Merry Christmas! I hope that it has been a merry Christmas for you, and that it continues for the rest of Christmastide—another nine days! Did anyone get their three French hens this morning? Christmas is, as we all know, a season of gift-giving, although few of us can afford to be as extravagant as the true love sung about in the “Twelve Days of Christmas.” The gifts in the song are impractical—what in the world are you supposed to do with ten lords a-leaping?—but they reflect the kind of enthusiasm and sustained devotion we all hope to find in our own true loves, which is why I think the song remains a favorite at Christmastime, apart from the fact that it’s a lot of fun to sing in large groups! Who wouldn’t want their true love to shower them with gifts for twelve straight days, with each day showing more and more how much affection and love is there. The gifts themselves aren’t nearly as important as the love they show—although, maybe we could do without quite so many birds—and what really counts is that the lovers get to share the giving and the receiving of gifts together.
We gather together here as a church during Christmastime to remind each other that our true “true love” is always reaching out to us with gifts that show us His love, not just for twelve days at Christmastime, but every day. God is the first and greatest giver of gifts—God has given us everything: “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being;” this world we live in, the people around us, everything that is good and beautiful in the world comes to us as a gift from the Creator. And God is not satisfied with these great gifts; God wants to give us more, to draw us closer to Him in love so that we can be together, so that, as Isaiah says, “our whole being shall exult in our God.” God wants to clothe us with the garments of salvation, God wants to cover us with the robes of righteousness, like a wedding garment—each of us dressed as a bridegroom or bride for a heavenly wedding. God is wooing us, not for a marriage as we know it, but for a different kind of union—eternal life with our true “true love,” the God of heaven and earth.
The desire to gather us together and prepare us for eternal life together with God in heaven is the reason why God gave us His greatest gift, the real gift of Christmas: Jesus Christ. On the first day of Christmas, our true love gave to us a child, lying in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes. This child is the Word of God, who was in the beginning with God, and who was God—this child is the Creator himself, the only Son of God, the perfect image of God the Father, the Christ child who shows us God. No one has ever seen God, but in Jesus, the invisible God is made known, made visible in human likeness, so that we can see and know the fullness of God’s love for us. Through his human life, Jesus shows us what it is to be a true child of God. By dedicating ourselves to Christ, by receiving the Christmas gift from our true “true Love,” we too, can become children of God, can enter into the family of God so that we can be together with Him and with all the children of God for all eternity. Today, we remember Jesus as a baby, but it won’t be long before we remember him as a man—his life embraces the fullness of human life, and from his fullness we have received grace upon grace, gift upon gift. The life of Christ is the crossroads, the place where God and humanity intersect and meet: in Jesus, God comes to us and we go to God.
We are here today to remember these truths, but not just to remember them. Today, we are going to put them into action, because we are here today for another reason, and he is sitting right there in that front pew. We are here today asking God to give a Christmas gift to Connor James Murray, the gift of baptism. Today, we are introducing one little boy to another: in that baptismal font, Connor will meet the infant Jesus. I hope that they will grow together to be life-long friends. I hope that Jesus will tell Connor everything about his parents: his mother, Mary, and especially God his Father; and I hope that Connor will talk to Jesus about his mother and father: Stacie & Ryan. I hope that Connor will trust his new friend Jesus with his joys and his hardships, his fears and his triumphs. I hope that they will share a long life together, and I hope that Jesus will present Connor to God the Father as a true child of God, who also calls God Father by the power of the Spirit.
In a few minutes, Connor will receive that Holy Spirit from the hands of God. As I pour the water over his brow, God will pour the light of Christ into his heart, the light that banishes the powers of darkness and despair. He will be clothed in Christ, who is the garment of salvation and the robe of righteousness. This baptism is a beginning for Connor, a gift that will continue to give for his whole life: a gift that is received by faith. And that’s where we come in, we the church, the people of faith. The light of Christ burns by faith, and we keep the fire kindled in each other, supporting one another’s faith through our common life together of prayer and service. The gift of baptism, as wonderful as it is, profits no one without faith in the God who gives it to us. God is the giver of extravagant gifts: they surround us all the time, but we must have the eyes and ears of faith to see them, to hear them, to receive them. In this baptismal rite, we will rededicate ourselves to God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit, that we may always walk by faith in the one true God, the giver of all good gifts, so that at the last day, we may share eternal life with our true “true Love”, the Lord of life. So let us now welcome Connor into the life of faith, and set our own feet on the way again.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Christmas Day - Peter Tierney
“Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”
Mary the mother of Jesus; Mary the mother of God, on the night of his birth received the glad tidings spoken by angels and given to humble shepherds: “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” Mary embraced those wondrous words, those heavenly words that signaled the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy: ‘For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Mary heard these words about her newborn son, her miraculous son, born far from home in a strange town—in a lonely cattle shed—and she believed. Mary took all these words, she treasured them and she pondered them in her heart, and she adored her Son, the Lord.
These words are trustworthy and true: A child has been born for us; a son has been given to us, and he is the Messiah, the Lord Jesus. But before he was born for us, he was born by Mary; before he was given to us, he was given to her. And here we behold one of the greatest Christmas mysteries: Jesus, the Son of God, God the Son, is born of a woman—is born of this woman: Mary. Jesus, the savior of the world, the glorious Prince of Peace, would not, could not, be who he is without her, without Mary his mother. His whole humanity comes from her—surely he resembled her, surely the neighbors were always saying, “Doesn’t little Jesus look so much like his mother?” It was Mary and Joseph who raised Jesus in their Jewish faith, who taught him the scriptures and fostered his great love for his heavenly Father, the God of Israel. It was Mary who fed him and clothed him, Mary who provided for him and raised him to be the man we know in the Gospels. We are all products of our parents and our upbringing, and Jesus is no different. Without his mother Mary raising and guiding him, Jesus would have been a wholly different person, and a wholly different person would not be the savior that we know, the Messiah we have been promised.
