St. Stephen & The First Sunday After Christmas

You may have noticed something was different this morning. The bulletin lists today as the Feast of St. Stephen and The First Sunday after Christmas. Most of us are not used to a Sunday being the Feast of a Saint. The Prayer Book tells us that Feasts of our Lord, and every Sunday is a Feast of our Lord Jesus Christ, these take precedence over the celebration of Saints. In the small print it tells us that we may celebrate a Saint’s day if it falls on a Sunday only if the Bishop gives permission. Bishop Duncan has graciously given us permission to celebrate the Feast of St. Stephen on this, the first Sunday after Christmas.

You may be asking yourself, why would we want to? St. Stephen was a deacon, and in the old Church of England St. Stephen’s day was the Feast of all deacons. In a little less than two weeks, God willing and the people consenting, I will be ordained a priest. So this is my last chance to preach to you as your deacon. As a deacon, I felt it was it was my duty to preach about the first person to serve the Jesus Christ in this order.

But more importantly, St. Stephen was also the first person to die for the truth of the Incarnation, the feast we celebrated just yesterday, where God Incarnated himself a human child in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. He died for the Truth so eloquently explained to us in today’s Gospel passage.

St. Stephen did not serve very long in his ministry as a deacon. In the beginning of Chapter 6 of the Book of Acts, we hear about the first deacons. The Apostles have realized that things have changed since Pentecost and birth of the new Church. The Apostles were so busy spreading the Good News of Christ that they were running out of time to serve the widows of the community. Realizing that they needed help, through the power of the Holy Spirit they ordained the first deacons, with St. Stephen among these new ordinands. These deacons were charged with caring for people, doing the work of pastoral care, especially to the sick, the lonely and the widowed. In all their work they were expected to show forth the saving truth of Christ, both through actions and words.

St. Stephen went about his work among his fellow Jews. At this early point in the Church, there was no separation between Christian and Jew, they belonged to the same religion it seemed. However, the divisions between the Jews were bound to blow up – it’s hard to keep a group of people who think salvation has come in the same room with people who think salvation has not come yet. The Book of Acts tells us that St. Stephen was full of faith and grace, and was working wonders and miracles amongst the people. It seems these works caught the attention of his fellow Jews, and the members of the local synagogues rioted against him. These people who were outraged by St. Stephen and had him arrested. He was charged with saying that Christ was the fulfillment of the Law and the One whom scripture foretold. To his fellow Jews who did not believe in Christ, this was blasphemy.

So St. Stephen is arrested and carted off to the council of the leaders and asked to answer for the charges of heresy. In a part omitted from today’s reading, St. Stephen goes on to give a lengthy speech about the entire history of God’s work amongst His people. He lays out the history of the world in a way the clearly shows that the Holy Spirit has sent prophet after prophet to the people of Israel to call them back home, but they have been ignored. St. Stephen lay’s this great charge against them "Brothers and fathers, listen to me. You are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers. You are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it!” (Acts 6:51-53) This riled up his crowd and it became clear that this was going to end badly. The he tells them “Look…I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!" (Acts 6:56) With that statement, St. Stephen sealed his fate. To the Jews listening to him he could not have said anything more blasphemous. He has just proclaimed the truth that we celebrated on the Feast of the Nativity. It was not just a prophet who was born for us, but God Himself, dwelling in human flesh. By saying that he saw Jesus, the Son of Man, standing at the right hand of God, St. Stephen is saying “The man you killed was no mere reformer or prophet, but the one, true, living God, living amongst us as one of us to save us!”

Then the rocks were thrown at him, he prayed to the Lord, and he died. St. Stephen laid down his life because he was unwilling to do anything other than proclaim what he knew: God had become flesh and dwelt among us.

If you look at our parish banner or on the stone high altar you will see a phrase written on there “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” This comes from our Gospel reading today. The first 18 verses of St. John Gospel are known as the prologue to St. John’s Gospel. The other three Gospel explain the theology of what Jesus Christ means solely by narrative, by telling us His story. St. John decided to take a different route, and began his Gospel with a thick theological discourse.

This part of St. John’s Gospel is so jam packed with theology that it unfolds over time, growing in meaning and depth each time you read it. Knowing this, and just how bold a statement the prologue is, it became a custom in the middle ages for a Priest to a recite the first 14 verses of John’s Gospel as his concluding prayer. I was taught by my mentoring priests to keep this custom. After I have greeted everyone at the door, I go back to the vesting room and I recite those 14 verses which have become known as the Last Gospel. Each and every time I do this I am awed by just how much St. John was able to fit into his sentences. He wrote in a dense and beautiful Greek, which even when translated to English still retains its sense of beauty and poetry. But more than amazed, I am inspired, just as St. Stephen was, to proclaim to the world that God became Man.

