Saturday 24 December 2022

The Word was made flesh...and we have seen his glory

Isaiah 52.7-10 Rejoice, for the Lord is consoling his people

Hebrews 1.1-6 God has spoken to us through his Son

John 1.1-14 The Word was made flesh, and lived among us

 

‘The Word was made flesh…and we have seen his glory’

 

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Sports Personality of the Year. Strictly Come Dancing. The Great British Bake Off. Masterchef.

 

All these shows culminate in the big reveal, the moment when the speculation ends ‘and the winner is…’

 

It’s so exciting when the winner is revealed after all those rounds, the ups and downs, will it be the person I want or expect?

 

You may not notice it at first glance but something like that is what St John is doing in the opening verses of his Gospel; and it’s what lies at the very heart of Christmas.

 

He is revealing something for us to see and to know.

 

All that St John points to culminates not in the words, ‘and the winner is…’ but in the words, ‘and the Word was made flesh…’

 

The Word, that was in the beginning with God, because the Word is God, has become flesh: Jesus Christ is God, born of Mary, from whom he receives his humanity.

 

St John unfolds the mystery of the Incarnation in one overarching sweep, starting ‘in the beginning’.

 

Our first reading from Isaiah is part of that great arc of salvation:

 

‘your God is King!’

‘the Lord is consoling his people and redeeming Jerusalem’

‘all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God’.

 

This is picked up and reflected on in our second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews:

 

1Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. (Hebrews 1.1,2)

 

This is the Theodrama, the unfolding drama of God from the beginning, to the coming of Christ, into which you and I are invited.

 

The decisive moment in God’s drama is not ‘and the winner is…’ followed by a gushing speech, but ‘the Word was made flesh’ revealed in the Child of Bethlehem followed by his teaching, healing, raising to life, his passion and death, his resurrection and ascension.

 

What we see is in the Letter to the Hebrews:

 

[Christ] is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. (Hebrews 1.3)

 

The ‘Bake Off’ or ‘Strictly’ audience can’t wait to see the winner, but we see so much more: ‘and we have seen his glory’.

 

‘The Word was made flesh… and we have seen his glory’.

 

Where we go from there is not to write a cookery book, start a restaurant or write a tell all biography, but rather finding ourselves beholding and contemplating Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh, and growing in his image and likeness.

 

It’s not about being a ‘winner’ in the world’s terms; life is not competition and rivalry, but sharing in Christ’s victory over sin and death so that we are re-formed in his image and likeness and see God the Father.

 

‘And the Word was made flesh…and we have seen his glory’

 

Drawn to Bethlehem in wonder and love

Isaiah 9.1-7 A Son is given to us

Titus 2.11-14 God’s grace has been revealed to the whole human race

Luke 2.1-14 ‘In the town of David a saviour has been born to you’

 

‘Mary wrapped Jesus in bands of cloth,

and laid him in a manger,

because there was no place for them in the inn’ (Luke 2.7)

 

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There’s an old adage in television and the theatre: ‘don’t work with children and animals’!

 

We all know why.

 

Animals can be unpredictable when you want them to perform and, as was famously discovered on Blue Peter once, they can ‘perform’ when you don’t want them to: just Google ‘Blue Peter and Lulu the Elephant.’

 

And how many children have been rehearsed to deliver one line in a nativity play and then clam up.

 

Don’t work with children and animals.

 

And I heard some more advice the other day - from a woman working in the costume team at the pantomime at Fairfield Halls at the moment - ‘don’t work with adults either’.

 

Adults can be wilful, stubborn, uncooperative and know best.

 

So don’t work with children or adults or animals.

 

The nativity of Jesus Christ flies in the face of that advice.

 

God works with the unlikely.

 

The nativity of Jesus Christ shows God working with animals and adults and coming to us as a human child.

 

The advice not to work with children and animals is saying ‘don’t work with those you can’t control’.

 

And don’t we so want to be in control?

 

Don’t we so want to order the world to our own preferences and dreams?