This is one of the glorious mysteries of Christmas, that from before the foundation of the world God the Father knew that Mary would be the one to bring Jesus into the world, God the Son knew that Mary would be his mother, and God the Holy Spirit knew that she would freely say “yes,” with all her heart, to God’s plan for the world’s salvation. Everything depended on Mary’s “yes,” everything we know about Jesus and what he has done for us depended on his mother saying “yes” to his birth. And that is the foundation of the good news that the angels announced to the shepherds on that first Christmas night: Christ is born of Mary, her great “yes” has borne the fruit of salvation, unto us a child is born, wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger. The shepherds rushed to see the holy child and the holy family, and they shared their vision with Joseph and Mary. But later, in the morning, those shepherds went their own way, and Jesus was left with his parents: the beginning of thirty quiet years that we know almost nothing about—thirty years with his mother helping him become the man he needed to be. But Mary never forgot that holy night and the words brought to her by those shepherds—she treasured all those words and pondered them in her heart. And her heart, filled with love and God’s promise, her heart helped guide the heart of her son.
Mary is the Mother of God, the mother of Jesus, but she is also our mother: the mother of our faith because she was the first to believe in Jesus, the first to say “yes” to him in faith and love. Mary is Jesus’ first disciple, the first one to adore the Christ Child and the first person to follow her Son, even as she led him through his early years. Mary is the first one to dedicate her life to his life. She never wavered in her faith; she stayed by Christ’s side throughout his life, never stifling him but always letting his light shine. And if we are made children of God through faith in the Son of God, then that same faith makes us children of Jesus’ mother as well, children of faith. Mary is our model for devotion to Jesus Christ; like her, we are asked to dedicate our lives to him, and to receive the blessings of grace, peace, salvation and heavenly joy that he was born to bring. This Christmas, we recall the angelic hymn proclaimed to the shepherds, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those whom he favors!” God’s glory and God’s peace comes to us in Jesus Christ, and like his mother Mary, we can treasure these truths and ponder them in our hearts every day of our lives. And as we do, as we become more like her in our devotion, the closer we will be to her beautiful Son, Jesus the Christ, the beloved Child of God our Father in heaven, our saviour and redeemer. May we always be like Mary, saying “yes” to Christ our Lord, always letting him be born anew in our hearts. May his light shine on you Christmas, and every day in the new year that is coming. Merry, Merry Christmas.
Mary the mother of Jesus; Mary the mother of God, on the night of his birth received the glad tidings spoken by angels and given to humble shepherds: “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” Mary embraced those wondrous words, those heavenly words that signaled the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy: ‘For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Mary heard these words about her newborn son, her miraculous son, born far from home in a strange town—in a lonely cattle shed—and she believed. Mary took all these words, she treasured them and she pondered them in her heart, and she adored her Son, the Lord.
These words are trustworthy and true: A child has been born for us; a son has been given to us, and he is the Messiah, the Lord Jesus. But before he was born for us, he was born by Mary; before he was given to us, he was given to her. And here we behold one of the greatest Christmas mysteries: Jesus, the Son of God, God the Son, is born of a woman—is born of this woman: Mary. Jesus, the savior of the world, the glorious Prince of Peace, would not, could not, be who he is without her, without Mary his mother. His whole humanity comes from her—surely he resembled her, surely the neighbors were always saying, “Doesn’t little Jesus look so much like his mother?” It was Mary and Joseph who raised Jesus in their Jewish faith, who taught him the scriptures and fostered his great love for his heavenly Father, the God of Israel. It was Mary who fed him and clothed him, Mary who provided for him and raised him to be the man we know in the Gospels. We are all products of our parents and our upbringing, and Jesus is no different. Without his mother Mary raising and guiding him, Jesus would have been a wholly different person, and a wholly different person would not be the savior that we know, the Messiah we have been promised.
This is one of the glorious mysteries of Christmas, that from before the foundation of the world God the Father knew that Mary would be the one to bring Jesus into the world, God the Son knew that Mary would be his mother, and God the Holy Spirit knew that she would freely say “yes,” with all her heart, to God’s plan for the world’s salvation. Everything depended on Mary’s “yes,” everything we know about Jesus and what he has done for us depended on his mother saying “yes” to his birth. And that is the foundation of the good news that the angels announced to the shepherds on that first Christmas night: Christ is born of Mary, her great “yes” has borne the fruit of salvation, unto us a child is born, wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger. The shepherds rushed to see the holy child and the holy family, and they shared their vision with Joseph and Mary. But later, in the morning, those shepherds went their own way, and Jesus was left with his parents: the beginning of thirty quiet years that we know almost nothing about—thirty years with his mother helping him become the man he needed to be. But Mary never forgot that holy night and the words brought to her by those shepherds—she treasured all those words and pondered them in her heart. And her heart, filled with love and God’s promise, her heart helped guide the heart of her son.
