Sunday, 1-1-17, First Sunday after Christmas. (Using the Book of Common Prayer, 1928)
May the words of my mouth and the
meditations of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength
and my redeemer.
Merry Christmas once again. Christmastide is still going on, and will
continue up to Epiphany on the 6th of January, this coming Thursday.
In this busy season in which family
and friends are met and enjoyed, gifts exchanged, carols sung, and much good
food eaten, it’s easy to allow the spiritual to slip into the background of the
secular. In truth, the twelve days of
Christmas are some of the busiest days on the Church calendar.
I hope you have had an opportunity to
read, reflect, and pray during the past week.
I thought as my topic today I would go over the observances and relate
them to our spiritual life in this busy season.
I want to talk about St. Stephen’s
Day on December 26th, St. John’s Day on December 27th, and
the Holy Innocents on December 28th.
The question which I will answer is, why do we remember these
individuals and what’s their significance to our spiritual health. We can do far worse than remember what Thomas
A Kempis said about the body’s needs.
Thomas was an otherwise unknown monk who lived about the 12th
century. He wrote he had two needs in
the prison of his flesh: a need for food
and a need for light. He described the
food as the body of Christ on the Lord’s table on the communion and the light
as His Holy Word. This, Thomas said,
allowed him to get through the tribulations of living. So keep the spiritual food in mind when we
discuss the three events on our church’s calendar.
On the 26th, We remember St.
Stephen as the First Martyr. He was also
a Deacon, one called to serve, a man of good reputation and Godly ways. When Stephen looked up to heaven, He had an
epiphany: he saw the heavens opened and He saw Jesus standing on the right side
of the Throne. And the Jews ran out and stopped up their ears and threw him out
of the city and stoned him. Stephen is
symbolic that no matter what God calls you to do, whether waiting tables or
delivering food to poor and impoverished widows, is insignificant in God’s
sight.
And as they carried out the gruesome task
of stoning him to death, it was hot work and they threw their cloaks at the
feet of a young witness named Saul. Yet
Stephen forgave them as He gave up the ghost, much like Jesus had done. “Receive my spirit” he said. And “Lay not this sin to their charge.” You see in these words the faith of Stephen,
that Jesus was coming again, as the King and Judge of mankind. The significance of Stephen is found in the
collect because it asks us to look towards heaven and to forgive our
persecutors.
Since I am speaking of Stephen and
will be speaking of St. John in a moment, I need to talk about the proper place
of the Saints of the Church in our worship.
You have heard it said we do not worship Saints in this Church. is a true saying-- as far as it goes.
In fact, when you examine the 39
Articles of Religion, you will see Article 22 says we do not “invoke” the names
of saints: Article 22 also states many
practices of the Roman Church are repugnant to pure religion, such as the
concepts of Purgatory, pardoning, worshiping and adoration of relicts. However,
we clearly do not invoke Saints when we acknowledge their lives and their
examples. This is the only way the
liturgical calendar commemorating their lives makes sense: if saints are not to be acknowledged, why
would we have propers and collects for their days?
Moving on to
December 27th, we had the observation of St. John’s Day: we see his importance by his title. We acknowledge St. John both as an Apostle as
well as an Evangelist. It is St. John
who, at the end of a long life, the only surviving Apostle, sums up the meaning
of Jesus Christ. We heard his Gospel on
Christmas Day. John’s collect goes like
this: “ Merciful Lord, we beseech thee
to cast thy bright beams on light upon thy Church, that it being illumined by
the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John, may so walk in
the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to the life everlasting.” You can clearly see the importance of St.
John to the Church of all ages: He was
an Apostle, but through his writings He evangelizes the world today, that
spiritual food Thomas wrote of.
On December
28th, we remembered the Holy Innocents. These were the children killed by Herod, two
years and below. To understand this
event, the date of birth of
Jesus of Nazareth is not known. According to Wikipedia: "Two methods have been used to estimate the year
of the birth of Jesus: one based on the accounts of his
birth in the gospels with reference to King
Herod's reign, and the other by working backwards from his stated age of
"about 30 years" when he began preaching (Luke 3:23) in "the
fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar" (Luke 3:1-2): the two
methods indicate a date of birth before Herod's death in 4 BC, and a date of
birth around 2 BC, respectively".
But, as I was saying, the Angel had appeared and told Joseph to take
Mary and the Baby to Egypt. That was
another prophetic event: thus, it might be fulfilled the prophecy “Out of
Egypt I have called my Son.” Some have
speculated that the gifts of the wise men financed the life in exile.
In a sense the Collect for this day
emphasizes the evil of Herod added to the Glory of God when these innocent
souls were recalled to the Father. We ask we might obtain that same innocence through
obedience to God.
Today is a fixed Holy Day on the
Calendar. January 1st is always
observed as the Circumcision of Christ.
One may ask why the Church remembers it.
To understand that, we must understand two items separated the Jewish people
from other races: namely, their
observance of the Sabbath and their tradition of circumcising their sons. This was done on the child’s eighth day after
birth.
Circumcision was considered the “tribal
mark” of God among the Jews. After
Abraham was called into a covenant relationship with God, he was circumcised. This is found in Genesis, Chapter 17. Any member who was not of the people brought
into the household was required to be circumcised. The event shows Jesus was accepted into the Jewish
community and that he indeed was the son of Man as well as of the line of King
David. And by the way, his name was Yeshua
bar Yosef in Aramaic which means “Jesus, son of Joseph.” Naming was done at that ceremony. We remember also that Jesus’s cousin John was
named by the angel
In today’s collect, we pray that we
may live in accordance with God’s will.
We acknowledge that when Jesus came among us, he was made subject to the
law of man, even undergoing circumcision.
We are enjoined to pray, that unlike physical circumcision He
experienced on the eighth day that we receive a spiritual one. We pray this will allow us to live our lives
in God’s holy light.
In summary, as we continue through
this Holy season, let us enjoy and share its beauty and wonders but ever
mindful of the incalculable gift we have received, that the light of holy
scripture may illume our path in the year ahead.
And now unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost be
ascribed all might, majesty, dominion and glory now and forever more.”
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