests in no uncertain terms that the little ones, whether born or the unborn, are the children of God, creatures of a loving Creator in spite of the evil of others, socially and politically. A 15th century Latin carol found once again in the 16th century Scandinavian collection known as the Piae Cantiones, memorably recalls this story, making reference to Herod in his fear and fury: “all the little boys he killed/ at Bethlem in his fury.”
That this should be an essential part of Christmas shatters all our assumptions about Christmas. It teaches us about the deeper meaning of Christ’s sacrifice for the redemption of the whole of humanity. It means the radical overcoming of all our evil and folly. It teaches that “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus,” imaged here as the Lamb of God, on the one hand, and the Son of God who comes out of the Egypt of ancient captivity to liberate us from all evil, on the other hand. That is meant to provide comfort and strength for us in the face of the heart-rending losses of children and infants for whatever reason in the disorders of our 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: Peter Paul Rubens, Massacre of the Innocents, c. 1610. Oil on panel, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
Nowhere is the doctrinal paradox and meaning of Christmas more wonderfully and clearly stated than on the Feast of St. John the Evangelist. He is the theologian par excellence as the early Church recognized. Like the eyes of an eagle soaring high into the sun, John sees most deeply into the mystery of God. We largely see through the eyes of John. His Gospel symbol is the eagle, just as in many of our Churches, the Scriptures are read from an eagle lectern.
His witness and writings enlightened the Church’s understanding of “the light of [God’s] truth” that the Church “walk[ing] in the light of thy truth … may at length attain to the light of everlasting life,” as the Collect puts it. Life and light, just as we heard on Christmas Eve from the Prologue of his Gospel for “in him was life, and the life was the light of men.” This morning we read from his 1st Epistle and from the last Chapter of his Gospel. Beginnings and endings even as the Revelation of St. John the Divine, which might also be reasonably attributed to him, proclaims Jesus as Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending. It is really all about our being gathered into the life and light of God.
What that means for us is signalled in these readings. What is it? It is our joy, the joy of our fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ in the bond of the Holy Spirit. It is from John especially that we learn the meaning of the Incarnation and the Trinity. John teaches us the most about Jesus as the Son of the Father and about the Holy Spirit, sent from the Father in the name of the Son (Jn. 14.26), and sent by the Son from the Father to us (Jn. 15.26). He who is the eternally and only-begotten of the Father, comes from the Father into the world and leaves the world and goes to the Father (Jn 16.28). This exitus, going forth, and reditus, returning, is our joy and our salvation, not the “conversion of the Godhead into flesh,” thus ceasing to be God, but “by taking of manhood into God” (Athanasian Creed, BCP, p. 697). Such is the doctrinal paradox of the Incarnation that Christ is true God and true man.
Something of these deeper theological truths, born out of the writings of John, are signalled to us in these readings this morning. The Uncontainable becomes contained, the uncreated Creator becomes a created being but without the annihilation of either. The distinction of Creator and created, of God and Man is held together in the unity and truth of God. The Epistle emphasizes the very truth of the Word made flesh: “that which was from the beginning” – from the eternity of God – “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled” is nothing less than “the Word of life” to which “we have seen and bear witness,” John says. That life which was manifested, made known, is “eternal life,” made known for our fellowship in that eternal life of the Trinity. That life is light for “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all,” for this is “the light [that] shineth in darkness, and the darkness overcame it not.”
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 Judea.
The three holy days of Christmas illuminate the deeper mystery of Christmas in striking ways. The Feast of St. Stephen today celebrates the protomartyr or first martyr of the Christian Church, Stephen, whose life and death mirror the life and death of Christ, especially the idea of loving sacrifice and forgiveness. Stephen, one of the first deacons of the emerging Church, is stoned to death because he followed what was at first known only as The Way. Like Christ, as the Collect puts it, he “prayed for his murderers to thee, O blessed Jesus.” His words, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge,” as Acts puts it, echo Christ’s first word from the Cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do,” perhaps the most gentle and yet most compelling rebuke of our sinful humanity in the whole of the Scriptures. And, perhaps, the only feature of St. Stephen’s Day readings which connect to the more usual sentiments and feelings of the Christmas season which otherwise this feast counters and challenges.
Yet the feast of Stephen is embedded in our Western Christian imaginary more likely through the 19th century hymn by the English priest John Mason Neale. It is based on a poem by the Czech poet Vaclav Svaboda’s retelling of a 10th century legend about Wenceslaus, the Duke of Bohemia (not a king!). The hymn is set to a tune Tempest Adest Floridum found in a 16th century collection of 74 medieval Latin songs that were popular in Scandinavia, a collection known in its abbreviation as Piae Cantiones. Wenceslaus, at once an historical and mythological figure, is the only medieval ruler to be mentioned in any of the carols of Christmas and as obscure as he and Bohemia might seem to us, the carol has captured the Christian imagination. Strange to say, it is one of the better known carols. It is probably the only way that people even know about the Feast of Stephen rather than Boxing Day!