Mary is the Mother of God, the mother of Jesus, but she is also our mother: the mother of our faith because she was the first to believe in Jesus, the first to say “yes” to him in faith and love. Mary is Jesus’ first disciple, the first one to adore the Christ Child and the first person to follow her Son, even as she led him through his early years. Mary is the first one to dedicate her life to his life. She never wavered in her faith; she stayed by Christ’s side throughout his life, never stifling him but always letting his light shine. And if we are made children of God through faith in the Son of God, then that same faith makes us children of Jesus’ mother as well, children of faith. Mary is our model for devotion to Jesus Christ; like her, we are asked to dedicate our lives to him, and to receive the blessings of grace, peace, salvation and heavenly joy that he was born to bring. This Christmas, we recall the angelic hymn proclaimed to the shepherds, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those whom he favors!” God’s glory and God’s peace comes to us in Jesus Christ, and like his mother Mary, we can treasure these truths and ponder them in our hearts every day of our lives. And as we do, as we become more like her in our devotion, the closer we will be to her beautiful Son, Jesus the Christ, the beloved Child of God our Father in heaven, our saviour and redeemer. May we always be like Mary, saying “yes” to Christ our Lord, always letting him be born anew in our hearts. May his light shine on you Christmas, and every day in the new year that is coming. Merry, Merry Christmas.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Christmas Eve - Skip Windsor
Luke 2:1-20
Let us pray: In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen.
There is a story that says that on Christmas Eve an enchantment falls upon the earth. It is a time when the Spirit of a newborn Child whose name is Love possesses the world. The way to Christmas lies through an ancient gate patterned after a sheepfold and guarded by angels with stardust in their hair. It is a little gate, child-high, and there is a password: “Peace on earth to all of good will.”
Tonight, I invite us to step through the Christmas Gate and, for one brief illuminating moment, ponder once again the Nativity story of the Word who came into the world wordless and became one of us so we could be one with Him.
This night is unique among the other nights of the year. You and I gather together as families and friends to pause and ponder the absolute audacity of God to come into the world not as a powerful prince, but as a homeless child. The Nativity of Jesus stretches past the limits of rational thinking and takes us to the farthest reaches of wonder where we are left standing in the unmapped realm of divine mystery.
Christmas is when you and I celebrate and honor our Eternal God who chooses to come into the world as one of us – as a baby, who is speechless, dependent and vulnerable. The One who was proclaimed as Messiah, the Branch of the House of David, and the God whom nations proclaim as Lord, Savior, and King is seen this silent and holy night as a baby, held by his mother, who holds him and rocks him to sleep with a lullaby.
How can we not be drawn to Bethlehem? No matter how many times you and I have heard the story from Luke’s Gospel, Christmas conjures up memories and images from the past that we hold dear this night. It makes us hopeful and happy. It takes us back to childhood to a time of innocence and wonder. We still yearn for the innocent blessing at the manger.
Perhaps we are drawn like the shepherds and kings to Bethlehem again because we yearn for that innocence with those we once so happily possessed. Perhaps, we seek to remember a faint song whose melody and words we have forgotten. Perhaps, it is to glimpse back to another world – a landscape of delight from the past that has been eroded with the years. Maybe, it is to find some discarded talisman we left behind when we grew into adulthood. Some would say it is a quest for a second naïveté that will restore once again the wonder, the awe, and the curiosity we once held in an earlier time.
The quest for a lost innocence is the shadow side of maturity. Our quest today is nothing new. It is timeless. This yearning haunted Thomas Traherne, the 17th Century Anglican mystic and priest, who wrote, “The light that shone in my infancy in its original and innocent clarity was totally eclipsed; so that as a man I had to learn it all over again.”
Christmas allows us to reclaim our innocence. It is the time re-learn who we were.
The gift of this night pulls us back away from the cares and worries of the moment. There is time enough for tomorrow but tonight we’re on vacation. It’s time to take a break, relax and to dream: dream of the coming of light and sound from a shining star, of the glittering array of Cherubim, Seraphim, archangels, angels, and white-robed saints who echo through the firmament of heaven that this Christmas is to be a Holiday.
Christmas is our moment to take a holiday from all encroaching demands, fears, worries and anxieties that confront us every other day of the year. Tonight, we shed all that. Tonight, we travel light. Tonight, we wonder and marvel at Love’s pure unfolding. Tonight, God’s calls us to celebrate, to rejoice, and to share in the Christ Child’s birth.
Christmas is when angels and devils dance together, where the lion and the lamb lay down together, where peace like a river flows among enemies, where all souls are children at play, and where the entire starry host of heaven mingle as one, and God cries, “Holiday!”
On this holiest of nights, we are invited to know the secret fully known only to children and sages: That God is made known to us not through elaborate theories, carbon dating, or complex books, but in the flesh of a new born child. The Word made flesh comes to us wordlessly, silently, and tender as a kiss.
In the well known hymn, In the bleak Mid-Winter, by Christina Rossetti there are two verses that serve us tonight as affirmation and invitation:
There will be another day when force will have its day. There will be another time when complexity will have its moment. On another occasion, justice will have its season. And we will pray that we have the will to follow Him to that barren tree that is another kind of gate.
But tonight is not that night. Not yet. God is still a child this night; and we are to walk through the Gate of Christmas towards Him as children to share in joy, happiness and merriment. For the moment, the host of heaven calls us to take a holiday with God and shout out the password to all who will hear: “Peace on earth to all of good will.”
So this night of nights you and I are on holiday. Come let us adore Him and become children again and enter into His Heavenly Peace with comfort and joy.
Merry Christmas! Amen.
Let us pray: In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen.
There is a story that says that on Christmas Eve an enchantment falls upon the earth. It is a time when the Spirit of a newborn Child whose name is Love possesses the world. The way to Christmas lies through an ancient gate patterned after a sheepfold and guarded by angels with stardust in their hair. It is a little gate, child-high, and there is a password: “Peace on earth to all of good will.”
Tonight, I invite us to step through the Christmas Gate and, for one brief illuminating moment, ponder once again the Nativity story of the Word who came into the world wordless and became one of us so we could be one with Him.
