Salt, Light & the Covenant of Life

 Isaiah 58.6-10 ‘Your light shall break forth like the dawn’

1 Corinthians 2.1-5 ‘I proclaimed to you the mystery of Christ crucified.’

Matthew 5.13-16 ‘You are the light of the world.’

 

Let your light shine before others,

so that they may see your good works

and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5.16)

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In our Gospel reading today, Jesus places before us two vivid and compelling images of what it means to be his disciples.

He does not simply suggest that we might become these things, nor does he offer them as distant aspirations.

Instead, he speaks with striking directness: you are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world.

These are not optional extras for the especially keen or the particularly holy.

They are declarations of identity.

Jesus tells us who we already are by virtue of belonging to him.

These sayings could not be more fitting on a day when we celebrate a baptism—both in the life of this parish and in the life of the Church Universal.

Baptism is the moment when a person is drawn into the life of Christ, grafted into his Body, and marked with his identity.

Today N enters into that life, and so these images of salt and light speak directly into the faith she receives and the vocation she begins.

Salt has remarkable properties.

In the ancient world it was essential for preserving food, preventing decay, and enabling life to flourish in harsh climates.

It also seasons food, enhancing and drawing out the flavours already present.

Yet salt must be used wisely.

Too little and it is ineffective; too much and it overwhelms, even destroys.

In large quantities it can kill vegetation and render land barren.

Salt is powerful, and its power must be rightly ordered.

So why does Jesus say to his disciples, you are the salt of the earth?

On one level, he is encouraging them—and us—to see ourselves as those who bring flavour and depth to the world, who draw out the goodness of God’s creation, who preserve what is holy and life-giving.

Christians are meant to make the world taste more like the Kingdom.

But there is a deeper resonance.

In Scripture, salt is closely associated with covenants—the sacred relationships into which God draws his people.

The Covenant of Priesthood with Aaron and his descendants is described as a ‘covenant of salt’ (Numbers 18.19).

Likewise, the Covenant of Kingship made with David is sealed with salt (2 Chronicles 13.5).

Salt symbolises permanence, fidelity, and the enduring nature of God’s promises.

In baptism we are formed as prophets, priests, and kings in Christ.

We are drawn into the Covenant of Grace sealed by his blood.

In the early Church, a small pinch of salt was placed on the tongue of the person being baptised.

This sal sapientiae—the ‘salt of wisdom’—symbolised purification, preservation from corruption, and the reception of divine understanding.

It was a sign that the newly baptised was being strengthened to live faithfully within God’s covenant.

So when Jesus asks, if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?, he is not merely offering a culinary observation.

He is speaking of covenant faithfulness.

If we, who are the salt of the earth, lose our saltiness, we cease to draw out the flavours of the Kingdom; we cease to preserve the way of the Lord; We fail to live the life into which we were baptised.

Salt loses its flavour when God’s people forget who they are.

The people of Israel lost their saltiness when they abandoned the covenant.

Christians lose theirs when we place other priorities ahead of Christ; when the life of the Church becomes optional; when receiving Christ in the Eucharist becomes something we can take or leave; when prayer dries up; when charity grows cold and we lose our connection with e Communion of Saints.

Salt only makes sense as salt when it is salty.

Likewise, human beings only make sense when our lives are shaped after Jesus Christ, the true Light of the World.

And this brings us to the second image Jesus gives us: you are the light of the world.

Just as salt is pointless without its distinctive properties, so light is pointless if hidden under a basket.

Light is meant to shine, to reveal, to guide, to warm.

What a remarkable assertion this is.

Jesus, who says of himself, I am the light of the world, also says to us, you are the light of the world.

Our light is not our own.

As the moon reflects the light of the sun, so we reflect the radiance of Christ.

Without him our lives are dim and cold.

True enlightenment is not found in human-centred philosophies but in turning toward the God-Man, Jesus Christ, the fullest expression of what it means to be human.

As St Paul reminds us, our faith does not rest “in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

When Christ is placed on the lampstand of our hearts, we cannot help but shine.

