Christmas Day by Fr Jack
Isaiah 52.7-10
The Letter to the Hebrews 1.1-12
St John’s Gospel, Chapter One, The Prologue
Last night after Midnight Mass I strung Christmas cards that have been sent to me or to St Giles’ church on a piece of string, a great swag, across The Rectory sitting room.
You and are are swagged today too, like my Christmas cards, or like a piece of tinsel, or if you prefer a string of lights or some classy holly and ivy - take your pick - but we are swagged, swung, held, like a hammock, not between nails or drawing pins, but between two wonderful truths today.
And if we were at either end of this swag, we’d be missing out, because the truth of our wonderful situation can only be swung in the middle. Let me explain.
The first wonderful mysterious truth that holds us as we celebrate today, is at ‘this’ end: that the WORD was, is, made flesh. And the wonderful mysterious truth at ‘this’ end, holding the other side and making this swag of joy in which we sit like a Christmassy hammock is that today we celebrate that the Word was, is, made FLESH. The WORD was made flesh. The Word was made FLESH.
As we just heard: ’…In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God…’
The power of St John’s prologue is not his own, but belongs to the One of whom it speaks.
The other Gospel writers speak, rather sensibly of shepherds, stables and mangers, when speaking of the birth of Christ. St John doesn’t. His account of this birth is cosmic, philosophical, mysterious, relational, and epic.
Isaiah, from whom we heard today in the first reading (writing 700 years before Christ) says that in the Messiah ‘the Lord reigns’ and ‘he bares his holy arm’ in might. Well, not really. Our Lord gurgles more than he reigns today. The Lord of the universe (for all St John’s wonderful philosophy) cries, and poos, and feeds, and sleeps. If his arm is bare, it’s not in might, but because it’s sticking out of the manger.
But this is precisely where we sit in our tinsel hammock. The Word, the divine life, God’s purpose and meaning and being (remember that Logos is the Greek term St John uses that we translate feebly as ‘Word’ into English). The Logos, God Himself, has become flesh: frail, tender and soft.
Christina Rossetti’s beautiful poem set by Harold Darke so wonderfully leads us on. We will hear In the Bleak Midwinter during Communion. As we receive the gentle, loving flesh of the Logos again, God’s life and being, hidden in Bread and Wine. As we do, we will hear:
Our God, heaven cannot hold Him, Nor earth sustain, Heaven and earth shall flee away,
When He comes to reign: …[yet] A stable-place sufficed…
cherubim, Worship night and day,… [but] ox and ass and camel …adore [here]
Angels and Archangels…But only His Mother… Worshipped… With a kiss.
On one end of this swag is God’s own majesty, and history held in His grasp. On the other, the tiny grasp of His tiny hand, and the intimacy of cuddles and tenderness. Both of these hold us today.
The Letter to the Hebrews, the second reading given for Christmas Day says that Christ is the ‘exact imprint of God’s being’. The one who is God-with-us.
Before we leave church today, we will receive God’s blessing and the the celebrant will say ‘Christ who by his incarnation gathered into one things earthly and heavenly fill you with peace and goodwill and make you partakers of the divine nature and the blessing of God almighty…’
And this really does say it all about this tinsel swag we’re hammock-ed in:
‘things earthly’ and things ‘heavenly’.
Earth and heaven,
time and eternity,
mortality and life that knows no end,
frailty, sin and forgiveness and healing. It is all made whole today in the Word of God made flesh.
And all our fleshiness, all the presents and over-eating, all the gins and tonic, all the great telly and not going to work; all the specialness of today, the spell cast even over our dear City of London, all of it is pointing (however partially) to this coming together of earth and heaven, as we hang here between WORD made flesh, and Word made FLESH.
Incarnation, as in chilli con carne. Chilli with meat, flesh. Carne. Incarnation. Word made flesh.
On Good Friday we will turn to the cross and see this God-man who has gone through life with us, go through heartbreak, agony and death for us, so that when we live and die and live, He is already there waiting for us in those things. Earth and heaven, brought together, you see.
And here we are between the two. That amazing at-one-ment, as in atonement, at-one-ment, is here today as Jesus is saving the world by sleeping and feeding, pooing and gurgling.
And it is as gratuitous as it sounds. Remember, once He’s left nappies we will barely hear of Jesus for thirty years until His public ministry begins. Why? Because God delights in dwelling with His beloved children. Living life, growing and learning and loving. Befriending, working and feeling. That’s the gratuitous rejoicing in humanity and life we are given today by hanging in our tinsel hammock on the Incarnation of the Logos, the Word made flesh.
So, we see here, hanging in this hammock, that the trivialities of Christmas aren’t so trivial, they are an invitation to deeper joy.
Hanging in this hammock of the incarnation, our inherited and often deeply unsound images of God (you know the ones that would give Dr Freud a field day?) they are no good to us any more.
Hanging in this hammock, our pains and worries, our cares, regrets and concerns are no longer shameful or to be hidden - Jesus is there holding them with us.
Our Incarnate Lord, who shows us, as we hang in this tinsel of the Word made flesh, that His life in our life, His love of our love is so, so much more that we can possibly imagine. And we have this Christmas and next year to keep discovering this great mystery, at the heart of life.
As you come to the altar for a blessing or to renew your Communion in Him today, come with boldness and joy for ‘the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beh[o]ld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth’.
St John’s Gospel, Chapter 1
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.
8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
14 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.