This night is unique among the other nights of the year. You and I gather together as families and friends to pause and ponder the absolute audacity of God to come into the world not as a powerful prince, but as a homeless child. The Nativity of Jesus stretches past the limits of rational thinking and takes us to the farthest reaches of wonder where we are left standing in the unmapped realm of divine mystery.
Christmas is when you and I celebrate and honor our Eternal God who chooses to come into the world as one of us – as a baby, who is speechless, dependent and vulnerable. The One who was proclaimed as Messiah, the Branch of the House of David, and the God whom nations proclaim as Lord, Savior, and King is seen this silent and holy night as a baby, held by his mother, who holds him and rocks him to sleep with a lullaby.
How can we not be drawn to Bethlehem? No matter how many times you and I have heard the story from Luke’s Gospel, Christmas conjures up memories and images from the past that we hold dear this night. It makes us hopeful and happy. It takes us back to childhood to a time of innocence and wonder. We still yearn for the innocent blessing at the manger.
Perhaps we are drawn like the shepherds and kings to Bethlehem again because we yearn for that innocence with those we once so happily possessed. Perhaps, we seek to remember a faint song whose melody and words we have forgotten. Perhaps, it is to glimpse back to another world – a landscape of delight from the past that has been eroded with the years. Maybe, it is to find some discarded talisman we left behind when we grew into adulthood. Some would say it is a quest for a second naïveté that will restore once again the wonder, the awe, and the curiosity we once held in an earlier time.
The quest for a lost innocence is the shadow side of maturity. Our quest today is nothing new. It is timeless. This yearning haunted Thomas Traherne, the 17th Century Anglican mystic and priest, who wrote, “The light that shone in my infancy in its original and innocent clarity was totally eclipsed; so that as a man I had to learn it all over again.”
Christmas allows us to reclaim our innocence. It is the time re-learn who we were.
The gift of this night pulls us back away from the cares and worries of the moment. There is time enough for tomorrow but tonight we’re on vacation. It’s time to take a break, relax and to dream: dream of the coming of light and sound from a shining star, of the glittering array of Cherubim, Seraphim, archangels, angels, and white-robed saints who echo through the firmament of heaven that this Christmas is to be a Holiday.
Christmas is our moment to take a holiday from all encroaching demands, fears, worries and anxieties that confront us every other day of the year. Tonight, we shed all that. Tonight, we travel light. Tonight, we wonder and marvel at Love’s pure unfolding. Tonight, God’s calls us to celebrate, to rejoice, and to share in the Christ Child’s birth.
Christmas is when angels and devils dance together, where the lion and the lamb lay down together, where peace like a river flows among enemies, where all souls are children at play, and where the entire starry host of heaven mingle as one, and God cries, “Holiday!”
On this holiest of nights, we are invited to know the secret fully known only to children and sages: That God is made known to us not through elaborate theories, carbon dating, or complex books, but in the flesh of a new born child. The Word made flesh comes to us wordlessly, silently, and tender as a kiss.
In the well known hymn, In the bleak Mid-Winter, by Christina Rossetti there are two verses that serve us tonight as affirmation and invitation:
Angels and archangels may have gathered there,Tonight, what we are is enough for God. Tonight, God wants our hearts to be merry – To be of One Heart, One Mind, with Him. For tomorrow, we know, the Child of Bethlehem will mature into a man setting his face towards Jerusalem.
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air,
But his mother only in her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved with a kiss.
What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd I would bring him a lamb,
If I were a wiseman I would do my part,
Yet what can I give him, give him my heart.
There will be another day when force will have its day. There will be another time when complexity will have its moment. On another occasion, justice will have its season. And we will pray that we have the will to follow Him to that barren tree that is another kind of gate.
But tonight is not that night. Not yet. God is still a child this night; and we are to walk through the Gate of Christmas towards Him as children to share in joy, happiness and merriment. For the moment, the host of heaven calls us to take a holiday with God and shout out the password to all who will hear: “Peace on earth to all of good will.”
So this night of nights you and I are on holiday. Come let us adore Him and become children again and enter into His Heavenly Peace with comfort and joy.
Merry Christmas! Amen.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Advent IV - Skip Windsor
Luke 1:26-38; Canticle 15
Let us pray:
Almighty God, you invite us deeper and deeper into the mystery of Advent. Give us, we pray, your love shown through your servant, Mary, who said “yes” and made the whole creation new through your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.
The last Sunday in Advent is given over to the stories of Mary the mother of Jesus. Mary is mentioned, in one form or fashion, in all for Gospels. Yet, Luke is the most sympathetic of the Evangelists to who she is and what she represents to Christians. It is in Luke’s Gospel that we have a detailed account of the Annunciation, which we just heard proclaimed, as well as, of her song – the well known and lovely, Magnificat.
The text I invite us to consider this morning is the first line from the Magnificat, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.” I think these words say a lot to us this Christmas as we contemplate the gifts we will share with one another and what gifts can we give to God this season. I think the older translation of the Magnificat offers you and me a clue: “My soul doth magnify the Lord.” The key word is “magnify” because it alludes to the idea of glass.
I like to think that Mary is “the glass of God” because by her life she magnifies the greatness of God; but she is also like glass because she serves as a prism with many facets in which to turn and see her in a different light. As a prism she reflects the rays of the divine. Turn one way and we see Mary in one light. Turn another way and we see Mary in another light.