Our good works—our acts of mercy, justice, compassion, and faithfulness—become windows through which others glimpse the glory of God.

Jesus’ image of a city set on a hill would have immediately evoked Jerusalem.

Approaching it from the Jordan Valley at sunset, pilgrims could see its lights from afar.

They lifted their eyes to the hills and sang, “from whence cometh my help?”—knowing that their help came not from the earthly city but from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

Jerusalem was a city of light, its Temple illuminated by golden lampstands.

Yet even that city fell into darkness when the powers of this world sought to extinguish the Light of the World.

But the light could not be overcome.

The One who was present when God said, ‘Let there be light,’ (Genesis 1.1) shines even through death and into our hearts.

It is into this radiant mystery that N is baptised today.

She is sealed with Christ’s light and seasoned with his salt.

And we, with her, are called again to be what Jesus declares us to be: the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

May we draw out the flavours of the Kingdom, preserve what is holy, and shine with the light that leads others to the Father. Amen.

 

Salvation presented

 Malachi 3.1-4 ‘The Lord whom you seek will come to his temple.’

Hebrews 2.14-18 ‘He had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful.’

Luke 2.22-32 ‘My eyes have seen your salvation’

 

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The Presentation of the Lord, which we mark and celebrate today, is full of rich scriptural resonances.

We have the temple, the place of encounter between God and Israel, a place of offering and sacrifice.

We have the beautiful image of two young parents bringing their child to the temple, offering sacrifice for him who will become the sacrificial lamb who takes away the sin of the world. (John 1.29)

We have Simeon’s moving realisation, when he takes this child in his arms, that there is nothing more in the whole world that he needs to receive, or to see, or to do that can make his life complete: I can depart in peace for my eyes have seen the salvation of the world prepared for me and for everyone.

Yet, in the beauty and the intimacy of the scene, there is also a foreshadowing of darkness: Mary, the blessed Mother, will have a sword pierce her own soul too.

We learn that in this child the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed for many will oppose him. As in St. John's gospel he came to his own but his own received him not.

We can’t read this passage without connecting it to the words of St John’s Gospel:

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1.9-13)

Simeon received him, and so did Anna.

Anna the prophetess, though advanced in years, is still young and fresh in expectation and hope, filled with the conviction that she will see the Lord's anointed: the son of David revealed in Jesus Christ son of God and son of Mary.

Anna, and Simeon, remind us - of any age - not to be jaded, grudging or always assuming that nothing good will come in a given situation: Anna is a prophetess of hope and the vibrant expectation that God will reveal his beauty, goodness and truth.

What Mary and Joseph were doing in bringing the Lord to his own temple, his own house, fulfilled the law of Moses and also tells us what is to come: this child is the new temple, this child's body which shares the substance of our flesh is our home, our life, our peace, our salvation; Jesus Christ is our place of encounter with the fullness of the Living God.

And we ourselves have entered the Temple of this church in holy procession, echoing with our lights, the lanterns of the Wise Virgins, those five bridesmaids who ran to meet the coming Bridegroom, the spouse of their souls and ours.

Guided by faith, and enlightened by charity, we shall meet and know him, and he will give himself to us.

We miss so much if we don't go beyond the surface of today's readings.

For a start, what we see in the gospel is something increasingly rare in our society today.

Where birth rates are dropping and being a mother or father is increasingly devalued, the Presentation of Christ reminds us of the preciousness of the procreation of children and the Christian vocation for many, but not all, to be a mother, to be a father.

Mary, in the spirit of other women in the Bible offers her child to the Lord, because he is the Lord’s gift to her.

Think of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, of the unnamed wife of Manoah, mother of Samson, of Jochebed, the mother of Moses, of Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist, all offered their sons back to the Lord because they knew that a child is a gift from God, not a commodity or a right.

That’s a radically different view of children from the societies that offered child sacrifice, like the Incas or the Canaanites who sacrificed children to the false god Molech.

It’s radically different from the Romans who saw children as utterly disposable and of no worth.

The Biblical tradition sees children as precious, and abhors their destruction, be that at the hands of Pharoah, Herod, or anyone else for that matter.

