Christmas Eve
Holy Communion
St. Mary’s Crousetown and St. John’s West Dublin - December 24, 2008
Hebrews 1:1-12 John 1:1-14
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us
full of grace and truth."
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Tonight
is a night for joy and for peace; it is a night for poetry and song.
We have a
message tonight to us from God – it comes to us in our Bible
readings and represented in the crèche scene here, and in this very
church we have come to, which is a bit like entering into the little
stable that night so many years ago.
It is the
simplest of messages that a child can understand: God loves us and
took flesh to become one of us that we might know better what God is
like and so become like God – full of grace and truth, and gifted
with eternal life.
It is a simple
message.
But it is also
the answer or at least one part of the answer to the most sublime of
mysteries that the greatest philosophers and theologians have longed
to know and realize – how can there be mediation between humanity
and God, between our lives here and the life of God? All of our
best efforts of heart and soul and mind to lift ourselves up…only
seem to end in failure. We have a longing for union with God. Are
we to be eternally frustrated or is there not some way that can be
opened between heaven and earth? The answer of Christmas is, yes,
there is a way and it begins by beholding the Christ child, the baby
Jesus, in a lowly stable in Bethlehem. God, who is perfect,
complete, One – reaches out to us out of the superabundance of His
love, to draw us to Himself, through uniting himself with our flesh.
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Creation shows
us the glory of God. The psalmist says,
The heavens
declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth His handiwork.
[19:1]
Yet that does
not seem to be enough, or we would all be on our knees worshipping
God. But we know that not all people do. And we know ourselves,
that we are often unthankful and go about our lives oblivious,
asleep to God, even losing hope and desire that we might see
divine visions and dream holy dreams and participate in that
Divine life, that life of adventure and of spiritual flourishing.
So God appears
in the Creation, in the flesh, where our tired eyes are fixed.
In
the Creation
hath he set a tabernacle for the sun; says the
psalmist
(a tabernacle, a
tent, a body)
which cometh
forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber;
And rejoiceth
as a giant to run His course.
[19:5]
Out of the
Virgin’s womb, from Mary, God comes to us, not as a wrathful tyrant,
but as a bridegroom, full of joy, desiring the consummation of love
between God and humanity
He goeth
forth from the uttermost part of the heaven, and runneth about unto
the end of it again.
[19:6]
The Word was
with God, and the Word was God…and the Word was made flesh, and
dwelt among us. And
the Apostles
beheld his glory…[John
1:1,14]
And when he
had by himself purged our sins, He sat down on the right hand
of the Majesty on high.
[Heb 1:3]
And
in that
movement of God towards us and to dwell among us and to return to
heaven, there is nothing hid from the heat thereof from the
heat of that sun. [Ps19:6]
His love reaches
everywhere, even the darkest place of our hearts.
I hope we feel
the purifying fire of His love even tonight and the rekindling in
our hearts of a love for, a longing for God and for the good of our
neighbour.
-------------
God comes to us
in the flesh and turns our world upside down – not just by words
spoken at a distance by prophets but by taking flesh and speaking
words from His own lips and teaching us by the example of a perfect
life lived here.
God gives us,
in the flesh, …
a new idea of
what greatness is
– Whoever would be great among you must be the servant of all;
[Mat
20:26]
a new idea of
justice and mercy
– I have come not to condemn the world, but that through me the
world might be saved;
[Jn 3]
a new idea of
“the good life”
– it is not about getting a lot of things, but it is about virtue,
holiness and the purity of heart, without which no one will see God;
[Heb 12:14]
a new idea of
love
– it is about forgiveness and sacrifice – love is to lay down our
life for our friends; as God showed us in the flesh when he
stretched out his arms on the Cross;
a new idea of
pain and suffering
– we seek its relief but we don’t avoid it at all cost, knowing that
our Lord was perfected through his suffering in the flesh;
[Heb 5:8-9]
a new idea of
grief and sorrow
– we grieve over the loss of loved ones, especially those who are
not with us for the first time this Christmas. We know that
the death of a Christian is the worst day of his life... but in
faith we know it is also the best day of his life. We are promised
that it is a day of new vision, a day of the fulfillment of love, it
is the day of glory, …and we console one another with this new hope
shown us by Jesus, who rose up from death, in the flesh.
---------------
And as many
as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God,
even to them that believe on his Name: which were born, not of
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God. [Jn
1:12-13]
We don’t meet
Jesus tonight simply by a kind of projecting of our minds back to
that day in the stable, nor merely by accepting a certain teaching
about who Jesus is, nor by simply trying to evoke certain feelings –
they are so hard to sustain. God knows how unstable we are in our
minds and in our hearts.
God took flesh
of the Virgin Mary and was born into this world that there would be
a more sure and certain way for the union of our souls and
bodies with God.
We are joined
with God by our union with Jesus in baptism.
That union is
deepened by the gift (from God) of faith.
And God can
strengthen that union further here tonight in Holy Communion as we
humble ourselves and allow our bodies to be made clean by His body
and our souls to be washed through His most precious blood.
Christmas is the
simplest of messages that we can all understand – God loves us and
took flesh to become one of us that we might know better what God is
like and become like God – full of grace and truth, and gifted with
eternal life.
So tonight is a
night for joy and for peace; it is a night for poetry and song.
In the Word made
flesh, Jesus Christ...
Mercy and
truth are met together;
righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Truth
springeth out of the earth;
and righteousness hath looked down from heaven.
[Ps 85:10-11]
O that birth
for ever blessed!
When the
Virgin, full of grace,
By the Holy
Ghost conceiving,
Bare the
Saviour of our race,
And the Babe,
the world’s Redeemer,
First
revealed his sacred face,
Evermore and evermore.
[from the hymn Of
the Father's love begotten, Prudentius]
Amen.