One facet of Mary is the Mary of Faith. Down through the centuries, much of the Christian Church has referred to Mary as the Theotokos or God-Bearer. As the Mother of Jesus or Son of God, she has a special place in the piety of the Church. She is also considered the source of healing in particular shrines and grottos such as Lourdes and Fatima. Roman Catholic dogma teaches that she is one who was immaculately conceived by her mother, Anne, and that she was assumed into heaven in the same vein as Elijah and Moses. In the Koran, Mary is mentioned more times than in the Bible. She is venerated in the Islamic faith as the mother of a great prophet and therefore is due the respect accorded to all mothers of religious prophets.
Another facet of Mary is the Mary of History. What we know of the historical Mary is included in the Gospels. Paul, the earliest of the Christian writers, does not mention Mary by name but alludes to Christ being born of a woman, when he writes, “(Jesus) who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3) and “Coming in human likeness and found human in appearance” (Phil. 2:7). It is left to Luke to fill in the gaps about Mary and we see that most clearly in the Gospel reading for this morning.
Imagine if you will a young girl of thirteen who is betrothed to an older man. She is like other girls in the village of Nazareth who are of age to marry being so guided by their mothers. Walking down the street, Mary wouldn’t appear out of the ordinary from other young raven haired, dark-eyed, girls you might see today in Hebron, Jerusalem, or Tel Aviv. Recalling Luke’s story, this young girl, Mary, is alone either in her house or out in a field somewhere. She is not expecting anything out of the ordinary and certainly not an archangel!
But a messenger comes; and he greets her with the words, “Favored one;” and that makes all the difference. God chooses whom God chooses. According Luke, Gabriel delivers God’s message and like any smart young woman who finds an archangel in her midst she is perplexed even frightened. Assuring Mary, the angel tells her that she has found favor in God’s eyes and that she will bear the Son of God.
I would like to think that Mary got caught up in the whole “How is this going to happen” thing. You get the sense that she gets stuck on the conception idea and kind of stops there to figure out how this is all going to work. How many times have we heard God’s call for something big in our lives, in our churches, only to get mired down in the details like, “Do I have time?” or “How’s this going to turn out?” If you catch my drift then it becomes easier to understand Mary’s perplexity. You can imagine her hands drift slowly down to her belly as if to try and feel a bit of the truth being offered to her.
What Luke is recounting is not only the favor and the promise given to Mary but, most importantly, the choice that is hers to make. Something is not going to be done to her; rather, something is going to be done with her. And in that turning of the glass, in that revolving of the prism, seeing it’s Mary’s choice makes all the difference in the world. It is Mary’s decision not God’s. There is a wonderful little story by Christian writer, Frederick Buechner, who imagines the encounter between Mary and Gabriel:
"She struck the angel Gabriel as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child, but he’d been entrusted with a message to give her and he gave it. He told her what the Child was to be named, and who He was to be, and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. “You mustn’t be afraid, Mary,” he said. As her said it, he only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great, golden wings he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of creation hung now on the answer of a girl.”
And so divinity is given by the consent of a girl who comes to understand that nothing is impossible with God. Nothing, my friends, is impossible with God. This is the good news for today. Trusting in God, can you and I respond with receptivity to God’s call to us? Are we open, like Mary, to the promise and possibility that God gives us through Jesus Christ?
The answer of a girl who said, Here am I… let it be…” is the invitation to us to be open to God’s call. “Yes” is the gift we can give to God. It is the gift Mary gave to God and it is the gift we, too, can give when invited by God to do great things. So this Christmas be open and “Let it be…” Amen.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, you invite us deeper and deeper into the mystery of Advent. Give us, we pray, your love shown through your servant, Mary, who said “yes” and made the whole creation new through your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.
The last Sunday in Advent is given over to the stories of Mary the mother of Jesus. Mary is mentioned, in one form or fashion, in all for Gospels. Yet, Luke is the most sympathetic of the Evangelists to who she is and what she represents to Christians. It is in Luke’s Gospel that we have a detailed account of the Annunciation, which we just heard proclaimed, as well as, of her song – the well known and lovely, Magnificat.
The text I invite us to consider this morning is the first line from the Magnificat, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.” I think these words say a lot to us this Christmas as we contemplate the gifts we will share with one another and what gifts can we give to God this season. I think the older translation of the Magnificat offers you and me a clue: “My soul doth magnify the Lord.” The key word is “magnify” because it alludes to the idea of glass.
I like to think that Mary is “the glass of God” because by her life she magnifies the greatness of God; but she is also like glass because she serves as a prism with many facets in which to turn and see her in a different light. As a prism she reflects the rays of the divine. Turn one way and we see Mary in one light. Turn another way and we see Mary in another light.
One facet of Mary is the Mary of Faith. Down through the centuries, much of the Christian Church has referred to Mary as the Theotokos or God-Bearer. As the Mother of Jesus or Son of God, she has a special place in the piety of the Church. She is also considered the source of healing in particular shrines and grottos such as Lourdes and Fatima. Roman Catholic dogma teaches that she is one who was immaculately conceived by her mother, Anne, and that she was assumed into heaven in the same vein as Elijah and Moses. In the Koran, Mary is mentioned more times than in the Bible. She is venerated in the Islamic faith as the mother of a great prophet and therefore is due the respect accorded to all mothers of religious prophets.
Another facet of Mary is the Mary of History. What we know of the historical Mary is included in the Gospels. Paul, the earliest of the Christian writers, does not mention Mary by name but alludes to Christ being born of a woman, when he writes, “(Jesus) who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Rom. 1:3) and “Coming in human likeness and found human in appearance” (Phil. 2:7). It is left to Luke to fill in the gaps about Mary and we see that most clearly in the Gospel reading for this morning.