The Biblical offering of a child is an act of surrender and trust, not abandonment or annihilation.

What Mary and Joseph are doing is surrendering their sense of control and trusting God in who their child will become.

The other ‘sociological point’ that the Presentation of Christ reveals is what it truly means to be intergenerational, a mix of age groups in a community.

We’re told that increasingly people of different ages don’t mix, don’t understand each other: the old think the young are snowflakes who have it easy; the young resent how older people have property and pensions that they are unlikely to get.

That’s little wonder.

There are a diminishing number of places where people of different generations both interact and share something in common.

Churches (and other faith communities) are now, more or less, the only places where a true intergenerational community is formed.

In the spirit of young Mary, mature Joseph and elderly Anna and Simeon, may our church be an intergenerational community where we rejoice in other generations, because we all unite around the Christ child.

Ultimately that is the measure of the health of any church.

The conviction of the gospel and the church is that it is only in Christ that human lives are enlightened, restored, healed, and forgiven.

Today, Christ the son of God is presented in human flesh, a human body, and is present in the world.

If only God, he is remote from us.

If only man, he has no capacity to save us.

But as God and man who enters our life in his body and blood, through opening ourselves to receive him in prayer and by feeding on him in patient, faithful reading of his word, then we can know the abundant life he promises to bring.

And when he comes to the temple of our bodies we can never be the same, so in St Paul’s words:

I appeal to you therefore… by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12.1-2)

Light dawns over Galilee

Isaiah 9.1b-4 In Galilee of the nations the people have seen a great light.

1 Corinthians 1.10-13,17  ‘I appeal to you that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you.’ 

Matthew 4.12-23 ‘Jesus went to Capernaum so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled.’

The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
    on them has light shined.

Isaiah 9.4

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Light dawns over Galilee and from the shadows, one preaches, ‘repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’.

And he calls.

Calls fishermen first, to re-direct what they catch, to draw others to the light and be bearers of light, to witness to the One True Light who has come into the world.

Jesus, hearing the news of the death of John the Baptist, and coming straight from his own battle with Satan in the wilderness following his baptism at the hands of John, ‘withdrew’, we read ‘into Galilee’,

Galilee is the land which he knows best, and from Nazareth (where he grew up) he goes to live in Capernaum.

But this withdrawal is not an escape to a comfortable place, Capernaum-on-Sea.

The Greek word for this withdrawal is anachoreo from which the English word ‘anchorite’ comes.

The word ‘anchorite’ is not well known.

An anchorite is a hermit, someone who lives a solitary life - Dame Julian of Norwich was one.

The anchorite is anchored not in the ways of the world - the competition, the hurry, the jostling – but anchored in something deeper, in the depths of God.

It was to Galilee that Jesus withdrew, not to escape but to begin to fulfil his mission and purpose.

Echoing the prophecy of Isaiah, he withdraws so as to redeem.

Capernaum, in the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali, adjacent to Galilee, is not chosen accidentally.

If you know Genesis well, or Joseph and his Tecnicolor Dreamcoat you'll know these names. 

They're brothers, Joseph's brothers, sons of Jacob, who formed the 12 Tribes of Israel

And these northern territories – Zebulun and Naphtali - named after the two brothers, were the first to fall to Assyrian conquest, and thus were in darkness.

Now they are the first to experience the dawn of restoration through Jesus: a reconquest by the power of light.

Zebulun and Napthali are not the Judean heartlands, they are the peripheries, they are where Jesus centres his mission and his proclamation - echoing John the Baptist - of the kingdom of heaven, calling for repentance.

Zebulun and Napthali, first oppressed, are in the vanguard of the great reversal brought by Christ the Light.

And the prophet Isaiah – in our first reading - speaks of the ‘Galilee of the Nations’, of the Gentiles: this abundant region, Galilee, luscious green and teeming with fish, is a sign of the gathering in of all nations, just as fish are gathered in a net (see where this is going?).

The Covenant God established with Israel is now being extended, even to the shadowlands of the Gentiles.