 

The world has become, well always was, about human beings trying to assert control in a world that resists it.

 

What is revealed at Christmas in the birth of Jesus Christ, God in human flesh - what we call ‘the Incarnation of the Word’ - is that the strategy of the world’s creator is not to control but to love the world into being and life.

 

The world’s creator is not a controller pulling levers to make things happen but is the One who, out of love, yearns the best for all his creatures.

 

The way his creatures find full dignity and stature is by becoming his children ‘by adoption and grace’

 

It is said that the sheep ranchers of Australia do not erect fences to keep their sheep from straying - they can’t, their land is too extensive - rather they sink wells to which the sheep are drawn.

 

God gives himself to us in the Child of Bethlehem, not as a controller, not as a fence to restrict our lives, but as a wellspring of living water to draw us to himself, so that we may drink deeply of his love.

 

Tonight we heard of shepherds drawn to the Good Shepherd.

 

That call signifies people being drawn from their own drama and concerns to entering into the Theodrama, the drama of God, which leads them to worship and adore and contemplate and go tell.

 

That is the move Christmas invites you and me to make, fellow sinners: move away from self; move to God; go and tell.

 

Christ was born in the feeding trough of animals: tonight we are called to feed at the altar of the Good Shepherd.

 

As the choir will sing later:

 

O great mystery,

and wonderful sacrament,

that animals should see the newborn Lord,

lying in a manger!

O blessed virgin, whose womb

was worthy to bear

the Lord Jesus Christ.

Alleluia!

 

Consider your life and then like Mary, the Mother of our Lord and God, ‘ponder these things’.

 

Don’t work with children and animals and adults! Well, God chooses to work with, and for, you and me: there is indeed an great mystery and wonder.

Monday 19 December 2022

Joseph: a man for us all

Isaiah 7.10-16 The young woman is with child

Romans 1.1-7 Our apostolic mission is to preach the obedience of faith to all nations

Matthew 1.18-25 How Jesus Christ came to be born

 

[NB text in square brackets was not used in the delivery of the sermon]


'And Joseph did as the angel commanded him'

 

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Perhaps it is because Joseph is a man of few words, in fact no recorded words at all in the Bible, that he gets rather overlooked in the noisy chatter of the world

 

[At the reforming of the Church of England in the sixteenth century, the Book of Common Prayer, whilst it kept the feasts of saints, including a number in honour of Mary, dropped the feast of St Joseph altogether.

 

Mercifully he has since been restored to his proper place: Joseph of Nazareth, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and he is honoured on 19th March each year.]

 

What do we know of Joseph?

 

[He shares the name of one of the great patriarchs of the biblical tradition, Joseph - of coat fame - the one to whom God revealed his purpose in dreams and who had a deeply practical side: think of the provision he made in times of want and in times of plenty.]

 

We know Joseph’s family had ended up in Nazareth but his heritage, as we might say today, was Judean, from Bethlehem, the City of David. And aren’t we going to hear about that city a lot in the coming days.

 

What we all know about Joseph is that he was a carpenter.

 

Perhaps there’s more to it.

 

In Mark’s gospel there is a reference to Jesus as ‘the carpenter, the son of Mary…’ The Greek word used is τέκτων (tekton) which means a bit more.

 

A tekton could be a woodworker, carpenter or builder. And the word tekton comes from the root meaning ‘to carve, to chisel, to mould’. Joseph was highly skilled craftsman, almost certainly Jesus was trained in his craft.

 

[John Everett Millais’ painting ‘Christ in the House of His Parents’ (1849–50) captures this and some of the associated symbolism this brings.]

 

I wonder how much Joseph carved, chiselled and moulded Jesus’ human character as a boy and young man back in Nazareth. (cf Luke 2.39-40)

 

So, this skilled, quiet and strong man was entrusted with the task of protection, care and provision for his wife, Mary, and her son, Jesus.