Imagine if you will a young girl of thirteen who is betrothed to an older man. She is like other girls in the village of Nazareth who are of age to marry being so guided by their mothers. Walking down the street, Mary wouldn’t appear out of the ordinary from other young raven haired, dark-eyed, girls you might see today in Hebron, Jerusalem, or Tel Aviv. Recalling Luke’s story, this young girl, Mary, is alone either in her house or out in a field somewhere. She is not expecting anything out of the ordinary and certainly not an archangel!
But a messenger comes; and he greets her with the words, “Favored one;” and that makes all the difference. God chooses whom God chooses. According Luke, Gabriel delivers God’s message and like any smart young woman who finds an archangel in her midst she is perplexed even frightened. Assuring Mary, the angel tells her that she has found favor in God’s eyes and that she will bear the Son of God.
I would like to think that Mary got caught up in the whole “How is this going to happen” thing. You get the sense that she gets stuck on the conception idea and kind of stops there to figure out how this is all going to work. How many times have we heard God’s call for something big in our lives, in our churches, only to get mired down in the details like, “Do I have time?” or “How’s this going to turn out?” If you catch my drift then it becomes easier to understand Mary’s perplexity. You can imagine her hands drift slowly down to her belly as if to try and feel a bit of the truth being offered to her.
What Luke is recounting is not only the favor and the promise given to Mary but, most importantly, the choice that is hers to make. Something is not going to be done to her; rather, something is going to be done with her. And in that turning of the glass, in that revolving of the prism, seeing it’s Mary’s choice makes all the difference in the world. It is Mary’s decision not God’s. There is a wonderful little story by Christian writer, Frederick Buechner, who imagines the encounter between Mary and Gabriel:
"She struck the angel Gabriel as hardly old enough to have a child at all, let alone this child, but he’d been entrusted with a message to give her and he gave it. He told her what the Child was to be named, and who He was to be, and something about the mystery that was to come upon her. “You mustn’t be afraid, Mary,” he said. As her said it, he only hoped she wouldn’t notice that beneath the great, golden wings he himself was trembling with fear to think that the whole future of creation hung now on the answer of a girl.”
And so divinity is given by the consent of a girl who comes to understand that nothing is impossible with God. Nothing, my friends, is impossible with God. This is the good news for today. Trusting in God, can you and I respond with receptivity to God’s call to us? Are we open, like Mary, to the promise and possibility that God gives us through Jesus Christ?
The answer of a girl who said, Here am I… let it be…” is the invitation to us to be open to God’s call. “Yes” is the gift we can give to God. It is the gift Mary gave to God and it is the gift we, too, can give when invited by God to do great things. So this Christmas be open and “Let it be…” Amen.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Advent III - Skip Windsor
1 Thess. 5:16-24; John 1:19-28
Gracious God, Let these words be more than words and give us the spirit of Christ. Amen.
The reading from the Gospel of John is inserted into the Advent season to draw attention to the familiar figure of John the Baptist; or as his title should be more aptly read as “John the Herald.” For the Evangelist John, it is the role of Herald – the messenger – that the Baptist is to be remembered and not just as the one who baptizes Jesus in the River Jordan.
As herald and forerunner, John is pointing the people towards the “one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me…” Prior to this statement, people wondered whether John himself might be the Messiah. After all, he had a big following of people. So it would be natural to have the priests and Levites ask him “Who are you?” Of course, John gives them all a resounding “No” and then announces who he is: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” In this one sentence, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness,” that sums up much of the essence of John’s Gospel and crystallizes for us the meaning of this Advent season.
The use of “I am” will be used seven more times in this Gospel. Another man will use these words. They will be used by Jesus to answer other people’s similar question that was asked of John: “Who are you?” And Jesus will answer them: I am the resurrection and the life; I am the bread of life; I am the vine; and I am the light of the world. These “I am” sayings scholars call the Dominical Sayings and are self-referencing titles referring to the Messiah. Their origin comes from Exodus 3:14 when Moses asks God at the Burning Bush, “Who are you?” And, of course, we know what God says to Moses, “I am that I am.”
I am that I am. I am the Bread of Life. I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Does it seem to you this Advent that the Christian message is being lost in the dark woods of culture and society either by an overshadowing economic anxiety or a creeping seduction of deep discount sales causing people to act like cattle on the hoof? Does it seem to you that John’s statement is as true today as it was 2000 years ago? Can we still hear the herald’s thundering voice calling out to us as he did so long ago? I wonder because there are forces and points of view out there that are sidelining our Christian faith. I say this because it is not only that the John’s voice is being drowned out but so are his words.
This past week, the Oxford University Press announced that its dictionary for children is eliminating a number of words related to Christianity. Words like abbey, aisle, bishop, christen, disciple, monastery, monk, parish, pew, psalm, saint and vicar are to be replaced by words like blog, broadband, MP3 player, voicemail, attachment, database, export, chatroom, bullet point, and “cut and paste.”
The rationale being used by the dictionary editors to justify the changes is the declining church attendance and multiculturalism. Although surprising, it seems to be part of the continuing conversation among many pundits today about the decay of religion in our post-modern world.
There is post-modern point of view – a reputed post-Christian point of view - held by many that not only is Christianity declining but it is dead. In TV host, Bill Maher’s recent movie, Religulous, whose title is a riff on the words religious and ridiculous, he mocks people of faith, saying that religion is a “neurological disorder.”
His film interviews range from people at a Creation Museum in Kentucky to those who worship at a truck-stop chapel in North Carolina. In each case, he surmises that people say they are good because they want to be saved; and that for Maher, “that’s not a good reason to be religious.”