The kingdom of the Messiah stretches beyond Judea, where John the Baptist ministered, to invite and draw in all people.

The hinge of this is the call, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’

Turn and face the light!

And it's to brothers he moves first, brothers who are fishermen.

In the very act of casting a net he calls Simon Peter and his brother, Andrew. As they mend their nets he calls the brothers, James and John.

The twelve tribes are no longer the brothers Zebulun and Naphtali, or Judah and Benjamin, but the twelve apostles, starting with brothers, but by no means ending with them.

The immediacy of their response is striking and almost implausible.

Remember, though, Andrew had been a follower of John the Baptist, as probably had John, the Beloved Disciple. The ground had been prepared in Andrew’s life, ready for Christ the Sower to come.

Andrew, we read in St John’s Gospel was with John the Baptist when he said of Jesus, ‘Behold, Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.’ (John 1.29)

Jesus’ call came to responsive ears and hearts.

Themselves drawn in, they would accompany him to draw others in.

And Jesus’ mission continued, as he went ‘throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.’ (Matthew 4.23)

Herein is the light.

And that light breaks into the darkness of human experience today.

The concept of the fractal is helpful here.

A fractal is a small piece of a larger whole but that shares its pattern and is totally complete.

The larger whole is that Jesus came into the world as the ‘light that shines in the darkness’ and illuminates the world.

And that ‘big picture’ operates in the particular circumstances of your life too, as a fractal.

It’s what your baptism is all about.

What Jesus did in Galilee, bringing the light, revealing the Kingdom in healing and restoration, he is doing in you.

Let that light shine, let it grow in you and spill out of you.

In the dark corners of our lives may the light shine; and may we in turn, like Peter and Andrew, James and John, and all the saints through the ages, be lights shining to the glory of God the Father.

The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
    on them has light shined.

Thanks be to God for the light to enlighten all hearts!

Christ's Baptism; My baptism

Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7 ‘Behold my servant, in whom my soul delights’

Acts 10:34-38 ‘God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit’

Matthew 3:13-17 ‘When Jesus was baptised he saw the Spirit of God coming to rest on him’.

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It is hard to think, in the depths of winter, of hot summer days and the refreshment that a splash in water can bring.

If only it was hot enough to splash in a paddling pool or diving into a swimming pool: so refreshing and cooling in the heat of the day.

Today’s gospel takes us to a river, running through the wilderness, a stream of refreshment in a hot and barren place.

That river, the Jordan, is a real river, and it is a spiritual place too, a place where we can go this morning, and daily, for refreshment and life.

The Baptism of Jesus Christ is, to paraphrase St Gregory the Great, is a kind of river, which is both shallow and deep, where both the child can paddle, and the adult can dive.

Gregory says that of the scriptures, and it is true of what we have here, that the mystery revealed at the Baptism of the Lord, the mystery of Jesus Christ, is deep enough that the most devout and skilled among us can never reach the bottom, and shallow enough that the simplest among us can enjoy it too.

That is a beautiful thing.

The mystery of Christ both satisfies and gives us the taste for more.

St Augustine in his Confessions put it beautifully:

I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours. Confessions X.27

So let’s can paddle in some important points about Jesus’ baptism, and then, with appetite whetted, go deeper.

First, Christ’s baptism is the ‘big reveal’, the debut appearance.

John the Baptist had been talking to the crowds out in the wilderness at length about the One who is to come, the One whose sandals he is not worthy to untie, the One who he proclaimed ‘the Lamb of God’ who takes away the sins of the world.

The crowds had come from all Judea to see and hear John, but he directed them away from himself to the One Who Is: and now, as He rises from the waters, the heavens open Jesus is revealed; revealed as the Divine Son of the Father, with whom the Father is well pleased. (Matthew 3.17).

Second, his public ministry is inaugurated.

From the time the Holy Family returned to Nazareth until his Baptism we know next to nothing of Jesus’ life.

We can only assume that he was preparing for his public ministry.

And his baptism is the inauguration of that public ministry.

