Preached at Christ Church, Worton and St Mary’s, Potterne
Readings – Ephesians 1. 3-14; John 1. 10-18
“The law was indeed given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”
Has anyone brought you a present today? A bottle of wine, or a box of chocolates, perhaps? Some left-over mince pies? Or has anyone already today been given the gift of… eleven pipers piping?
Christmas isn’t over. It’s only just begun!
You see, today is the eleventh day of Christmas. Christmas isn’t over—not yet, anyway. That’s the point of that old song about the twelve days of Christmas. Tomorrow night is Twelfth Night, when the Christmas decorations traditionally come down. But for now we are definitely in the season of Christmas, and all our readings and hymns today reflect that.
Then on Tuesday the Epiphany comes—when the infant Christ was worshipped by the Wise Men, who were not Jews, therefore demonstrating that He has come to establish His Kingdom over the whole human race, and not just one group of people. That was the start of Christ’s earthly mission, begun when was still in the cot. Is that the end of Christmas? Well, what if I told you that it didn’t need to be? What if I told you it could be Christmas every day?
Now, I know what you’re thinking:
♪♫ Well, I wish it could be Christmas everyday ♫♪
♪♪ When the kids start singing and the band begins to play ♫♫
What a blessed relief it has been to go into supermarkets over the last couple of days without that blasting in your ears. It will be a whole ten months until we get assaulted by Slade and Mariah Carey every time we go to buy a packet of frozen peas – or nine-and-a-half at least. That sort of Christmas everyday would be pretty grim – eternal mince pies, mulled wine, and bigger meals at higher prices than you actually want, all accompanied by forced cheerfulness.
That sort of seasonal celebration has its place, and I enjoy it myself, but it’s a relief when it’s finally over. But why did this event become our society’s main excuse for a secular party? What does Christmas mean for us as Christians, when the rest of the world think it’s all over for another year? That’s something that this Second Sunday of Christmas gives us an opportunity to explore.
Today’s Gospel reading partly overlaps with the one that is set at Midnight Mass, which is also usually the final reading in services of lessons and carols – the famous one about “the Word became flesh”. Having heard that bit plenty of times in all those services, we hear it again when the rest of the world has moved on, and we hear it surrounded by a slightly different extract from the prologue of John’s Gospel. Here are a few things that jump out at me as I reflect on this passage in the cold light of early January.
This passage sets out the core of what is unique about Christianity in comparison with the other great religions of the world. We believe that in Jesus Christ, God became a human being and lived among us. And after the shepherds and the Wise Kings had departed, Christ and the Holy Family went on with their lives, anonymous and invisible to the world for three decades. So God is constantly at work in the world in ways we pay no attention to, bringing to fruition plans that had their origin before time itself began.
For this passage focuses our attention on the cosmic nature of Christianity’s claims. Already in existence before time began, God walked the Earth in Palestine two thousand years ago. Nobody has ever seen God the Father. If what we claim about the nature of God is remotely true, then the creator of the universe must be in many ways beyond our capacity to understand—how can we possibly understand the creator of galaxies and gravity and rainbows and life?
But because Jesus Christ has shown us what it is for God to live like us, we can understand what it is to live like God would. We can genuinely try to understand and put into practice what God wants for us and how He wants us to live. We can understand all that we need to for a full life on this Earth and to accept the gift of eternal life after we die. Yet our Gospel reading reminds us that people often didn’t understand Jesus when He was alive, didn’t grasp what His true nature was. That wasn’t just about His enemies. The Gospels, written by Jesus’ closest followers or those intimately connected to them, record their constant misunderstanding of what Christ wanted to show them. That means they didn’t understand God, even when they were having breakfast with Him every morning.
We can get trapped by the idea that we can’t understand God because He’s a being beyond our comprehension. But God has told us enough to understand what He wants from us. That understanding isn’t something that necessarily comes with a great intellect or a lot of study; it’s more about the attitude we take to life, to God, and to our fellow human beings, one more often seen most clearly in the lives of the very simple than the very clever.
Of course, we’ll never succeed entirely in living as God wishes, and that’s why Grace should be at the centre of our lives as Christians. Grace is the favour God shows towards us, an entirely unmerited free gift. Knowing how much we owe to God’s Grace, we should seek to share that Grace with others. The Gospel reading contrasts two things that Jesus brought us, Grace and truth, with the law that Moses gave. Of course laws are important – but they can only ever give us a rough estimate of what it means to be graceful people living in a good society. Laws are imperfect, and implemented by imperfect people, and at our worst we and others manipulate them to make wickedness lawful and suppress the truthful and the good. Jesus came to give us something greater than the law – forgiveness for the times when we fail to act rightly and justly.
If I could summarise in one sentence what it might mean for it to be Christmas every day, it would be this – to live fully aware of the presence of God, and seek to be filled with grace and truth.
In our Epistle, St Paul says something even more extraordinary: that we – you and I in this village church on a cold January morning – are an integral part of the cosmic plan to redeem the human race that entered the world at the first Christmas. We were chosen by Christ before the beginning of time to be holy and blameless before Him in love, scary as that sounds. We are part of God’s plan, and our part is not to execute the plan perfectly, but to try knowing that we will often fail, and to rest in God’s Grace in all our failures. Pray that we may be worthy of that calling and show His love to the world.
When we do that, then we truly show that Christmas isn’t over, but indeed has only just begun, in ways that are a lot better than an ageing pop tune and endless Brussels sprouts. Christmas is God with us, showing us how to live better and how to allow Him to rescue our souls. Twelve days to celebrate it, but a whole life to live it out, and an eternity to share it with God in Heaven.
And now to our wonderful counsellor, mighty God, everlasting Father, to Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace, and to the Holy Spirit who overshadowed Mary, be glory in the highest, until the end of all ages. Amen.
Top image—Bethlehem Twilight, © Gerry Lynch, 14 November 2022.
