sermon for the first sunday after christmas, december 30 2007

The image above is the shrine at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the actual spot where tradition says the Word-made-flesh entered the world.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.”

 

I believe today’s Gospel lesson is the straightest talk in the Bible about who Jesus is.  These few sentences of God’s revelation speak most directly about what’s going on with and in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  Its as though the Holy Spirit calls a time out in the course of the Biblical narrative, sits us down, and says “Look, here’s what’s going on.  Here’s the skinny.  No more prophetic figures.  Nor more opaque witness to God’s plan.  HERE IS THE WAY THINGS ARE.  In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was with God, and the Word WAS God….”  This passage in John’s gospel is a glimpse behind the curtain of the universe.  In this passage we catch sight of what God and his relation to the universe.

 

These are beautiful, powerful words.  They are words full of mystery.  When I was at Yale, I had a very dear friend named Robert.  Robert was a professor of Political Philosophy at the University.  He was a Jew and an atheist.  But in the course of his work, he became interested in how Christ is meant to be a representative of God to the people, and of the People to God.  And pursuing this interest, he fell in love with the passage from John’s Gospel which we have just read.  He read it over and over, savoring the rhythms of its tropes in the King James Version:  “and the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not… and of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace…”

 

In the middle of Robert’s research and his meditations on this passage, he developed an aggressive brain tumor.  Over the months it became clear that he would not survive, and he moved back to England, where he had grown up, to die.  Shortly after Robert moved back to England, my dear friend Muffin, whom some of you have met, had a layover in London on her way to Africa, and she went to Cambridge to visit Robert.  During the course of their visit, Robert asked to receive the Sacrament of Baptism.  He renounced Satan and all his works, and declared to Muffin that he believed in Jesus, and Muffin poured water over his head in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  A day or two later, Robert died.

 

I know Robert’s conversion was the result of his meditation on this passage from John.  He was seduced by its mysterious beauty, and that beauty was for him a springboard to the TRUTH of what God has done in Jesus – that the divine Word, who was in the beginning with God, through whom the universe came into being – that this Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.  And Robert beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.  Robert believed in him, and by him was given power to become a child of God.

 

….

 

God has revealed himself in Jesus.  When we look at Jesus, we look at God.  When we meditate on Jesus, we meditate on God.  When we consider the miracles and healings of Jesus, we consider the power of God.  No one has ever seen God.  But Jesus Christ, the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, HE has made him known.

 

Being a Christian, most fundamentally, means believing what God has revealed in Jesus, and then living out of that belief.  That’s what it means to “live by faith” (Gal. 3.11).  At the end of the day, it means patterning your whole life according to the teachings of the Gospel.  This kind of life is the life of a child of God.  Its what Saint Paul is talking about in today’s epistle reading when he says:  “Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed.”  Because the Word was made flesh, we now know what it is to be given totally to God, because we see it in Jesus.  And WE live for God when we order our lives toward Jesus, when we are oriented toward him, when we make life-choices out of consideration for what he has revealed.

 

Often when we hear talk of “obedience” we think of being governed by rules; we think of  servility or dogmatic legalism.  But that’s not what’s going on here.  The opportunity of living a life for Jesus, patterned on what he reveals, is the opportunity of life IN him, and the life that is in him is eternal.  In him was light, and the life was the light of men.  Life in him is life indeed.  As Paul says in the final verses of today’s epistle, life in Christ, the life of FAITH, means the opposite of servility: it means freedom, it means coming into your inheritance as a child of God, it means no longer living under the threat of divine judgment and retribution.  Life in Christ means being able to call God “Abba, Father.”  God isn’t just God anymore; in Christ he is a benevolent, all-loving, all-merciful, all-forgiving FATHER, who loves us, who seeks us, who provides for us, and who calls us home to be with him forever.

 

Today’s reading from Isaiah speaks in figures about the life God offers us through trust in Jesus.  For in him our vindication goes forth as brightness, and our salvation as a burning torch.  Our vindication is there for all to see, and in him all the authorities of the earth may see our glory.  We are called by a new name, for we are Christians, named for the Christ, which the mouth of the Lord has given.  In him we are a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our God.

 

In the end, that is the wonderful thing: that God has not only revealed himself in Jesus, but that he has GIVEN HIMSELF TO US in Jesus.  The plenitude of divine grace and truth and light and life revealed in Jesus becomes ours as we become his.

 

Let us pray.

 

Lord we thank you that you have revealed yourself to us in the face of your Son.  We thank you most of all that you have given yourself to us in him.  Teach us and enable us to seek you in him – to give ourselves to him, that in him we might have grace and light and life and glory.

 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

sermon for the fourth sunday of advent, december 23 2007

This image (to the left) is a 13th century icon of the Prophet Isaiah and the Blessed Virgin.  An appropriate image for the Advent 4 propers.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.  Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel.”