Peter puts it very straightforwardly in our second lesson:

you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. (Acts 10.37-38)

So, the Baptism begins his ministry in which ‘the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.’ (Matthew 11.5)

Thirdly Jesus’ baptism gives pattern for Christian baptism, for you and me being baptised.

The baptised have had their sins washed away; been reborn; been enlightened and liberated from all that holds them back from the Vision of God.

Just as Peter describes the salvation of those who are oppressed by the devil, so the prophet Isaiah foresees the time when the Saviour will ‘bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.’ (Isaiah 42.7).

The waters of baptism enable that liberation from darkness to light.

There’s some paddling: Christ’s Baptism as the ‘big reveal’; the inauguration of his ministry; and the pattern for Christian baptism.

And what of diving a bit deeper?

Jesus says to Peter ‘put out into the deep and let your nets down for a catch.’ (Luke 5.4)

To go deeper, I want to introduce you to St Gregory Nazianzen, Archbishop of Constantinople,  who lived in the fourth century.

Going out in the deep with him, from a sermon of his, we will draw quite a catch of his insights into the Lord’s Baptism.

Gregory connects Christ’s baptism with our own, and how we share Christ’s resurrection:  

Christ is bathed in light; let us also be bathed in light. Christ is baptized; let us also go down with him, and rise with him.

But he also addresses the tricky question that if Jesus is the Sinless One, why should he be baptised like us?

John is baptizing when Jesus draws near. Perhaps he comes to sanctify his baptizer; certainly he comes to bury sinful humanity in the waters. He comes to sanctify the Jordan for our sake and in readiness for us; he who is spirit and flesh comes to begin a new creation through the Spirit and water.

So, in Christ’s baptism we see that Creation itself is being renewed on a cosmic scale and a personal scale: as St Paul tells us, ‘if anyone is in Christ [that person] is a new creation.’ (2 Corinthians 5.17)

Gregory spots how the waters of the Jordan echo the waters of the Creation, at which Jesus is present, and he makes the connection between the dove that signalled to Noah that the deluge of the Flood was ended, and the appearance of the Holy Spirit as a dove over Jesus.

Now there is no rainbow in the sky, but the very heavens are opened.

Jesus rises from the waters; the world rises with him. The heavens, like Paradise with its flaming sword, closed by Adam for himself and his descendants, are rent open. The Spirit comes to him as to an equal, bearing witness to his Godhead. A voice bears witness to him from heaven, his place of origin. The Spirit descends in bodily form like the dove that so long ago announced the ending of the flood and so gives honour to the body that is one with God.

And there’s more that Gregory draws from the Baptism of the Lord, but perhaps the big question remains: what does this mean for me, as I try to live out my life as a Christian, in this New Year, here and now in Croydon, amongst the people with whom I share my life in family, workplace, school and church.

Here’s Gregory’s answer: and it’s as good for twenty-first century as when he wrote it in the fourth!  

Today let us do honour to Christ’s baptism and celebrate this feast in holiness. Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed. Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of [people], for whom his every word and every revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all [humanity], lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received – though not in its fullness – a ray of its splendour, proceeding from the one God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

Our true family in Christ

 Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14

Colossians 3:12-17

Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

 

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Today a number of themes converge.

First of all, we are still rejoicing in the Nativity of the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary.

Then, on this First Sunday of Christmas we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family: Jesus, Mary and Joseph and their life shared together.

And, on 28^th December each year, we commemorate the Holy Innocents, the title for the infants killed by King Herod as he sought to snuff out the life of the newborn King, Jesus Christ.

Into those themes our first two readings speak very beautiful, and practical, wisdom.

They reflect on what it means to live in a family.

We live in a time when the very word ‘family’ has become a contentious one.

The definition of a family seems up for grabs; its benefits are dismissed and it is generally deemed ‘problematic’.

Very sadly the family has become seen as a stifling environment to be escaped; and tragically that is the reality for some people.

When assertive individualism lets rip, with ‘me, me, me’ at the centre of everything, all on my terms, then the family is inevitably a casualty.

The Christian vision for the family is as a school for learning good and healthy relationships, the place where love of God and love of neighbour is fostered and encouraged.