Unpacking and trying to understand everything that was being said by St. John is the work of a semester long course. But to speak in gross generalizations, St. John is establishing three basic theological facts about Christ. Firstly, Jesus Christ is in fact God. Jesus Christ, who is the Word, the Son of God has always existed since the beginning of time. Although born to us in specific time and place, there has never been a time when the Son has not existed. There is one Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit that always has and always will exist. Secondly, Christ is fully human. As our altar says, The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus Christ was no illusion, or sort of person, he was born of human flesh from the Blessed Virgin Mary. Born of a woman, just as you and I were from our mothers. Christ was fully one of us. Thirdly, Jesus Christ acts both as God and human at the same time, living in unity, joined together.

We could spend the next few hours discussing these three points, but I imagine we would not get far. The beauty of the Bible is that it is a text that always unfolds, it lives and breathes. Each time you read it, a new part of you will be enlightened, and a clearer understanding of God’s Divine Will will dawn on you.

Despite the mysteries of this text, the basic truth of it is easily said, and it is exactly what St. Stephen told his persecutors. God became man, Incarnate as one of us because he loved us so much that He could not bear to see us suffer the fate of corruption and eternal death. God prepared us for His coming through prophets and the acts of the Holy Spirit, and we denied Him and the prophets over and over again. Yet despite this disobedience He came anyways. For stating these facts to those who refused to hear them, St. Stephen died, just as many others did and continue to do so in places like the Middle East and Africa.

In the belief that beauty is of God, and shows forth God, I would like to read for you the prologue to St. John’s Gospel John from the Kings Jame’s Bible. I find in this beautiful rendering of St. John’s word the Truth of Christ in glorious mystery comes to me. Hear again the Truth that St. Stephen and so many others have and will lay down their life for:

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.

All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe.

He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light.

That was the true light, which lighteth every man that commeth into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

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:

Which were borne, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

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.

Christmas Day (Christmas II Propers)

Merry Christmas!

Bah! Humbug!

Not expecting those words? This immortal phrase of Ebenzer Scrooge was my mantra during my atheist days. Even though my family did not really believe in God, we still celebrated a secular Christmas. We never went to church and it had nothing to do with Christ, but it was still Christmas to us. It was month of family gathering and gift giving.

When I was kid I loved it. I loved the special Christmas Music. I loved the special Christmas episode of Charlie Brown’s Christmas that came on the TV. I loved the pile of gifts I received. But somewhere around the age of 15 I started to notice just how stressful it was.

I began to tire of spending hours in the car every weekend in December to visit someone different. I found trying to figure out what to give someone for Christmas was nerve wracking! I noticed that beneath the veneer of holiday cheer that most people had a high stress level boiling right below the surface. Then I began to notice the letdown that happened on the 26^th. The day after Christmas the decorations came down and people stopping singing carols.

That’s when I began to loathe Christmas.

By the time I was in college I spent the en tire month of December plain old grumpy and shot a dirty look at anybody that dared to say Merry Christmas to me. I didn’t like the holiday and I let people know it.

When I became a Christian I didn’t realize how much this part of the year would change for me. During that first year as a Christian, when that first December rolled around, I was shocked by how much I was looking forward to Christmas. That year December was truly amazing, because Advent really meant something to me that year. I was eagerly awaiting the first time that I could celebrate the birth of Christ. That December was a month of prayer and excitement for me. When that Christmas morning dawned, it really was different. For the first time, December 25^th was not about opening presents, and complaining about what I did or did not get. It was not a day of wondering what to do after I opened the presents. It was a day that began at church where I was able to proclaim Alleluia! Christ the Lord is born!

The amazement that God was actually a little child at one point carried me through the following few weeks as if I was floating on clouds. I was just so amazed at liturgically making present the fact that God was born as one of us. That he cried the same way I did. He needed His Mother the same way I did.

Wow! Was pretty much all I could say.

As the years have gone by, Christmas has not become any less amazing for me. Sure, I became aware again of the stress that engulfs any human living in the Western Hemisphere during December, but the mystery of the Incarnation began to unfold.

And now, in sure proof the God does have a sense of humor, I am here in this pulpit. The man who screamed Bah! Humbug is now preaching to you in the pulpit of The Church of the Nativity, a church named in honor of Christmas.

In many ways there is no better name for an Anglican Church. It has been said that Roman Catholics are defined by Good Friday, the Eastern Orthodox are defined by Easter Sunday and Anglicans are defined by the Feast of the Nativity, the day we call Christmas.

The savings works of Christ through his death on Good Friday and resurrection on Easter Sunday are well know to us, especially here in the Deep South where our Baptist brothers focus so much on the atoning death of Christ.