What John Mason Neale does with the poem and story is to extend the idea of Stephen’s Christian witness to the idea of sacrifice in service. In this case, Good King Wenceslaus looks out the window of his palace and sees a poor man “gath’ring winter fuel” and undertakes to help him by bringing him food and wine. All on the Feast of Stephen. Wenceslaus and his page or servant make the arduous journey to his dwelling near St. Agnes’ fountain despite “the rude wind’s wild lament and the bitter weather.” His page finds the going hard and thinks he “can go no longer.” Wenceslaus bids him tread in his own footsteps. He is determined to help the poor and needy. Wenceslaus is himself, of course, walking in the steps of Christ even as Stephen’s life and death mirror the way of Christ. Lovely images and associations.
There is even more to the symbolic significance of St. Stephen’s Day for our deeper understanding of the wonder and mystery of Christ’s birth. It is captured in T.S. Eliot’s play, Murder in the Cathedral. There the 12th century Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas à Becket, caught up in what is known as the Investiture Controversy about the relation and respective powers of Church and State, was someone King Henry II saw as a ‘troublesome priest’. “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” He is supposed to have said. Some of his knights, hearing this, took it upon themselves to murder the Archbishop at the altar in Canterbury.
The collect for today, the Feast of St. Stephen, Deacon and Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
GRANT, O Lord, that in all our sufferings here upon earth, for the testimony of thy truth, we may stedfastly look up to heaven, and by faith behold the glory that shall be revealed; and, being filled with the Holy Spirit, may learn to love and bless our persecutors, by the example of thy first Martyr Saint Stephen, who prayed for his murderers to thee, O blessed Jesus, who standest at the right hand of God to succour all those that suffer for thee, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.
The Lesson: Acts 7:55-60
The Gospel: St. Matthew 23:34-39
All that is known of St. Stephen’s life is found in the Acts of the Apostles, chapters 6 and 7. He is reckoned as the first Christian martyr–the proto-martyr. Although his name is Greek for “crown”, he was a Jew by birth; he would have been born outside Palestine and raised as a Greek-speaking Jew. The New Testament does not record the circumstances of his conversion to Christianity.
Stephen first appears as one of the seven deacons chosen in response to protests by Hellenist (Greek-speaking) Christians that their widows were being neglected in the distribution of alms. The apostles were too busy preaching the word of God to deal with this problem, so they commissioned seven men from among the Hellenists “of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom”, then prayed and laid hands on them. Stephen, the first among the seven, is described as “full of faith and of the Holy Spirit”. A few verses later, Stephen is said to be “full of grace and power [and] doing great wonders and signs among the people”.
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 10:00am Holy Communion service at Christ Church on Christmas Morn.
In the Christian imaginary, Bethlehem is a crowded scene of symbolic significance. How much, we might say, is imagined and created out of what seems so little in terms of detail and information? There is not much data about Bethlehem but so much more in the way of symbol and significance. “This shall be a sign unto you,” the Angel says to the Shepherds and to us in the quiet of Christmas Morn. The sign of the birth of “a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord” is the babe “wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger,” born this day in the city of David, Bethlehem.
Luke uses the word manger three times in this chapter. Along with the fact that “there was no room for them in the inn,” the word manger contributes to the classical and traditional imagery of the nativity scene. But there is a deeper theological point that we hear only on Christmas Eve from John’s Prologue: “He came unto his own and his own received him not.” It signals the theme of our rejection or denial of the good.
The story of Christ’s birth in the humble circumstances of a manger or stall, meaning “a long open box or trough in a stable for horses or cattle to eat from” (OED), makes no mention of a stable or barn nor any direct mention of animals. But the word manager, (οατνη), in contrast to an inn or lodging (καταλυμα), points to the humble and lowly circumstances of Christ’s birth and thus to the realities of our finite world of limitations and hardships, of sin and evil. His birth embraces the conditions of our humanity in its various forms of brokenness or incompleteness. He does not come in power and with great glory understood in terms of worldly expectations. He comes as Saviour to redeem our finite and fallen world.
The point is that Christ’s birth confounds all our human expectations even as it reveals the deeper wisdom of the Scriptures in their interplay and interconnection about God’s purpose for our humanity. The animals associated in holy imagination with the Bethlehem scene come from the Angelic message to the Shepherds who will make their way to “see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.” From that will come a whole menagerie of animals and angels along with, finally, the Magi-Kings; all of which symbolize the whole of humanity and creation as gathered to God. What is that really all about except a profound sense of Bethlehem as paradise restored, an image of the hope of heaven, of salvation which is not a flight from the world or creation but its redemption and restoration? We make the mistake, as Flannery O’Connor has put it, of “domesticating divinity,” conforming God to ourselves and our comforts and expectations, as if Christ’s incarnation is little more than an affirmation of ourselves in our various identities and existential anxieties. We get it backwards. “Be ye not conformed to the world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your minds” on the things of God revealed to us in the witness of the Scriptures and by our reasoning upon them. Christ comes to redeem us from ourselves and to restore us to the truth of ourselves as known in God’s eternal knowing and loving of us.