So what do we see in our readings today?

In the first reading we see graciousness towards, appreciation of and respect for parents, our elders, even when their understanding is lacking.

We see interdependence, not independence.

In the second reading St Paul describes how the family should relate to one another, and stretches that vision further into the life of the Church.

And where better to learn this art of putting on ‘compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other’ than in the trust of committed close relationships?

We need that formation in virtue.

The reality is that human babies, unlike other mammals, need much longer in the domestic setting.

A calf or lamb can get up and walk within minutes of being born, and after suckling their mother for a couple of weeks can start grazing on grass.

By contrast, the human baby might crawl around from around 8-9 months and only start walking around 12-15 months.

And so too our socialisation: we need to learn and mirror behaviour, language and interactions from those around us.

That’s why the family should not be introspective, but outward looking and sociable.

The threat to the family is to make it so loose it has no means to form and nurture a child, and at the same time make it so stifling and ‘child-centred’ that it becomes an exercise in indulging parents more than forming human persons.

That is why the model of the family can be applied to the Church, as a nurturing household in which all flourish by rejoicing in the word of Christ dwelling richly in our shared life, of teaching and admonishing in wisdom, and doing ‘everything in the name of the Lord Jesus’ (Colossians 3.xx).

The Son of God himself is born into the life of a human family, and he both forms that family, and they form him.

It is not too speculative to picture Christ on the lap of his mother being taught the psalms and the stories of Adam and Eve, and Noah; of Abraham, Issac, Jacob; of Joseph, Moses and Miriam; of Samson and Deborah; of the prophets Jonah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and so on.

We can picture him too working with his guardian Joseph, the man entrusted with being an early father for him.

And there’s his extended family of cousins, including John the Baptist, who he will have shared his early life with.

We know from St Luke’s gospel that he goes on pilgrimage to Jerusalem from Nazareth, travelling with a large group of people and initially Mary and Joseph confidently and trustfully assume he is with them, before they realise that he is lost.

The family years of Jesus, apart from that incident when he is about 12 years old are silent to us.

So the last we hear of the infant Jesus is when Herod comes to destroy him.

Herod’s searching for Jesus is to destroy him.

Our searching for Jesus is surely in the spirit of the shepherds and Magi who come to receive his beauty and goodness and truth.

As he seeks to destroy Jesus collateral damage is incurred; the Holy Innocents, those children who are deemed utterly expendable.

Roman society saw children as expendable and in Hebrew society they were seen as a gift from God, and expression of fruitfulness, but they had no status.

Indeed, it is only with the advent of Christianity that children, including the unborn, are seen as being of any worth and valued for being a person made in the image of God.

That’s part of the scandal of the Incarnation, that God not only assumed our human nature, but did so as an infant child.

But the infanticidal Herod cared nothing of the children he murdered in order to kill the biggest threat to him – which was, let’s not forget, a child unable to crawl, utterly dependent on his mother, Mary, for sustenance and his guardian, Joseph, for protection.

But Herod did see something more: this infant is a threat to him. If Jesus is the ‘newborn king’ the Magi sought, then that is not great for Herod, or for any tyrant, or indeed for anyone who thinks of themselves more highly than they ought, as a little king over their family, workplace and friends, who puts themselves in the place of God.

This same pattern is seen in the Pharoah who seeks to wipe out the Hebrew boys, during which time Moses is preserved so he can lead God’s people from slavery to freedom in the Promised Land.

Egypt is a place of terror for the Israelites – Joseph will not want to have gone there because it represented the dark, paganism that the Jews rejected.

Yet that is what the angel commanded, and what righteousness, obedient, Joseph did.

It was out of the Herodian frying pan into the Egyptian fire.

Yet God knows that to redeem his people he needs to go into the darkness to bring them to the light: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son’. (Matthew 2.XX)

Jesus Christ will go into the Egypt of death, to defeat death, and bring all nations and peoples into the Promised Land of life in him.

The new life he comes to bring forms a new family in his name.