Unfortunately, the doctrine of the Incarnation, the theological doctrine that emerges from the Feast of the Nativity, is not spoken of nearly as much as the atonement and resurrection. Yet the Incarnation is just as theologically shocking as they are. As St. Athanasius put it, on this day, Jesus “assumed humanity that we might become God.” (On the Incarnation, 93)

That is a statement that scares the daylights out of most Protestants. Many people hear this and scream “heresy!” So let me be very clear about this, there is one God, and we at best can partake in the divine energies, better known as being filled by the Holy Spirit, but we will never become Him.

What it means is that God’s dwelling amongst us, as a human being, is part of how humanity can become reconciled to God. It is the beginning of Christ’s work that ends with his resurrections and the promise of His return. Jesus’ beginning here on earth harkens back to our beginning as God’s created being.

In the beginning God made man and woman, and said that we were good. He made us in His Image, as His most beloved creation. He gave us a perfect place to live in where we could share in His good creation and live in mutual love with Him. Being made in His Image, we reflected back His Love, and took on His characteristics. He was capital “G” God, and we were little “g” gods, the creation he made that mirrored Him.

Then he gave us a choice: to follow Him or to follow our own will. We chose own will, and in that moment we stopped bearing the clear image of God. We let loose death and pain into the world and became a cloudy reflection, a distorted image of God. Through this cloudy image we could no longer see God clearly, so we focused on our own wills and the evil we had let loose instead.

God in His infinite love for us gave us our second chance to bear His image clearly. To accomplish this He emptied himself and took the form and the flesh of a human. God was born into the world that was afflicted with death and pain because our own wrongdoings, yet he came not only as one of us, but as the original one of us to live in the world we had tainted. Jesus was born the new Adam. Being fully God and fully man, Jesus bore the perfect Image of God in His human flesh, undistorted and clearly, just as we did in the beginning. Jesus, the new Adam, became the first human since the fall of Adam to bear the Father’s image as God had originally created us. Jesus, the second Adam, is the second chance for humanity.

In the Sacrament of Baptism we know that we are joined to joined to Christ. We often hear about how this joining frees us from everlasting death because it joins us to the One who beat death and rose on the third day. The lesser known aspect of Baptism in this day and age is the union we have with the One who bears the perfect image of God.

We are connected and joined to He who lived just as God intended us, able to perfectly reflect back the Love of God to God Himself and the world around Him.

This process of union takes time. Although baptism immediately makes us sons and daughters of God, the ability to begin to recover our image is a process. Through this union with Christ we, gradually over time, are able to be sanctified, to be aided by the Holy Spirit to bear more and more of His image clearly.

The ancient analogy for this is a sword in a fire. When you place a sword into a fire, it will gradually begin to heat up, to turn red and become hot. The sword absorbs the fire and takes on the characteristics of the fire, while still remaining a sword. In our union with Christ at baptism, we are the sword who is put into the fire of the Holy Spirit. Over time, by saying yes to the Lord’s grace, we take on His characteristics. We begin to glow with the red hot heat of the Holy Spirit, yet we still remain human.

This is what the Feast of the Nativity really means for us. When God was born to us 2010 years again as baby, He opened the gates and lead us onto the road back home to God.

My first Christmas as Christian was a milestone for me on my journey back home to God. I may never get there, but by His grace I pray that I may bear His image more and more as I let the Holy Spirit guide me back home.

I pray that this Feast of the Nativity will be a blessing to you all. That it may be a day when you say yes again to God’s grace, and allow Him to take your hand, and lead you back homewards.

Merry Christmas!

Advent 1A - It's not the Feast of 50% off!