 

Today’s Old Testament Lesson relates a prophecy of Isaiah to Ahaz, the king of Judah.  Ahaz was a young king, and he was being harassed by foreign powers who were marching against Jerusalem to conquer it.  The foreigners were really too strong for him, but Isaiah had been sent by the Lord to Ahaz to reassure and to exhort him to trust in the Lord.  The Lord wishes to tell Ahaz that despite the seemingly impossible situation, despite the doom that seemed to be impending, the Lord is faithful and will not go back on his promise to David.  He will save his people.  In the passage just before today’s reading, Isaiah prophesies to Ahaz, saying:  “Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of… the fierce anger of … Syria…” (Is. 7.4).

 

So our reading today comes on the heals of this reassurance, and is a continuation of it.  But in today’s reading we notice something about Ahaz:  he does not really TRUST the Lord’s reassurance.  In the face of the forces arrayed against him, Ahaz, has a very difficult time listening to the word of the Lord.  He looks out and sees that he is vastly outnumbered.  Every day he hears the reports of the enemy’s advancement.  So when the prophet Isaiah turns up with reassurances purporting to be from the Lord himself, they probably seemed to Ahaz like pie-in-the-sky illusions –  in the face of the cold, hard facts with which he was confronted.  The opposition of the world had begun to dominate the heart of Ahaz.  When Ahaz looked out on the world, he saw things through the lens of impending doom.  He looked at the past promises of God through the lens of the opposition with which he was faced.  He looked at his own relationship to the Lord in the light of impending doom.

 

And – annoyingly – when Isaiah’s first reassurance is met with the incredulity of Ahaz, the Lord ups the ante.  Isaiah has told Ahaz something fairy outlandish to begin with:  “Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint” – “Do you see all those marauding Syrians out there, headed your way – the ones who are much more powerful than you?  Don’t worry about them.  I have promised to take care of you, and I am going to take care of you.”  And now the Lord ups the ante: “The Lord himself will give you a sign.  Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel” – which means “God with us.”

 

Its as though the Lord is saying “You don’t want to trust me?  Fine.  I will do something indubitably spectacular.  My plan of redemption will bring the Syrian hordes to nothing.  Your lack of trust is beggarly in my sight.  The name of my salvation is Immanuel, because I myself will come among you to save you.”

 

Ahaz was a mere cog in the wheel of the narrative of salvation the Lord was writing, but he could not see past his own circumstances.  His thinking was backward.  He thought his circumstances were the most important.  In the face of the worldly powers with which he was confronted, he stopped believing in the salvation promised by God.  Who knows how things might have been had Ahaz listened to the word of the Lord.  We’ll never know.  HE didn’t listen.  He didn’t trust in God’s power.  Rather, he trusted in the power of his enemies to dominate him.  And indeed he WAS humiliatingly subjected to the Assyrians.  He became their stooge and puppet.  But God raised up other instruments of his will, and the inexorable march of God’s redemption went on – without the help of Ahaz.

 

When we are faced with opposition from the world, in whom do we trust?  Do we trust the Lord to deliver us, to make provision for us, to USE us to work out his own purposes, for salvation and glory?  Or do we believe in the sovereignty of our problems?

 

Whether we are faced with sickness, financial problems, loneliness, or whatever…  No matter what powers of the world stand in opposition to us, even though they may have been brought about by our negligence or sinfulness – no matter what, the Lord calls us to trust in him in the midst of them, to give ourselves into his care.  The Lord promises himself to come to us and to work his salvation within us, and then through us.  And through a process of positive TRUST in the Lord, we are delivered from the domination of evil.  Its not that our problems will disappear like a puff of smoke the minute we decide to trust the Lord – in John’s Gospel the Lord says “I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace.  In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

 

If we are able to give ourselves to the Lord, to allow his plan of redemption to blossom in our hearts, then we get peace and good cheer in the midst of tribulation.  Being a disciple of Jesus does not mean that you get DELIVERED from tribulation – it means that you do NOT get DEFEATED by tribulation: that you may endure it with peace and good cheer, in the assurance of communion with Jesus, who has overcome the world.

 

We get a picture of this kind of assurance, of this kind of FAITH, in today’s Gospel lesson, with Saint Joseph.

 

Joseph faced trouble.  He was poor.  He was a manual laborer.  But he was a just man.  Suddenly he finds that his fiancée is pregnant, and he knows he’s not the Father.  That’s trouble.  But an angel appears to him and says “Do not fear…”  Do not fear.  And Joseph listens.  How do we know he listened?  Because he OBEYED.  “He did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, but knew her not until she had borne a son, and he called his name Jesus.”

 

Live your life with a heart open to God’s saving work.  Do not fear opposition.  Do not fear sickness, poverty, loneliness, -- do not even fear death.  These things are tribulation that a part of the tribulation that the world brings.  If we allow them to govern us, we will wind up like Ahaz, stooges and puppets of foreign powers, and alienated from the Lord’s salvation.