As St John tells us:

Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. (John 19.25,26)

May Christ find his home in our families and lives, and may we know ourselves to be at home in his family, the Church.

The Divine Exchange of Christmas

Isaiah 52:7-10 ‘All the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God’

Hebrews 1:1-6 ‘God has spoken to us by his Son’

John 1:1-18 ‘The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us’

 

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The birth of a child is always a time of awe and wonder.

 

Birth follows the moment of the conception of that child some nine months earlier.

 

We only celebrate Christmas Day, the nativity of Jesus Christ, because nine months ago, on 25^th March, we celebrated the Annunciation to Mary, when she is overshadowed by the power of the Most High and the Holy Spirit, and the angel declares:

 

And behold, you, Mary, will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. (Luke 1.31)

 

That is the moment of incarnation, when ‘the Word became flesh’: not yet born but already recognised, in the womb, by the unborn John the Baptist (Luke 1.41).

 

During Mary’s pregnancy, as with any pregnancy, the time of gestation, Jesus was hidden in her womb but will have become more and more obvious week by week.

 

And as with any human baby Jesus was nourished by his mother as he grew.

 

We often think of the child drawing life from his mother’s body; and indeed he does: but quite remarkably the child in the womb doesn’t just receive; it gives!

 

Scientists call this ‘foetal microchimerism’ or a ‘cellular exchange’.

 

It means that just as sustenance flows from the mother to the child, so also the child’s cells flow through the umbilical cord into the mother’s body.

 

The mother and baby are mutually enriched.

 

What a mystery and awesome thing this is.

 

So, Mary giving to Jesus by feeding him through the umbilical cord, and at the same time was receiving from him; receiving cells that would remain in her for the rest of her life.

 

The time of pregnancy is not just about decorating a nursery, or buying baby clothes, but is a time of deep inner formation too for mother and child: as has our spiritual formation in the season of Advent just passed.

 

In a similar way - even before Jesus Christ, the Word of God, took human flesh - God was gestating his Word in humanity:

 

‘Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets’ opens the letter to the Hebrews, ‘but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son’ (Hebrews 1.1).

 

Throughout the scriptures the prophets see, and wisdom declares that the Lord will act on his promise of the Good News that, ‘all the ends of the shall see the salvation of our God’ (Isaiah 52.10).

 

What scientists call a ‘cellular exchange’ between mother and yet to be born child, theologians call a ‘divine exchange’ between God and humanity.

 

Yes, Mary gives Jesus his humanity at the same time as her child, Jesus Christ gives to her - and to you and me - his divinity, so that, with her, we can be ‘partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Peter 1.4) and filled with grace.

 

As Hebrews continues:

 

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. (Hebrews 1.3).

 

The exact imprint of God, Jesus Christ, dwelt in Mary’s womb, ready to be born in the manner of one of us, because he is at the same time, one of us: ’of one being with the Father…and was made man.’

 

This is all truly awesome and wonderful.

 

The ancient words of a psalm, written even before ultrasound scans were a thing, puts it like this:

 

For you yourself created my inmost parts;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I thank you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

marvellous are your works, my soul knows well. (Psalm 139.12,13)

 

Each, and every, human life – you, me, everyone - is ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ and not only that, he or she is made in the image of God.

 

What Christmas is all about is that Jesus Christ is born with all the risk, trepidation and joy a birth entails to make those made in the image of God more deeply into God’s likeness.

 

He is not now solely carried by his mother in her womb, but can be picked up and handled by Joseph, by shepherds and by Magi, and in the deepest spiritual sense he can also be embraced by each one of us.

 

As we receive Holy Communion today that is what we are doing: we are opening ourselves to something much more than ‘foetal microchimerism’ or a ‘cellular exchange’ it is a divine and sacramental exchange going on: ‘where we dwell in him and he in us’.

 

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1,14)

 

In this wonder we are ‘birthed’ by God – and here is the nub of Christmas:

 

…to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1.12,13)

A Cell with a View: John asks is Jesus the One Who Is to Come

 Isaiah 35.1-6a,10 ‘God himself will, come and save you.’

James 5.7-10 ‘Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.’

