Second Sunday Of Christmas

Sirach 24:1-12

24:1 Wisdom praises herself, and tells of her glory in the midst of her people.

24:2 In the assembly of the Most High she opens her mouth, and in the presence of his hosts she tells of her glory:

24:3 "I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and covered the earth like a mist.

24:4 I dwelt in the highest heavens, and my throne was in a pillar of cloud.

24:5 Alone I compassed the vault of heaven and traversed the depths of the abyss.

24:6 Over waves of the sea, over all the earth, and over every people and nation I have held sway."

24:7 Among all these I sought a resting place; in whose territory should I abide?

24:8 "Then the Creator of all things gave me a command, and my Creator chose the place for my tent. He said, 'Make your dwelling in Jacob, and in Israel receive your inheritance.'

24:9 Before the ages, in the beginning, he created me, and for all the ages I shall not cease to be.

24:10 In the holy tent I ministered before him, and so I was established in Zion.

24:11 Thus in the beloved city he gave me a resting place, and in Jerusalem was my domain.

24:12 I took root in an honored people, in the portion of the Lord, his heritage.

Psalm 147:12-20

147:12 Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion!

147:13 For he strengthens the bars of your gates; he blesses your children within you.

147:14 He grants peace within your borders; he fills you with the finest of wheat.

147:15 He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly.

147:16 He gives snow like wool; he scatters frost like ashes.

147:17 He hurls down hail like crumbs-- who can stand before his cold?

147:18 He sends out his word, and melts them; he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow.

147:19 He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and ordinances to Israel.

147:20 He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his ordinances. Praise the LORD!

Ephesians 1:3-14

1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

1:4 just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.

1:5 He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will,

1:6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace

1:8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight

1:9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ,

1:10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

1:11 In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will,

1:12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory.

1:13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit;

1:14 this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God's own people, to the praise of his glory.

John 1:(1-9), 10-18

1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

1:2 He was in the beginning with God.

1:3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being

1:4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

1:5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

1:6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

1:7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.

1:8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.

1:9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

1:10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.

1:11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.

1:12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,

1:13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

1:14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.

1:15 (John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'")

1:16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

1:17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

1:18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.

In the pulpit this probably would have been Epiphany Sunday. Even though Epiphany is in the 6th and this is only the 2nd, people were usually anxious to be done with Christmas by now. I have a dear friend from seminary who puts up her tree on Thanksgiving (or, I guess, the day after), and promptly puts it all away on December 26th. I remember as a child the general family confusion about when to take the tree and the decorations down. January 1 was, by general consensus, long enough. After that it just seemed odd to see wreaths and greens and a tree still decorated in the window or occupying a room corner.

Today if I put up greenery I might leave it until Candlemas. As it is, January 6th conveniently marks the end of Christmas, so why end it before it’s done?

This isn’t really a sermon, so I can indulge a bit of Biblical scholarship before turning to the exegesis. 

So John’s gospel opens with the famous hymn to the Logos. You really have to read it in the original Greek to recognize the hymn-like qualities of the opening words. Sorry I can’t provide that; in Greek, this is my favorite passage in the gospels. But the important point of this hymn is the introduction of the Logos. This is where the scholarship comes in.

John’s gospel comes last in the canon, in sequence and in time. Jump back to Mark, the earliest of the gospels. Mark starts with Isaiah, goes to John the Baptist, and through that prepares the way (in eight verses!) for the baptism of Jesus, which pretty clearly turns Jesus from just another man to “my son, whom I love, with who I am well-pleased.” (John, interestingly, will use this same story, altered for his purposes. There are curious connections to all the synoptics in John.) The nativity stories of Matthew and Luke we’ve already heard about recently. What we haven’t considered is how the nativities move the divinity of Christ back to his birth. Mark has Jesus anointed in baptism (making the act itself clearly a sacrament). Matthew starts with the father, Luke goes “back” (in social standing) to the wife.  Slowly, we work backwards to John, who makes Jesus both God (one and indivisible) and the organizing principal of Creation. This is a Greek idea, but the Hebrews had the same notion with a female personification of Wisdom (the organizing principal of Creation), Sophia. So John is not sui generis, any more than Paul is.

John moves the divinity of Christ back to the beginning of time. Further back we simply cannot go. Here we have Christ in the Godhead, more fully God than man. (Mark has Jesus more fully man than God. Matthew and Jesus mix divine and carnal as best we can.) This move also moves Jesus as far from human as we can go, at least in telling his story.  Is it any wonder that in John alone  “Jesus wept”? Or ate fish on the beach after his resurrection?

This emphasis on a beginning before the beginning connects us with Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. If John seems to marry Greek and Hebrew ideas and establish Christ as Logos, not just the Anointed One, Paul joins Greek and Hebrew ideas and lays the groundwork, arguably, for predestination. And there’s the connection between John and Paul.

Paul’s argument, however, is Platonic, not bluntly determinative.  Paul is not concerned with fate, but with revelation. To the Hebrews wisdom comes from God; it is revealed. To Plato wisdom (the only knowledge worth knowing), is recovered, because it is knowledge known but lost to us. So Paul’s argument to the Ephesians is not that their fate is fore-ordained, but that the revelation they have received comes from God, who always knew they would receive understanding and enlightenment. They have not recovered knowledge, it has been revealed to them. But God meant to do that from the beginning of time, from the first act of the Logos in creating. What is pre-ordained is their benefit, not their favor above others. Indeed, Paul would find that a horrifying idea.

Paul is the connection between John’s Logos and us, mere human beings that we are. John wants us to relate to God (whom no one has seen) through Jesus (who has been seen; yes, doubting Thomas). Paul wants to connect the faith (trust) of the Ephesians to God and to Jesus, neither of whom they have seen.

Nor have we.

John wants us to understand that God is God, and Jesus is God, and God (Jesus) is omniscient and omnipotent, and certainly moves in mysterious ways. These are very Greek and Hebraic ideas (with, yes, important differences). Paul wants his house church to understand they are special to God because they had the revelation from God. They aren’t special because God chose them above and beyond others for a special privilege denied to others; they are special because of God. Their faith comes from God and their blessings come from God. In the beginning, (and in the end) God…

John makes Jesus fully God ab initio. He declares Jesus central and fundamental to all Creation. That’s the central statement of Genesis, of God as Creator. How do we know God, first and foremost? Through the Creation. That revelation doesn’t replace the call to Abraham, the mighty acts of power for Israel, the signs and wonders: it supports them, it affirms them, it restates that God is one. One, and all. Through God everything that is, is. And through God all life is. And that life is the light which the darkness cannot dispel. Darkness is the mere absence of light, but the light is never absent. It is the blessing from God that will never end.

From Sirach through the Psalm through Paul and John the message is the same: “we have all received grace upon grace.” We have all received life.  We have all received light.  And these things will never end.