01/05/2019
Sermon - Christmas Day, December 25, 2018
(Epistle: Hebrews 1:1-12 and Gospel: John 1:1-14)
Our text for Christmas Day is from the Gospel Reading: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”(1)
During the four Sundays of Advent a recurrent question appeared in three of our Gospel Readings. On three different occasions, people asked who Jesus was. The first was in the account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. The people of Jerusalem asked those arriving with Jesus who this man was being cheered by this caravan. The correct, but incomplete, answer given by those accompanying Jesus was, “This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee,”(2)
The second time was on the third Sunday, when John the Baptist, then in prison and apparently having some doubts, sent two of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?” Jesus told John’s disciples to tell John what they had seen and witnessed, the miracles of healing and the preaching of the gospel to the poor. This affirmed that Jesus was, indeed, the one prophesied.
The final questioning appeared in last Sunday’s Gospel Reading, when some of the leading Jews wondered whether John the Baptist were the Christ: “the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask [John], Who art thou?”(3) John’s answer, which came before he baptized Jesus and before John’s later doubts, when he languished in prison, was a strong denial that he, John, was the Christ. He quoted from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah to those sent to question him: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet [Isaiah].”(4)
These answers give us some picture of who Jesus is, but that picture still is not complete. Today’s Christmas Gospel Reading, which is the beautiful Prologue to John’s gospel, provides a definitive answer. And I believe that answer is a fitting complement to the familiar Nativity narrative that many expect to hear at this major Christmas service.
Thus, our Anglican Christmas Eucharist provides what one might call a deep and more doctrinal theme for this celebration of the Incarnation. This is so, because our Gospel Reading taken from St. John’s gospel is more theological and less historical than either Luke’s or Matthew’s gospels. John does not deal at all with the birth of Christ. Instead, he expounds on Christ’s eternal existence and divinity. In the few verses that comprise our Gospel reading, John relates that, while Christ came as the Light that would lighten every man, many of those to whom He came neither knew nor received Him, but that to those who did receive Him, He gave the power to become the sons of God. John also introduces the doctrine of being born of God—or of rebirth—that he later will develop further.
These few verses from John’s gospel are so profound that they not only have been assigned as the Gospel for Christmas Day, they also were read for many centuries as what was called the “last Gospel” at the very end of every Mass in both Roman Catholic and Anglo Catholic parishes, including here at St. John Church.
In addition, our assigned Epistle is from the Letter to the Hebrews. It, too, is very doctrinal. It affirms Christ’s divinity, His equality with the Father, that Christ was the agent of creation, and that His existence is eternal.
For those who are disappointed if they do not hear the Nativity story on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, there is provision made in our Book of Common Prayer for utilizing St. Luke’s familiar account of the birth of Christ. The relevant rubric reads: “If in any Church the Holy Communion be twice celebrated on Christmas Day, the following Collect, Epistle, and Gospel may be used at the first Communion.”(5) In this case, a person who attended such a first service and then the second would hear the Nativity story and then would be introduced to the larger doctrines that explain the full significance of Christ’s birth as the infant Jesus.
However, even if a parish offers both, it is not very likely that anyone will attend both of these services. Thus I believe the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, followed in a day or two by, this our Anglican Christmas service, provides an excellent way to convey and celebrate the full meaning of Christmas, especially to those who are new to the Faith or who have not regularly attended a church.
Whenever we are fortunate enough to couple the Anglican Christmas Epistle and Gospel of our Christmas Eucharist with the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, they, together, provide a well-balanced, fuller, and inspiring observance of the Incarnation. The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols beautifully leads the participants through the historic account of man’s fall in Genesis, the prophecies of Isaiah, the narratives of the birth of Christ in Luke’s gospel, to the theological summation found in the Prologue to St. John’s gospel, which, as we have seen, also is the Gospel assigned for the Eucharist on Christmas Day.
So let us look a little more at our Epistle and Gospel for this service. I particularly like the opening verses in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.”(6) Hebrews was written after Christ’s Ascension and speaks of Jesus Christ’s direct communication with mankind. Following the birth of Christ, prophets, except for that one last prophet, John the Baptist, were no longer needed for God to speak to His people. This marked a major change in God’s relationship with mankind. God the Son, now Incarnate, walked and spoke with people. No intermediary was necessary.
That intimacy continues today. Even though Jesus no longer physically walks among us, the Holy Spirit has come in His place and even resides in each believer. And, the words that Jesus spoke and taught have been preserved for us in the Bible. All this attests to the importance of the Incarnation, which we celebrate at Christmas or, as we officially call it, the Nativity of our Lord.
Our Gospel Reading is in a class by itself. As I said, it long was read at the end of every Mass, and all stood while it was read. It is the counterpart to the first verse of Genesis in the Old Testament: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” John opens his gospel with similar words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” “Word” with a capital “W” is how we translate the Greek word, “logos”. Sometime around the year 500 BC, Logos, “in a pantheistic way was [conceived by the Greeks to be] the universal reason governing and permeating the world.” In John’s gospel, “the Logos is described as God from eternity, the Creative Word, who became incarnate in the man, Jesus Christ of Nazareth.”(7)
I give this defining information only to demonstrate how much is conveyed by John’s use of “Word” in this powerful passage. John also goes on to say that the Word was the Creator of all that exists. That in the Word was life and that the life was the light of men. That, by believing on Him, men were given the power to become sons of God. Men could become sons of God, because, by believing, they could be born again, this time, not of the will of the flesh—that is, by human means—but of God Himself.
All this creative and redemptive power was manifested in the Person Jesus. John sums it up for us in a final majestic sentence: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”(8)
All of this was accomplished and made manifest on that night two thousand years ago in Bethlehem, when a young Virgin named Mary gave birth to a son, whom she named Jesus. “Christmas” is an English word that derives from the phrase “Mass of Christ”, or “Christ’s Mass”, which is what we celebrate here this morning. The Son of God came to mankind here on earth two thousand years ago as the infant Jesus, demonstrating why the Prophets called Him Emmanuel, God with us. Now this same Jesus—the Word, the Christ, God Himself—comes to us in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. Let us approach Him there with the same awe and reverence as did the shepherds and Magi at Bethlehem.
1 John 1:14 KJV
2 Matthew 21:11 KJV
3 John 1:19 KJV
4 John 1:23 KJV
5 Book of Common Prayer 1928, p. 98
6 Hebrews 1:1-2 NIV 2011
7 Logos, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church,
Edited by F. L. Cross, Third Edition, Ed. E. A. Livingstone,
Oxford University Press 1997, p.. 992
8 John 1:14 KJV
