The Psalm: Psalm 147:1-11, 20c
The second of five Hallelujah psalms which close the Psalter celebrates the special relationship Israel had with God. Its message is summed up in the words of v. 20: "He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his ordinances."
Praise the Lord! How good it is to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting. The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. The Lord lifts up the downtrodden; he casts the wicked to the ground. Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; make melody to our God on the lyre. He covers the heavens with clouds, prepares rain for the earth, makes grass grow on the hills. He gives to the animals their food, and to the young ravens when they cry. His delight is not in the strength of the horse, nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner; but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love. Praise the Lord!
The Old Testament Lesson: Jeremiah 31:7-14
The idea is a pronouncement of hope, an end to the exile. As such it is about new life, being delivered from doom and gloom. A time when mourning will be turned into joy, and sorrow into gladness.
For thus says the Lord: Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, "Save, O Lord, your people, the remnant of Israel." See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back, I will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble; for I have become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the coastlands far away; say, "He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd a flock." For the Lord has ransomed Jacob, and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him. They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again. Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow. I will give the priests their fill of fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my bounty, says the Lord.
The Epistle Lesson: Ephesians 1:3-14
The letter to the Ephesians addresses the church concerning God's plans and purpose for the world. It begins with a prayer thanking God for the blessings that already belong to us in Christ and for the yet more glorious future that awaits us.
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, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 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, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 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; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God's own people, to the praise of his glory.
The Gospel Lesson: John 1:(1-9), 10-18
Looking at Jesus from the perspective of perhaps sixty years after his death on the cross, John assessed what the coming of Jesus into the world really meant. The mystical reality of the highest ideas becoming flesh is John's understanding of the incarnation.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. 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. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 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. (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.'") From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 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.
"Coming Back To Where We First Began"
There is a time for everything…that's part of the message of the final days of Christmastide and the start of the season of Epiphany which begins this Tuesday. It comes as a reminder to all of us that there was a time for the shepherds to abandon their flocks in order to go to Bethlehem to "see the great thing that the Lord had made known to them,"-- there was a time for the Magi to follow the eastern star in search of a dream and when they found it to lay their gifts before him and worship him, and there was a time for the holy family to seek refuge from the horror that was to come to Rachel's children and flee to the safety of a foreign land.
And just as surely, there was a time to return even if by a different way, to the way it had always been-back to the fields and flocks, home to the places of origin to begin life again in the "real world."
Life itself sets the pattern of always coming back again to where we first began; its the reason we have seasons, and the reason why the Church itself is in rhythm with them…even if sometimes it is with difficulty and the need for reinterpretation.
The big problem with the "new year" from a secular perspective is that so very little actually seems new. Prisons, mental health facilities and people given to depression on a normal basis will testify to the fact that this is one of the most stressful times of the year for all of them. Perhaps it's all the hype leading up to the big celebration of its coming that contributes so heavily to the blahs that many people deal with going into the early part of January. For despite all the promises of "peace and joy-good will to all"---reconciliation and renewal--pre-December realities like struggling economic situations, nations at war, difficult marriages, troubled children, poor health and in some cases even poorer self-image may seem no different than they were before.
In the ancient Western calendar, before the great reforms adopted in the English world only in the eighteenth century, the New Year came not in January with the dropping of the ball in Times Square-but in March with the new moon-evidenced by the changes which were very obvious in every farmer's fields.
One could smell it in the air, hear it in the sounds of returning flocks of birds, and see it in the new life that was emerging from every budding branch and opening burrow. That's the genius of Easter-no one has to struggle to believe in those promises if you are living in the Northern Hemisphere in the spring!
All of life would be screaming out in affirmation of its existence and it would be a very easy time to affirm the business of "starting over" with a hope-filled heart. But when the world is cold and frozen, the skies are gray and the ground barren…newness is harder to appreciate.
As we stand on the hind edge of our seasonal festivities we have to ask: Is the world any different out there because we have employed all the symbols of manger and star to suggest that it is? Can our best efforts to decorate home and sanctuary-drooping and dropping now-and in most cases already returning to their normal state-provide us with a sense that we are going to make it--and be better than we were before?
That the world has changed and is now a better place has never been the gospel message for this or any other time of year.
The world doesn't change…we do. The genius of Christmas-in the midst of winter-earth as hard as iron water like a stone-is that we have been given a new identity in Christ, and the good news is that it is new everyday in every season!
It's why John places such emphasis on the power of the transformed Word…not the transformed world. We can hear that Word all day long, but until the Word is made flesh (incarnate), it's just words.
All your life you've been taught that there are three types of "words" in Christianity-the spoken word, the written word, and the Incarnate Word. We say the same thing when we attribute the works of God as Creator, Sustainer and Redeemer, but with very little explanation.
Theologically we believe God merely spoke and all creation as we know it came to be. That is the power of our God as Creator. We also believe that through divine inspiration the words of scripture that we hold so dear,--the music of the spheres-composed on paper and released through orchestra or aria,--or sung by a wren perched on the backyard fence,--and through the inspiration of every artist who has ever communicated divine truth that has offered hope through history--is that force that sustains our faith.
Yet as powerful as those two forces are they could not save us by themselves alone. Christ's living presence-not in Bethlehem, and not in Jerusalem-but born again in us-THAT redeems all that is unworthy and unlovely and unimaginably wrong in us and in the world. That is what we must come back to in order to begin again the work which God has called us to do.
"And the word became flesh"---Our faith stands on those words. God chose to reconcile all the possibilities of Divinity to humanity by becoming human. Not by pretending to be human like some costumed super hero, but by truly being human,-- by becoming us. Think about the enormity of what that means.
The word of God became flesh - real flesh in the form of a squalling hungry baby searching for it's mother's breast--tangible and somehow more knowable--a baby's flesh, as soft as a dove's wing and smelling of innocence.
God is flesh that sweats and gets goose bumps and calluses an blisters. God is flesh that responds to a gentle loving touch, and ultimately, God is flesh inflamed with the pain of nails and wood and human hatred run amuck.
God's word is embodied , hope is born, and at last there is a light to show us the way. It is the ancient picture the prophet painted so long ago--of a great dancing crowd and singing throng, including all manner and situations of people…Together…exiles returning, weeping with joy,--lovingly gathered by God.
We begin again…where we were always meant to be, conscious of the fact that a great change has been offered to us from within. It requires the conscious effort to rededicate ourselves to its purpose, and for that reason we begin again by sharing the Covenant Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition found on page 607 of our Hymnal.
Pastoral Prayer:
God of all time, we praise and adore you for breaking into the darkness of this world with the glorious light of your presence. A light which made your love for the world visible in the babe born in Bethlehem - Jesus Christ, your Son, our Savior. A light which guided those gift-bearing travelers from long ago and far away to find and worship the Christ-child now leads us to you. We pray that you will accept our worship--for it too arises from hearts and minds in awe over the enormity of your gift to us of pure love.
The radiance of a star guided the them, but you have us far more than a star. You have revealed your glory and your love in the reality of the person of Jesus whose life was so much like our own. We recognize our responsibility to be bearers of his light and love into the areas of people's lives darkened by pain and fear, poverty and oppression, sorrow and hopelessness.
We confess those times when we have chosen to go our own way rather than be guided by you - the times when we are reluctant to allow the power and radiance of Christ to flow through us. The times when we gave in, gave up, held back or unleashed such poor witness to your love as to cause us shame. Strengthen us with your Spirit to follow wherever you lead us and to reveal your glory and love through all we do and say. This we pray as we begin again in Jesus' name. Amen