The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews is the vicar of St. Hilda St. Patrick. The sermon for December 27, 2020, was based on the below manuscript. John 1.1-18 was the appointed gospel text for the day.
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…
From his fullness we have all received,
grace upon grace.
On Friday my friend Ryan tweeted,
“The liturgical calendar
has been a gift to me.
The steady rhythm of Christ’s life
comes and goes
as reliably as waves on the shore,
drawing us in to see everything
from electrons circling nuclei
to the rotation of the galaxies
as part of God’s unyielding redemption
of all things. [1]
There aren’t any plot twists.
Instead of branching out,
we dig deeper.
The joy comes from inside the story,
not from novelty.” [2]
The joy comes from inside the story,
not from novelty.
So we hear again, today
like on Christmas Day
and the first Sunday after Christmas,
the kernel of our Christian story —
the seed from which we make sense of the world
and have hope in the God who created
and redeemed
and is sustaining the world.
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.
From his fullness we have all received,
grace upon grace.
I don’t need to tell anyone
that this has been a hard year.
We’ve all lived it —
from Morning Prayer on Twitch
to the Triduum as home devotions
to lost great grandchildren
to uncertain employment
and housing situations.
Our congregation has been lucky:
I haven’t had to bury any of you
for anything,
let alone COVID19.
And 330,000 Americans are dead from it.
That’s one in every 1,000
Americans who are dead,
with communities of color —
who are already disadvantaged
and face uphill climbs in life —
being hit the hardest.
One out of every 1500 Americans
over the age of 25
is hospitalized for COVID.[3]
We know how bad it’s been,
and in some way or another,
throughout creation and human history
it’s always been this bad.
John the Evangelist —
setting the tone of his gospel —
gives the end of this Christian story away.
We hear the kernel,
but we know the fullness of it
in these 19 verses:
What has come into being in him was life,
and the life was the light
of all people.
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it.
Evil, tragedy, and malady
are nothing new
from the fall onward.
In her book on Advent,
Flemming Rutledge gives the game away,
“If you ask me how God can allow so much evil,
here’s the answer:
We don’t know.
Nobody knows
the answer to the problem of evil.
And yet it is in a sense
the most important of all theological problems,
and we should never lose sight of it.”[4]
We don’t know
why God allows such evil to flourish.
We do know, however,
what God has done and is doing about it:
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…
From his fullness we have all received,
grace upon grace.
Rather than set us loose
and leave us to our own devices,
God joins us in the muck.
Coming in Jesus,
to teach and redeem us,
the Light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness does not overcome it.
After weeks of longing and praying
for the fortitude to be ready
for Jesus’ final return
to make all things new
the Church reminds us
of the truth of our faith:
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 deepest part of winter,
when we don’t even get 8.5 hours of sunlight,
Jesus the Light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness does not overcome it.
The steady rhythm of Jesus’ life
comes and goes
as reliably as waves on the shore,
drawing us in to see everything
from electrons circling nuclei
to the rotation of the galaxies
as part of God’s unyielding redemption
of all things.
Evil is real,
and we’ve seen manifestations of it
all year this year,
and all years most years.
Being stuck at home
has just made it all the more apparent
as we’ve been unable to distract ourselves
and doomscrolled for 10 months.
As we celebrate the birth of the Christ child
we have seen a great light
redeeming all creation.
Jesus has taken on our flesh
to redeem us all
and all of creation.
As Charles Wesley wrote,
“Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth”
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…
From his fullness we have all received,
grace upon grace.
“Come, Desire of Nations, come,
Fix in us thy heav’nly Home;
Rise, the Woman’s Conqu’ring Seed,
Bruise in Us the Serpent’s Head.
Now display thy saving Pow’r,
Ruin’d Nature now restore,
Now in Mystic Union join
Thine to Ours, and Ours to Thine.
“Adam’s Likeness, LORD, efface,
Stamp thy Image in its Place,
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy Love.
Let us Thee, tho’ lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the Inner Man:
O! to All Thyself impart,
Form’d in each Believing Heart.”[5]
Merry Christmas.
Amen.
[1]https://twitter.com/RyWig/status/1342633718448594944?s=20
[2]https://twitter.com/RyWig/status/1342636247639056384?s=20
[3]https://twitter.com/DrTomFrieden/status/1343197745482493952?s=20
[4] Rutledge, Fleming. Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ (p. 63). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
[5]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hark!_The_Herald_Angels_Sing