Christ Lutheran Church

1701 Arroyo Chamiso

Santa Fe, NM 87505-4775

(505) 983-9461

church@clcsantafe.com

  

December 25, 2009
Christmas Day
The Mass of the People
 

(Complete with the Preacher’s Notes.)

 

GOSPEL: John 1.1-14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

             6There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

             10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

             14And 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.

In The Beginning

 

+ In nomine Domini.  Amen.

It’s Christmas Morning and most of us are exhausted. The leaders of the liturgy((the Organist and the Pastor)) have been at this now since 5.30 pm yesterday.  The whole set of three Masses reminds me of the 24-hour Yom Kippur Services (with fasting, although we do not at Christmas!) in Judaism.  We only get to go home to sleep after the Midnight Mass which means usually we’re in bed around 1.30 am or so. 

While we are tired, most of the people who come to the People’s Mass are not.  There are visitors and tourists as well as members of the congregation for whom this is THE Christmas Service … so it is not a time to slack off on the effort of preaching.

Since this year was a Trilogy, it seemed important to provide a review at the beginning, rather long, but it gives us a chance to place ourselves into the liturgy where we can hear and experience the truth of the phrases; and, we are reminded that faith is experiential above all else.

Also, this Sermon is a different style than the other three, most remarkably different from the first one at the Mass of the Angels last evening. Personally I think it’s quite disjointed, but that is the topic itself as the reader will see. Somewhere in the various things almost “thrown” upon the congregation, there is Christmas Gospel.

I.

There are three Christmas Masses: The Mass of the Angels (which took place last evening), the Shepherd’s Mass (also known as The Midnight Mass), and the Mass of the People … or the Christ Mass, from which of course we have our word Christmas. 

For the Sermons at these three services this year, I decided to preach a trilogy based upon the three significant phrases which we hear in the readings of the Christmas Gospel: twice from the Gospel of Luke (last evening) and once from the Gospel of John (this morning).  The three significant phrases are:

I.               In those days (“In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus …”), the phrase Luke uses to set the story of the Birth of Jesus into human history.  What happens at Christmas is that we come to the Story (the Christmas Gospel) with the hope that there is a connection between the truth in those days with our lives in these days.  And the Good News of the story is that there is indeed such a connection.

II.             In that region (“In that region there were shepherds living in the fields …”), the phrase Luke employs to cement the Birth of Jesus into humanity, that this is no insignificant event, but heralded with first one angel and then a million … with the night sky lit up and resounding as never before, the promise, the declaration, the Good News of the story is that if to field hands on the hills in Judea, then as the Angel proclaimed, it is good news of great joy for all people … that is everyone … everyone, no one is excluded.

And now this morning

III.           In the beginning …

Here begins the Sermon proper.

II.

The worst thing in the world, I think, is to live a life of discontinuity … being disconnected …being detached, disjointed, disengaged.  And when this happens that we are disconnected from the world, from those around us, even from ourselves … it is a horrible feeling, a terrible thing. 

Because it means that we have lost relationship.  To be disconnected is to be severed from the nurturing things of living … things that we take for granted, family, friends, spouse, partner, parents, children, employment, community, world.

We know how this feels.  It makes us ask questions like, Does anyone care about me? or Does it matter what I think or say or do? and when we get down to the ultimate questions it turns into things like Is there really a God who loves me and cares about me and this world, this humanity?

Living discontinuously means no real life at all, not attached to anything, anyone … removed from what is taking place around us.

It happens a lot at this time of the year … the Blue Christmas Season, the Holiday of Darkness (literally, short days, long nights ((at least here in the Northern Hemisphere)) with all the Seasonal Disorders thereunto … all manifestations of discontinuity.

The lengthy overemphasis upon this Season which goes by many names (Christmas Season, Holiday Season, Shopping Season, and many more) and the subsequent depression which follows since for most people it ends at Midnight tonight is well documented.

And yes, we know that Christmas is not a Day it is a Season, Twelve Days in fact, and ends not tonight but on January 6, the Epiphany of our Lord … we have to be honest and say that we have not been able to change very much the world out there which thinks otherwise.

On the First Sunday of Advent, we award the Christ Lutheran Church Anachronistic Awards … given out to people who discover the most inappropriate examples of Christmas decorations and things far too in advance of the Feast of Christmas itself.  The winners this year went to people who found instances not only in August, but also in January of last year, and the ultimate was someone who found a Department Store here in our City which was taking down the Christmas Decorations in its store, three days before Christmas itself!

I’m certain that if you go into some stores tomorrow, you will find displays already in place promoting Valentine’s Day … cards and candy already sitting before you to help you become even more disconnected.

OK, ere comes the Good News. It’s the whole point of the Sermon, and in fact this Christmas Day.

III.

Knowing all this discontinuity in the back of our minds, maybe in the front, perhaps deep in our hearts …we find ourselves sitting in the Peoples’ Mass on Christmas Morning.  We find ourselves sitting in the middle of a Gospel that was written after the other three, is completely different from the one we read last evening, and is – I want to tell you – all about continuity … being connected, being in relationship, being held in care and compassion and understanding and acceptance.

And it all starts in those wonder three words of that phrase In the beginning.

It’s a old early hymn of the followers of Jesus, these verses we have read from John’s Gospel.  It speaks of the tradition of the understanding of Wisdom the companion of God, spoken of here as the Word. 

God’s Wisdom was pictured in wonderful images in Proverbs (probably the best example) and is in fact used by Jesus in his preaching … for example, Wisdom sends prophets to Israel as she sent John the Baptist and Jesus himself; the image of Wisdom is behind the cry to Jerusalem about having wanted to gather her children as a hen gathers her chickens.

Wisdom (the Word) is the companion of God says the author of John’s Gospel, and was in the beginning with God, and was so close to God that in fact Wisdom and God (the Word and God) were identical.

And then a wonderful thing happened, says John … Incarnation!  It became human.  Or as he writes himself in verse 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.

That is the Christmas Gospel in a sentence.  The Word (Wisdom, Companion of God, so close to God that she cannot be differentiated from God) becomes human, becomes Jesus … lived among us.

Meaning?

That in matters of discontinuity and being disconnected, God chooses to end the breach, to bring God and humanity into unity, into relationship, into loving and caring about each other.   And it has a name, Jesus.

Jesus is the closest touch we have with God, and it is not a touch of condemnation (as in you wretched sinner and horrible person!) but always it is a touch of love and compassion and acceptance.

In Jesus life makes sense, life makes connections, life makes wholeness.  “To have a relationship of closeness to Christ is to have a relationship of openness to God and share his (eternal) life.”[1]

The Christmas Gospel is good news, that in spite of the efforts of many to make the world stick together and failing most miserably in the task, there is another way, and that way is to let God and humanity be together in the way it was to be and when that happens, then life becomes whole, wounds are healed, relationships are restored, and best of all you and I can bask in the warmth of this Holiday for Twelve Days and even beyond.

IV.

Let us pray.

O God who delights in the presence of all of your children,

    grant us grace so that we can accept this great gift

    you have bestowed upon us,

    the gift of Jesus Christ.

Let us embrace Jesus.

    Dispel the world's burden,

    remove oppression,

    bring good news of your peace to all.

Amen.

  +Deo Gratia

The Rev. Benjamin Larzelere III

Pastor

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