Christmass

Collect

Almighty God, you have given us your only–begotten Son to take our nature upon him and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin: grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

or

Lord Jesus Christ, your birth at Bethlehem draws us to kneel in wonder at heaven touching earth: accept our heartfelt praise as we worship you, our Saviour and our eternal God.

Post Communion

God our Father, whose Word has come among us in the Holy Child of Bethlehem: may the light of faith illumine our hearts and shine in our words and deeds; through him who is Christ the Lord.

Readings

Old Testament

How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,

who brings good news,
who announces salvation,
who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’

Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices,
together they sing for joy;

for in plain sight they see
the return of the Lord to Zion.

Break forth together into singing,
you ruins of Jerusalem;

for the Lord has comforted his people,
he has redeemed Jerusalem.

The Lord has bared his holy arm
before the eyes of all the nations;

and all the ends of the earth shall see
the salvation of our God.

Isaiah 52.7–10

Psalm 98

1    Sing to the Lord a new song, ♦
for he has done marvellous things.

2    His own right hand and his holy arm ♦
have won for him the victory.

3    The Lord has made known his salvation; ♦
his deliverance has he openly shown in the sight of the nations.

4    He has remembered his mercy and faithfulness towards the house of Israel, ♦
and all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

5    Sound praises to the Lord, all the earth; ♦
break into singing and make music.

6    Make music to the Lord with the lyre, ♦
with the lyre and the voice of melody.

7    With trumpets and the sound of the horn ♦
sound praises before the Lord, the King.

8    Let the sea thunder and all that fills it, ♦
the world and all that dwell upon it.

9    Let the rivers clap their hands ♦
and let the hills ring out together before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth.

10    In righteousness shall he judge the world ♦
and the peoples with equity.

Epistle

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but 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. He 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. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs

Hebrews 1:1–4

Gospel

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

John 1:1-14

Sermon on Christmass Day

They used to say on the mean streets of Chicago, “Hey, man, what’s the word?” They were asking about any news, any gossip, any rumours. I suppose, “Tell me what’s happening,” would be the best translation of that street slang.

So if I ask you now, “What’s the Word?” what would you say to me?

? Peace – War – Love – Hate – Kindness ?

What do we want to pass on to our family, friends and neighbours as the important news of the day? St John the evangelist is passing on his Word for today with this, “In the beginning was the Word.”

What a peculiar opening to the story we tell when celebrating Christmass! What is the news that was in the beginning? What is our evangelist trying to tell us? The other gospels don’t start with such a profound, philosophical opening, do they? Matthew recounts the lineage of Jesus. Mark begins with Jesus preaching about the coming Kingdom of God. Luke about the birth of Jesus with those shepherds creating a ruckus with their joyful songs, echoing the angels from the realms of glory. Now we have the fourth gospel talking about an abstract concept – the Logos, which we call “the Word”, which was from the beginning, with God, and an agent of creation. Is this the way you share the Word you have to tell?

Probably not. – Most of us would rather tell a more prosaic story. Shepherds and wise men do very well, don’t you think? Most of us would tell an insignificant story. We might not want to make it as soporific as a list of names taking us back to the beginning of the world, nor detail some philosophical concept which makes no sense to us or our contemporaries because it is so abstruse and has no contact with culture today, in spite of the fact that it ticked all those boxes for St John the Evangelist and the society of his time.

Today’s gospel is one of the traditional Christmass Day readings, but how different that is from the usual nativity stories which inform the many school plays at this time of year with their angels, shepherds, wise men, Santa Clauses, elves, ghosts and shopping. Those three other gospel openings point to the content of our reading, the very real incarnation, the child in the manger and so on. St John has a different way of presenting Jesus Christ to us, doesn’t he? “In the beginning was the Word.” This is a strange opening to the story we tell as we celebrate Christmass Day. We needn’t go into the many forms of the story we have today, although all the stories told at Christmass time are founded on the very real history of God’s participation in the life of humanity.