Matthew 11.2-11 ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’

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Here’s a question: what sort of people live in cells?

An obvious answer is prisoners: a prison cell is where prisoners are incarcerated.

A prison cell is a place of captivity, restraint, darkness, confinement.

But before the word ‘cell’ was used of prisons it was used of the room that a monk or nun would live, eat and pray in.

That sort of cell, the monastic cell, is a place of intense relationship with God where one’s true self is found through prayer, contemplation, meditation and adoration: that cell is a place of freedom.

Part of the spiritual life is to discern when you’re trapped in a cell of captivity and darkness, and when you inhabit a cell of light and freedom in God’s presence.

This relates to our experience of the Christian life; its light and darkness.

It is absolutely normal, and to be expected, that in our lives as Christians we experience ups and downs, what the great spiritual master, St Ignatius of Loyola, called times of consolation and desolation.

Sometimes God feels very near, prayer flows, and at other times God feels distant, prayer is arid or a struggle.

This isn’t to be confused with feeling good or feeling bad.

Spiritual desolation, distance from God, can be experienced when all is going well in life, sometimes more so: things are great, going swimmingly, and I forget God and distant from Him.

So the ‘ups’ of life can be spiritually desolate.

Equally it can be in times of testing, and even the depths of despair, that we are particularly near to the God who loves and sustains us.

Ironically, the ‘downs’ of life can be spiritually consoling.

In times of desolation, says Ignatius, recall the warmth, sweetness and intensity of God’s presence to draw you back to Him.

In times of consolation, says Ignatius, to recall how dry, sad and unfulfilled we are when we are from God.

So, what’s all that got to do with today’s readings and our Advent journey?

John sends emissaries from his prison cell.

He has been arrested by Herod and cast in jail for speaking the truth and rebuking vice.

Even locked away in prison word of Jesus, the one he has lived for and proclaimed, breaks into his cell.

It’s from that cell of darkness John sends his own disciples to ask Jesus, if he is the One Who Is to Come.

Is it a moment when John was dispirited, in desolation?

Has he got it all wrong? Jesus, are you really the one I have said you are?

Was it a moment when he felt abandoned?

Or was it a moment when he abandoned himself more fully to Jesus Christ?

The funny thing with the word ‘abandon’ is that when we are abandoned by someone that is entirely negative; when we abandon ourselves to something or someone, it is a beautiful and good thing.

John’s whole life is centred on God; his life was one of abandonment to the Divine Will.

He went out into the wilderness to proclaim the One Who Is to Come, that is the Messiah, the Christ, and what his disciples come back to tell him is the evidence for John to assess for himself.

Is he the One Who Is to Come?

Here’s Jesus’ answer again:

The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. (Matthew 2.5)

This echoes the promises of the Beatitudes and the prophecy of Isaiah, and it’s not just about the words, or good teaching, but what is put into action: the mighty acts of God, who brings life to the world, just like a crocus blossoming in the desert.

Go and tell that to John, what you hear and see.

John had proclaimed his message of turning to God and preparing for the One Who is to Come out in the physical wilderness of Judea and now Christ comes, bringing life and hope to the world and to the wilderness of human hearts.

Is he the One Who Is to Come?

Oh yes!

John’s vindication has come.

Yes, I am the One Who Is. I am the One Who Is to Come.

What consolation!

John was indeed the messenger who goes before the face of the Lord: he wasn’t wrong to say of Jesus, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God’ (John 1.29)

John knows who Jesus is; and Jesus knows who John is.

Through the one Who Is to Come – Jesus Christ - the cell of darkness is transformed into a cell of light and freedom through faith in him.

As Isaiah also prophesies:

“I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness;

    I will take you by the hand and keep you;

I will give you as a covenant for the people,

    a light for the nations,

     to open the eyes that are blind,

to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,

    from the prison those who sit in darkness. (Isaiah 42.6,7)

In this Advent season, as we rejoice in the Lord and prepare our hearts, minds and bodies to receive him, may we know the Lord who comes to release us, and all the world, from the cell of darkness into the radiancy of his light.