The seasons have changed on us again. The tress have changed color, our favorite TV shows always show scenes of pristine snow and around us it is has dipped down into the frigid 70s. There are parties at work and get-togethers with family. For many of us, this is one of the few times in the year we get to see most of our family, often in one place all together.
In my large Italian family this is the time of the year when my family cooks some my favorite recipes that only happen around the holidays. Between them and the Eggnog it’s a golden opportunity to gain 10 pounds in a month! As bad as these festivities are for my waistline – they are good for my soul. It is good to see my family and be surrounded by those I love. But now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, we are in that in-between period. The Thanksgiving festivities have ended, and the Christmas ones are still a few weeks away.
What will occupy the airwaves, the TV shows and unfortunately 90% of our time for the next few weeks will be that dreadful thing that comes in between Thanksgiving and Christmas – Secular Christmas.
By Secular Christmas I mean a time that has nothing to do with Christ. It’s the Feast of 50% off, the Feast of special door prizes for the first few shoppers in the door at 4AM at Sears. The time when we show our love for one another by spending money we don’t have and putting it on our credit cards.
This is the time when, unfortunately, Western Society does its best to make sure that our poor and outcast feel as lonely as possible, as the media tells them to buy, buy, buy while they must hope for the charity of others just to get by. Now, I don’t think the retail business world intended to cause seasonal depression and stress us out, but they do intend to shout at us until we listen to them.
Eventually this will pass, and the true Christmas, the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord will be upon us. We will pray together as we remember that God loved us so much He came down from heaven as a defenseless infant, dependent on the love of His Mother and father here on earth. We will share this Love that God has given us with each other. We will love our children and parents just as God the Father and God the Son shared their love. We will glory in the love of our friends just as God looked at all of His creation and said it is good.
Yet until this Feast we have to deal with what the secular world will throw at us, and persevere in our prayers. I think that at no other part of the year is it clearer that we are citizens of a different city. The City of Man tells us “Seasons Greetings!” and “Buy today and save half off!” while we here in the City of God we sing “Christ is nigh! Let us be wakened by that solemn warning, from Earth’s bondage let us rise!” (Hymnal 59)
Instead of being bullied into thinking this is the season of sales, we know this is the season of preparation for the Lord.
Advent has the distinction of being the one season that is both joyous and yet quite penitential at the same time. It ages past you and I would be in the midst of a strict fast from certain foods for this entire season. Yet even today when we deny ourselves during this season in some way, be it giving up something food wise or simply not saying Alleluia, we can’t but help be a bit joyful too. The day of God’s Incarnation among us is just around the corner, and that reminds of us how much God loves us.
The three readings for today show both the joyous and penitential aspects of this season. They remind us that this season is not just about sacramentally remembering and making present God’s Incarnation in Bethlehem, but also His second coming in great Glory at the end of ages.
In St. Matthew’s Gospel we encounter Jesus as he is telling his disciples of the end time, the days before he comes to judge the quick and the dead and usher in the fullness of His Kingdom. In today’s Gospel passage Jesus tells his disciples what the world will be like before he comes back. He is quite explicit in telling them that there is no one other than the Father who knows when this will all happen – but Jesus tells us what the world will be like before it happens. It will be as in the days of Noah… “For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, and marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark.” (Matt 24:38) In other words it will be time when most of the world goes on, serving itself and ignoring others except for a select few who are actually listing and looking for God. It sounds a lot like today….and it sounds like almost every other age of mankind. For all that God does in the world; a good chunk of humanity will be so focused on itself that it will ignore everything else.
Knowing that this has been the state of the world, and knowing that there is no way to know exactly when Christ is returning, many a Christian has asked – what do we do in the meantime? St. Paul’s addressed this in his Epistle to the Romans. St. Paul, obedient to Christ’s teaching that we are not to know when the exact time is tells the community in Rome that he doesn’t know when it will happen, but he thinks it is soon. In light of this, he instructs those in Rome to live their lives accordingly. He tells them “Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” (Romans 13:12) Now the end did not comes as soon as St. Paul seems to have expected it, but his message to us remains the same. We are to live knowing that His return is soon, soon in God’s time, and we are to live in that knowledge. Living a life showing forth our faith Jesus Christ, striving to live a good life by the commands of Our Lord; not just because we expect impending judgment, but because it shows forth God’s love to the world.
For all that we don’t know about the timing of Christ’s second coming in glory we do get a glimpse of what this world, perfected by God, will be like. Isaiah prophecies about a time when people will “beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4b)
That is the glorious vision of the future, and that is a reason to be joyful in Advent. We await the ushering in of that spectacular world of love, peace and charity. Yet here we find ourselves, living in a time just as Jesus predicted, where the world is paying attention to itself and ignoring God. The good news is that although we find ourselves in a time just like those of Noah, we know that God has promised that he will deal with us differently than he did with people of Noah’s time.
To us he gives us a Divine Church, full of the Holy Spirit, to bring the world back to God. To transition the world from its own ways to the ways of God; to change the calls of “Sale! Sale! Sale!” all through December to “Salvation! Salvation! Salvation!”
Towards this purpose we will be ending our service of Morning Prayer with the ancient Great Litany. I wrote an article in the Window last week giving the history of the Great Litany, so I want bore you the history of it again. I will say though, that I can’t think of a better way to sum our prayers for the world in this season than the Great Litany.
The Great Litany is quite comprehensive. It leads us in prayer about every facet of our life and the life of the world. It names many of our fears and prayers that we in a polite society are often afraid to voice in such an explicit way.
Jesus has told us that we don’t know when He will return, but maybe THIS is the last Advent. Maybe this really is the final season of preparation, and He will come back to usher in His Kingdom in just weeks. In this spirit I invite you to join in the litany and all the prayers that follow, praying along with the whole church the we may be ready for Him when he comes; and that entire world and every single person in it, aided by our prayers will say yes to the grace of God and able to stand before Jesus and say, “Yes, Lord. Your will be done.”