Preached on Sunday, December 25, 2011 at Christ & Saint Stephen's Church. Lectionary texts that this sermon is based on can be found here.
An interesting question arose during our Advent Adult Education forum this past month. We were discussing the Incarnation in Anglicanism. As you probably know, the Incarnation is the Latinate theological term for what we’re here to celebrate today, when God became human (in carno, the Latin word for ‘flesh’) in the person of Jesus Christ.
The Incarnation has enjoyed a particular emphasis in Anglicanism. We have given it a higher place than others of our Christian counterparts in other strains of our shared faith. Through this emphasis on the Incarnation, we tend to have a very high view of the Church.
Some Christians emphasize the individual, and his or her depth of faith and individual actions. “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?” If you’ve never been asked that question then you must never have ventured south of the Mason Dixon line where I grew up. For such Christians, the Church is a meeting place for individuals who share a similar, personal experience of faith.
Anglicans are more likely to see the Church as a sacred and holy institution. We often use St. Paul’s own words when we say that the Church is the body of Christ in the world and each of us members of that body. And we think that we belong together in worship and in mission. You’ll find a red book in the rack on the back of our pews called the Book of Common Prayer, not the “Book of Personal Prayer” though it contains many of those types of prayers. But for us, the prayers are prayed by in common, prayed in corporate worship, as the corpus (another of those Latin words), that is a body, prayed as a whole Church.
The question arose in our Adult Ed class, what is the place of the individual in such a corpus? Is there something to be said for a personal faith, an individual’s spiritual path in such a corporate Church? What can we say for the personal experience, the individual understanding of God?
Well, today of all days, we can say quite a bit about the individual because beyond all the red and green decorations, all the shopping and sales and gift-wrapping, beyond all the parties and good cheer, beyond the familiar songs and carols, even beyond all the family gatherings and the warm and wonderful times we share at Christmas.
Beyond all these things is something quite unique, something very particular, something singular, something individual. This day is Christmas, the feast of the Nativity, the principle day on which the Incarnation is commemorated. What this day is about, in essence, is a very individual and singular event. For on this day, we celebrate the extraordinary fact that God became human, taking on our very flesh, a body just like yours and mine, and became one of us.
The theologians call this the Scandal of Particularity – that Almighty God should deign to become human in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. And it is a bit of a scandal when you think of it. For what reason, should the Eternal and Omnipotent God become a poor Jew, born on the edge of civilization, in a backwater of the Roman Empire, born in a stable, no less.
The God who created the heavens and the earth has become a weak, vulnerable babe – mewling, whining, in frequent need of a change of swaddling clothes, no doubt. The majestic God has taken on such ignominious circumstances as our own… Such a scandalous act, such a strange thing, such a literally wonder-full event. The great and glorious God as a single individual, the carpenter’s son, born of Mary, a young girl from Nazareth, born, as it turns out, while they were out of town, born while they were on the road, poor thing. Why should such a thing as this come to pass?
St. John says it best, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…” (John 3:16)For love, that’s why God became a human being. For love of us, for love of you, each of you. With apologies to St. John, I’m going to put it a slightly different way. Why did God take on the person of the carpenter’s son? “For God so loved you that he gave to you his son… God loves you, and today is proof of that fact. God loves you – with your sins and shortcomings, and with the kindnesses you do toward each other.
God loves you with your 15 extra pounds, and your overdue library books, and your less than admirable feelings toward your mother-in-law. God loves you, who shed a little tear at the coffee commercials at Christmas. God loves you, when you keep going though you’re tired and your feet hurt and you want to give up. God loves you when you give up. And God loves you when you start all over again.
God loves you enough to give you his son, not a grand potentate, but a poor Jew, who taught a message of love and forgiveness and mercy and service. A carpenter by training, a traveling rabbi by trade, who was willing to undergo the most scandalous of public executions, to show you the way past death and unto eternal life.
The reason for Christmas is very simple. There is an Incarnation, there is Christmas because God loves you.
And yes, the Church of God is certainly a sacred and holy institution, and here, together, we show our thanks to God, and from here, we go forth into the world to pay it forward, this love that God has for us. Each of us, a little Church within ourselves, with a heart wherein God is praised, not with great orations, perhaps, but with quiet prayers and soft sighs. Each of us with eyes that shine, not with the glory of centuries-old stained glass, but with the light of human compassion, with a mouth to speak, not with the deep tones of mighty organs, but with a sincere plea for God’s justice for all, and with hands that can reach as wide as any cathedral doors, to welcome all who come to us for solace and succor.
Yes, it’s true. In the words of the old hymn, love came down at Christmas, God’s holy and sacred and particular love for you… Merry Christmas!
© The Rev. Mark R. Collins
No comments:
Post a Comment