Evaluating Maher’s movie, Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe asks in a recent column the question, “Can you be good without God?” Attempting to explore this question, Jacoby cites in his column the Harvard lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, by writing,
According to Jacoby, Dershowitz, represents a growing number of people who claim that it is not only more moral not to need God but it is also better. This line of reasoning is follows a rising and unsettling atheistic pattern these days by thinkers and writers such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins who believe that religion is a malignant force in the world. While it is true that religious fundamentalism has pushed believers of all faiths into deadly wars, encrusted prejudice, and mindless thinking, it has also elevated humanity towards righteousness, forgiveness, and service.
Such leaders in culture and society such as Maher, Dershowitz, and Hitchens need a response from the religious community. And the question for us is whether we as people of faith are giving the opponents of faith and religion an adequate answer; or, are we like John the Herald who is crying out in the cultural, economic and political wilderness of our generation?
In our Psalm today, the author writes during a time of stress how a people came through tribulation and captivity and how God restored their homes, their lives, and their nation. Their response was gratitude, “Their mouths were filled with laughter and their tongues with shouts of joy.” Unlike the psalmist, I do not hear peels of laughter or words of joy coming from the mouths today of religion’s opponents.
One thing the opponents of religion forget is the joy that comes with faith. They do not get that religious people live responsibly, serve compassionately, and care deeply for God and one another not because God demands it but because God desires it. And these atheists cannot grasp the transformative power of God to forgive, to heal and to transform.
We have heard the stories of people who forgave a murderer who killed their Amish children. I have met a woman at Christ Church whose cancer is in remission because of the prayers of the people here. And I have seen a beaten and broken African-American boxer rise from defeat and prejudice to become the lay leader of an Episcopal Cathedral. Faith elevates people with dignity to their better selves ennobling them to serve God and God’s people with a joy that the world cannot give.
You and I like John are called to be heralds. We are to point to the one who not only gives joy; but he is joy. The apostle Paul was apprehended by this joy through the Risen Christ while on the road to Damascus and he wanted to share it with everyone. In our Epistle lesson this morning from First Thessalonians – his earliest letter and therefore the earliest piece of New Testament writing – Paul proclaims the joy in Christ when he writes, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, gives thanks in all circumstances.”
In uncertain economic times like right now sometimes it is hard to hear the voice of one crying in the wilderness let alone be a voice crying out in the wilderness. It seems easier to give into sadness and surrender at this time of year. Yet, Paul reminds us “to hold fast to what is good.”
Although you may feel like you are hanging on for dear life these days, we are reminded to hold fast by remembering that your joy – God’s joy – is not dependent upon prosperity, wealth, luck or anything external. Rather, it is based upon the remarkable gift given to each of us through the Holy Spirit of being part of the life, purpose, and work of God. As with any divine gifts, it is given to us for a reason.
Isn’t interesting that among the voices in our lessons this Advent and Christmas with all the prophets and sages that we hear of an early church community in Thessalonica who discovered peace and harmony in the midst of turmoil and trouble and found the fruits of their faithfulness was this joy. I would like to think that we are like the men and women of that little fledgling Christian Church who did not know what a day would bring; yet, in faith they believed God would be with them. They dreamed the good dreams of God in an age of nightmare – and they got through their dark nights of the soul because they never felt alone nor abandoned.
The image I hold this season is the image of the Salvation Army woman who is ringing a bell. In an ad on TV she is ringing a bell in the broken places of the world: in an alley with a huddled homeless man, in a cold home with a shivering mother and child, and on the roof of a house swamped by a flood as a boat rescues people there to safety. I would like to think that this image of the bell ringer is the icon of our Christian work together.
For it places us where we should be.
It places you and me in the shadow of Christmas where the helpless and the homeless live. It places us in the shadow of Christmas where the lonely and grieving feel forgotten. It places us in the shadow of Christmas where love is born. For it is in the shadows where Christ was born and where we will find our joy; and unlike faith’s opponents, who cannot grasp this simple truth, God gives us the faith and courage to go into the shadows to find him; and it is there among the least, the last, the lost and the lonely among the most vulnerable that we find the child Christ and come to love Him again as if for the first time. Amen.
Gracious God, Let these words be more than words and give us the spirit of Christ. Amen.
The reading from the Gospel of John is inserted into the Advent season to draw attention to the familiar figure of John the Baptist; or as his title should be more aptly read as “John the Herald.” For the Evangelist John, it is the role of Herald – the messenger – that the Baptist is to be remembered and not just as the one who baptizes Jesus in the River Jordan.
As herald and forerunner, John is pointing the people towards the “one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me…” Prior to this statement, people wondered whether John himself might be the Messiah. After all, he had a big following of people. So it would be natural to have the priests and Levites ask him “Who are you?” Of course, John gives them all a resounding “No” and then announces who he is: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” In this one sentence, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness,” that sums up much of the essence of John’s Gospel and crystallizes for us the meaning of this Advent season.
The use of “I am” will be used seven more times in this Gospel. Another man will use these words. They will be used by Jesus to answer other people’s similar question that was asked of John: “Who are you?” And Jesus will answer them: I am the resurrection and the life; I am the bread of life; I am the vine; and I am the light of the world. These “I am” sayings scholars call the Dominical Sayings and are self-referencing titles referring to the Messiah. Their origin comes from Exodus 3:14 when Moses asks God at the Burning Bush, “Who are you?” And, of course, we know what God says to Moses, “I am that I am.”
I am that I am. I am the Bread of Life. I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Does it seem to you this Advent that the Christian message is being lost in the dark woods of culture and society either by an overshadowing economic anxiety or a creeping seduction of deep discount sales causing people to act like cattle on the hoof? Does it seem to you that John’s statement is as true today as it was 2000 years ago? Can we still hear the herald’s thundering voice calling out to us as he did so long ago? I wonder because there are forces and points of view out there that are sidelining our Christian faith. I say this because it is not only that the John’s voice is being drowned out but so are his words.