 

But if we trust the Lord and his promises, we will be like Joseph who was a just man, without fear, and who became the earthly custodian of God himself.

 

Let us pray.  Lord we thank you for calling to us.  We thank you for ordaining us to a place in the unfolding of your salvation.  Teach us to trust you, and to obey you.  And give us peace and good cheer, confident in the victory of your Son.

 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

sermon from the second sunday of advent, december 9 2007

The Scripture readings for this Sunday may be found here.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

“Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees…”

 

Today’s Gospel lesson from St. Matthew presents us the figure of John the Baptist.  St. Matthew tells us that John is the one prophesied by Isaiah, when he spoke of “the voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”  And Isaiah goes on to say, in the well known idiom of the Authorized Version of the Bible (the King James Version) made famous by the oratorio from Handel’s Messiah:  “And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.”

 

John the Baptist was the last of the Old Testament prophets.  He is late on the scene.  The narrative of salvation written by God in the vacillations of Israel’s fidelity has come to term.  The earth is groaning in travail for the fulfillment of God’s promise of redemption. John the Baptist comes on the scene, calling the people to repentance in the lateness of the cosmic hour:  The Glory of the Lord is about to be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together:  for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

 

What was true in John the Baptist’s day is likewise true for us:  the Lord is coming.  The season of Advent is a reminder that just as surely as the Lord HAS come, he is coming again.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat in the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.  The Lord seeks a heart and a volition, a WILL, that is in accord with his own.  “Deep calls to deep in the noise of your cataracts” says the Psalm (42.7).  The sanctity of God seeks itself in us.  It searches for itself in us.

 

You and Jesus Christ are rushing toward one another, through the inexorable pathway of time.  All flesh shall see him, including yours and mine.  Therefore John the Baptist’s message should ring in our ears with some urgency:  Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.  We are called not to passive waiting for the coming of the Lord, but to active PREPARATION.

 

But what IS the way of the Lord?  And how do you prepare it?  The way of the Lord is the pathway of the human heart.  And its preparation is training in the sanctity that God seeks in us.  “In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death” (Prov. 12.28).  To prepare the way of the Lord means to make our hearts ready for him.

 

If it came to pass that some immanent person, a dignitary or a celebrity, were coming to your house for dinner, would you not clean the house?  Would you not take care that all was in order, that the dust was swept out, and the dishes clean?  But what does it mean that the King of the Universe is coming into our lives and we do little or nothing to prepare for him?  Just as a physical house needs to be cleaned, so too does the pathway of our heart need to be cleansed and made ready.  The Lord will not force an entry into your life.  He said “Behold I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

 

Behold I stand at the door and knock.  The Lord does not beat the door down.  He seeks an INVITATION to entry.  And many of us withhold that invitation out of shame at the condition of our spiritual houses.  Perhaps in those moments of solitude and silence, when we really think about it, when we are honest with ourselves, we find that we really do not want the Lord to meet us as we are.  There is too much nastiness inside of us.  The pathway of our heart is cluttered, and we are ashamed.

 

Yet the Lord stands at the door and knocks.  And his knocking is the sound of the axe laid to the root of the trees.  When I think of this mysterious saying of John the Baptist, I inevitably think of the Lord’s saying, before he suffered: “now is the judgment of this world, now will the ruler of this world be cast out.  And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself” (Jn. 12.32).  The judgment of this world, and the axe laid to the root of the trees, are I think the overwhelming aspect of the self-giving of God.  For all things must give way before the radical nature of his love for us, the totality with which he pours himself out to us and for us.

 

And as we are faced with the advent of Christ in our hearts, there are only two possibilities, either our selfishness and our evil desires will get the better of us, and we will ourselves give way to make room for Christ’s glory – OR we will have prepared to meet him, we will have swept our hearts clean of concupiscence and self-seeking, and honed our desires on the quest for the face of Jesus, the Lover of our souls.

 

This is why “in those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  Because repentance is what it is to prepare the way of the Lord, to make straight his paths.  To repent is to clear the heart of its attachments to the world and the flesh.  To facilitate the entrance of Jesus, who stands at the door and knocks.  It is to make one’s house presentable for so great a Guest.

 

Christ is coming.  His coming is immanent.  The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.  The question for you and me is whether we will heed John’s call to repentance, so that when the holiness of the Lord seeks itself in our hearts, it will find itself there, and draw us gently into the embrace of the Lord’s peace.

 

Let us pray.  Lord teach us to seek you.  Replace our evil desires with your own holiness, with your own self-gift.  Lord teach us to recognize the sound of your knocking at the door of our hearts, and give us the courage to open to you.  Deliver us from judgment.  Teach us to heed the Baptist’s call and to repent.  Grant, Lord, that we may use this season of Advent wisely, as a time of preparation to meet you when you shall come in glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead.

 

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.