“The Miracle on 34th Street” is one of the many Hollywood versions of the Christmass message. After all don’t we consider Jesus to be the meek and mild presence in our world, just as Chris Cringle is the quiet centre in all the hectic activity depicted in that film (whichever version you remember)? What about the film, “It’s a Wonderful Life” which depicts how integral each of us is to the shape of the world and the lives of each other? Then there is Dickens’ “A Christmass Carol” which can be seen in the same light, as another vision of the christian ideals of faith and mercy and the greatest of these gifts – Love.

The christmass message is all about the transforming presence of love, just as each and every retelling of the story makes clear. Chris looks into hearts and makes people see the world very differently. George Bailey looks at his own life in the light of love and he is transformed. Ebenezer Scrooge’s overnight experience opens up the floodgates of human kindness, so much so that that old miser is no longer recognisable in the new man now present – a man now so full of joy and warmth to all, the old man does not exist. He treats people as equals with an equanimity which no one would ever expect from anyone else.

These images for Christmass are just as familiar as the biblical images of shepherds and angels on that holy night are described. All these traditional images, old and new, literary and celluloid, inform us about the significance of transcendent values.

And here St John comes among us to tell the same story precisely, but in terms of transcendent values, God as Word! Imagine that. John has a completely different way of telling the story of God in the world. It speaks of a completely different power at work here and now – indeed, the world comes about because of The Word which was in the beginning.

The Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us is a very strange telling of Christmass, but that is exactly what it is all about. There are no angels announcing the Lord’s birth. The low and despised and the high and mighty do not witness to the enfleshment of God on earth in John’s telling of the incarnation. His version is an abstraction, a philosophical construct for our benefit. When we read these first verses from the gospel, we do not have glorious visions dancing around our heads. Rather our heads are sent spinning by so many words, and that Word, our good news, by which we tell the story of God’s involvement in life as we know it. We should not be afraid of “The Word” as St John presents it, should we? – After all, words are the lines by which our lives are bound together.

I was listening to the radio some time ago and someone was talking about words and dictionaries, he spoke about how they are organised. The presenter said that different types of dictionaries sort words in a number of ways.

There are dictionaries which organise the contents by significance, by meaning, like Roget’s Thesaurus. That collection of words is a very different thing to the Oxford English Dictionary, isn’t it? The OED is a very scientific listing of every word according to alphabetical order. Meanings don’t help organise the words in that dictionary, only the letters.

I would liken the synoptic gospels to the OED and the gospel of John to a Thesaurus. Matthew and Luke list the life of Jesus in a very prosaic way, from birth to death concluding with the revelation of the resurrection. John seems to be a treasure chest with the items stored away for our recollection. They have been saved because of their meaning for us, just as we keep things in a chest – to be taken out at important moments for proper consideration, when we want to tell the story through that particular item. I think we do that all the time, don’t we? We don’t take everything out of the treasure chest at once or single things randomly. Don’t we display our secrets to the light and anyone who wants to see when we think it is necessary?

This thesaurus idea of the gospel is much the way someone described religious people. They collect everything, nothing is ever discarded. All is stored away somewhere. Everything is precious, to be taken out at the right time, at a moment when its significance should be appreciated. That is why we have four gospels – we could have had more, but that is another story to be told at another time – each of the gospels has a particular slant on the message of the incarnation.

I would encourage you to be like Mary and store everything in your heart. Put things away safely. We need to take them out now and again to see how we have changed and how they make a new sense to us. That is the glory of the thesaurus, that treasure chest, the faith entrusted to a living tradition, keeping all these things in its heart. Just as dictionaries contain all living words, so we have an infinite number of ways to put them all together. Faith contains everything for us to make animated sense here and now.

At Christmass the image of the child and the infinite possibility of life in all its fullness comes to the fore in John’s Word. The Word from the beginning with God is ours – it is now ready to be shared with anyone who would ask, “Hey, man, what’s the word?”