This past week, the Oxford University Press announced that its dictionary for children is eliminating a number of words related to Christianity. Words like abbey, aisle, bishop, christen, disciple, monastery, monk, parish, pew, psalm, saint and vicar are to be replaced by words like blog, broadband, MP3 player, voicemail, attachment, database, export, chatroom, bullet point, and “cut and paste.”
The rationale being used by the dictionary editors to justify the changes is the declining church attendance and multiculturalism. Although surprising, it seems to be part of the continuing conversation among many pundits today about the decay of religion in our post-modern world.
There is post-modern point of view – a reputed post-Christian point of view - held by many that not only is Christianity declining but it is dead. In TV host, Bill Maher’s recent movie, Religulous, whose title is a riff on the words religious and ridiculous, he mocks people of faith, saying that religion is a “neurological disorder.”
His film interviews range from people at a Creation Museum in Kentucky to those who worship at a truck-stop chapel in North Carolina. In each case, he surmises that people say they are good because they want to be saved; and that for Maher, “that’s not a good reason to be religious.”
Evaluating Maher’s movie, Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe asks in a recent column the question, “Can you be good without God?” Attempting to explore this question, Jacoby cites in his column the Harvard lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, by writing,
“Doing something because God has said to do it does not make a person moral: It merely tells us that a person is a prudential believer, akin to the person who obeys the command of an all-mighty secular king… To be truly moral one should be a person of good character because it is right to be such a person.”
According to Jacoby, Dershowitz, represents a growing number of people who claim that it is not only more moral not to need God but it is also better. This line of reasoning is follows a rising and unsettling atheistic pattern these days by thinkers and writers such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins who believe that religion is a malignant force in the world. While it is true that religious fundamentalism has pushed believers of all faiths into deadly wars, encrusted prejudice, and mindless thinking, it has also elevated humanity towards righteousness, forgiveness, and service.
Such leaders in culture and society such as Maher, Dershowitz, and Hitchens need a response from the religious community. And the question for us is whether we as people of faith are giving the opponents of faith and religion an adequate answer; or, are we like John the Herald who is crying out in the cultural, economic and political wilderness of our generation?
In our Psalm today, the author writes during a time of stress how a people came through tribulation and captivity and how God restored their homes, their lives, and their nation. Their response was gratitude, “Their mouths were filled with laughter and their tongues with shouts of joy.” Unlike the psalmist, I do not hear peels of laughter or words of joy coming from the mouths today of religion’s opponents.
One thing the opponents of religion forget is the joy that comes with faith. They do not get that religious people live responsibly, serve compassionately, and care deeply for God and one another not because God demands it but because God desires it. And these atheists cannot grasp the transformative power of God to forgive, to heal and to transform.
We have heard the stories of people who forgave a murderer who killed their Amish children. I have met a woman at Christ Church whose cancer is in remission because of the prayers of the people here. And I have seen a beaten and broken African-American boxer rise from defeat and prejudice to become the lay leader of an Episcopal Cathedral. Faith elevates people with dignity to their better selves ennobling them to serve God and God’s people with a joy that the world cannot give.
You and I like John are called to be heralds. We are to point to the one who not only gives joy; but he is joy. The apostle Paul was apprehended by this joy through the Risen Christ while on the road to Damascus and he wanted to share it with everyone. In our Epistle lesson this morning from First Thessalonians – his earliest letter and therefore the earliest piece of New Testament writing – Paul proclaims the joy in Christ when he writes, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, gives thanks in all circumstances.”
In uncertain economic times like right now sometimes it is hard to hear the voice of one crying in the wilderness let alone be a voice crying out in the wilderness. It seems easier to give into sadness and surrender at this time of year. Yet, Paul reminds us “to hold fast to what is good.”
Although you may feel like you are hanging on for dear life these days, we are reminded to hold fast by remembering that your joy – God’s joy – is not dependent upon prosperity, wealth, luck or anything external. Rather, it is based upon the remarkable gift given to each of us through the Holy Spirit of being part of the life, purpose, and work of God. As with any divine gifts, it is given to us for a reason.
Isn’t interesting that among the voices in our lessons this Advent and Christmas with all the prophets and sages that we hear of an early church community in Thessalonica who discovered peace and harmony in the midst of turmoil and trouble and found the fruits of their faithfulness was this joy. I would like to think that we are like the men and women of that little fledgling Christian Church who did not know what a day would bring; yet, in faith they believed God would be with them. They dreamed the good dreams of God in an age of nightmare – and they got through their dark nights of the soul because they never felt alone nor abandoned.
The image I hold this season is the image of the Salvation Army woman who is ringing a bell. In an ad on TV she is ringing a bell in the broken places of the world: in an alley with a huddled homeless man, in a cold home with a shivering mother and child, and on the roof of a house swamped by a flood as a boat rescues people there to safety. I would like to think that this image of the bell ringer is the icon of our Christian work together.
For it places us where we should be.
It places you and me in the shadow of Christmas where the helpless and the homeless live. It places us in the shadow of Christmas where the lonely and grieving feel forgotten. It places us in the shadow of Christmas where love is born. For it is in the shadows where Christ was born and where we will find our joy; and unlike faith’s opponents, who cannot grasp this simple truth, God gives us the faith and courage to go into the shadows to find him; and it is there among the least, the last, the lost and the lonely among the most vulnerable that we find the child Christ and come to love Him again as if for the first time. Amen.
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