 

[What we do know is that Joseph did the right thing by Mary: first by wanting to break off their betrothal quietly and discreetly (v19); then doing the right thing by her by marrying her (v24) and then by honouring and respecting her body before her child was born (v25)]

 

Together Joseph and Mary presented Jesus in the Temple at 40 days old; offering up the child as the son entrusted to them both, but to whom Joseph was not biologically related: whatever he felt about that, we do not have his words.

 

Twelve years later they took him to the Feast of the Passover in Jerusalem, as they did every year (Luke 2.41-52) and Jesus remained in the Temple unbeknownst to his parents.

 

Joseph and all the family searched frantically for Jesus and on finding him Jesus uttered words that must have been at once painful and deeply fulfilling for Joseph, ’why were you looking for me, did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ (Luke 2.49).

 

This wasn’t an adolescent outburst, but was a statement of what Joseph learnt from the angel in his dream, ‘the child conceived in Mary is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ (v20b,21).

 

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Consideration of Joseph opens up areas that we rarely go to in church – where preachers fear to tread - and that is the role of men and masculinity in society and in our culture today.

 

There is a wide academic field that speaks of the ‘crisis of masculinity’: What are men for? What is the role of men today?

 

On one extreme there are the hyper-masculine men who live in a fantasy world of male dominance and imperviousness; and on the other a rhetoric that is unremittingly anti-men.

 

The behaviour of some men - violence, sexual violence, control, exploitation and domination - is used to declare all men toxic.

 

Feminism has clearly righted many wrongs and injustices, and has helped men and women see the proper valued contribution women make to society.

 

Yet there are real challenges for men in the culture today.

 

It is true: men are significantly more violent than women and towards women; yet men are vastly more likely to be subjects of violence.

 

The highest rate of suicide is amongst men, by some way.

 

The prison population is overwhelmingly male.

 

It is also clear in current culture some young men find it hard to read signals and know boundaries with regard to the opposite sex.

 

In one version of masculinity men should not express feelings, and in another they should be ‘New Men’ pouring out their emotions all the time.

 

No wonder men are in a muddle, or society in a muddle about men.

 

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And there’s a gender gap in church too: in the UK typically congregations are 2/3 female and 1/3 male. [And it’s most prevalent in Western European and North American Christianity.

 

Men are not less spiritual as witnessed in other faiths and religious traditions, but their churchgoing is declining rapidly: what do we do about that.

 

One study found that ‘in the last 20 years 49% of men under 30 left the church! At the current rate of loss it is predicted that by 2028 men will all but have disappeared from the Church in the UK’. (Why so few men in Church? | Why Church)]

 

So how might Joseph help us all, particularly men, in our spiritual lives? And along the way help the women those men seek ‘to love, comfort, honour and protect’ (Marriage Service CW 2000)

 

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Here are some pointers.

 

Joseph is described as ‘a righteous man’.

 

Righteousness is not a sense of patriarchal superiority but about being right with God; about training and honing one’s body, mind and spirit - like an athlete, or musician, or craftsman, or tekton -  such that one is in a right relationship with God.

 

I have mentioned that not a word of Joseph’s is recorded.

 

Does that mean he’s one of those men who bottles things up and doesn’t disclose his inner emotion and life even to his nearest and dearest? I don’t think so.

 

In St Luke’s gospel we hear of Joseph’s ‘great distress’ when he and Mary were searching for Jesus in Jerusalem for hours (Luke 2.48).

 

What the Gospels make clear is that Joseph freely acts; his eloquence is in his actions.

 

Joseph as a righteous man acted with a sense of duty.

 

He didn’t run for the hills when Mary was found to be pregnant and the child not his; he wanted her reputation protected; he was ready to overcome his longing for her by quietly letting her go.

 

All too often we see today men running from responsibilities and duties; the consequences of which harm both women and children.

 

Joseph didn’t ditch Mary and her child at the threat of the murderous Herod; he shielded them from danger until it passed, because most men are physically stronger than most women.

 

Good male role models are good for boys and for girls.

 

We don’t say and hear that enough.

 

Many men crave a clear role in life, and being able to be stable and supportive in their relationships: Joseph is an exemplar of this.

 

Men are not uniquely wicked; and, God knows, men are not perfect; indeed we are all, men and women, sinners of God’s own redeeming.

 

Today, as we approach the birth of Emmanuel, God with us, who was entrusted with his Blessed Mother to the care of Joseph let us ask Joseph’s prayers that we may all, men and women, be capable of receiving Jesus Christ into our lives, where he will shape, mould and chisel us into his image and likeness afresh.

Monday 12 December 2022

Rejoice! The Lord is near.

Isaiah 35.1-10 God himself is coming to save you

James 5.7-10 Do not lose heart; the Lord’s coming will be soon

Matthew 11.2-11 ‘One greater than John the Baptist has never been seen’

 

 

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.

Indeed, the Lord is near. (Philippians 4.4-5)

 

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Our three readings this morning cohere around a key theme: the Lord is coming, and coming soon.

 

Isaiah’s hope of the coming of God is before Christ’s incarnation, his first coming.

 

James’ hope - that the Lord is coming soon - is after Christ’s death and resurrection, so that’s about his Second Coming, his ‘coming again in glory’.

 

And the Gospel speaks of the presence of Christ, the one who has come, and describes what it looks like.

 

Isaiah’s hope, James hope, the Gospel hope are all summed up in the words of St Paul in his letter to the Philippians, the singing of which as the Introit to the Mass gives this Third Sunday of Advent the title ‘Gaudete’: ‘Rejoice’.

 

Today is ‘Rejoice Sunday’ – Gaudete:

 

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.

Indeed, the Lord is near.

 

Rejoice in Isaiah’s message that, like a wilderness and wasteland transformed, glory and splendour shall be seen for the Lord is coming and coming to save us.

 

The letter of James gets down to the nitty gritty of the Christian life lived in the expectation of the coming again of Christ.

 

Be patient and not lose heart!

 

That is a spiritual disposition, for lack of patience and loss of heart breeds grumbling.

 

And grumbling is a sign of selfishness.

 

Grumbling is what happens when we put ourselves at the centre of things and not God.

 

Grumbling is when we come to feel God, the world, those around us owe us something and we blame them for our feeling small in a big world.

 

The antidote to grumbling is rejoicing.

 

But rejoicing is not banal, frothy and vacuous as often it is characterised in Christians.

 

We don’t just rejoice, we rejoice in something, someone: in the Lord.

 

We rejoice, as St Paul says, because the Lord is near: rejoicing comes from proximity to Christ.

 

Rejoicing is about gratitude; thankfulness for the utterly unmerited gift of life itself.

 

Rejoicing is a spiritual posture that receives other people as if that person is Christ himself.

 

Ultimately rejoicing is about looking outside ourselves: vigilant, watchful, expectant, hopeful.

 

So to rejoice in the Lord is the opposite of grumbling because it is putting God front and centre of our lives.

 

So what does it mean then to rejoice in the Lord?

 

Rejoicing in the Lord is about knowing the God saves us.

 

God, in Christ, saves us from an ultimately futile self-reliance and from wallowing in our own misery.

 

As Advent reminds us, we are called out of darkness into God’s marvellous light.

 

To use Isaiah’s imagery, the wilderness of our souls bursts into life and song through the transforming presence of Christ.

 

That’s not just a theoretical hope, it’s something rejoicers and not grumblers can see in the world.

 

It’s what Jesus tells John the Baptist’s followers when they ask if Jesus is the real deal, the one who Isaiah was talking about when he said:

 

5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

   and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

6 then the lame shall leap like a deer,

   and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.

 

Oh yes, it’s those things and more:

 

‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.’

 

We could spiritualise all those things and see them as metaphors or comforting images, but then the embodied, practical reality of how Christ through the Holy Spirit, transforms lives is lost.

 

The measure of the Lord’s proximity is in a life transformed, turned out from self and turned to God.

 

Christ is coming. For sure. Christ has come. Oh yes! Christ will come again. Most certainly.

 

So, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Indeed, the Lord is near.’