Today is sometimes called “Low Sunday.” I bet you can all figure out why without any help with me. But the Gospel readings for both “Low Sundays” – this one after Christmas and the other one after Easter, are extraordinary. At Easter it’s good ole “doubting” Thomas in that Upper Room, and today it’s the prologue to John’s Gospel. So I am grateful to those of you who are here. I try to make everyone feel welcome on Christmas and Easter, even if those are the two Sundays a year we see them. But the work of Christmas begins when the dust settles.
The heart of this day’s liturgy is that prologue, a summary of the doctrine of the Incarnation—literally the Latin for “en-flesh-ment.” Luke gives us the Child, the manger, the angels, the shepherds, the swaddling cloths, and all the rest. Matthew gives us the wise guys from the east; we’ll get to them next Sunday. They tell us what happened. But it’s left to John to put it into philosophical language and tell us why. What does it all mean?
What it means, he says, is that God has dwelt among us in the person of Jesus Christ. He reveals for us the image of God, very God of very God. So that we are no longer left to speculate about what God is like, but rather can consider a person: who he was, what he said, how he behaved. To look at how he lived, and what he taught, and how he died and rose again. It is that simple, and that difficult. It takes a lifetime, really; but that is it in a nutshell.
Any sermon preached on this day needs to begin there.
- The Word has become flesh in Jesus Christ.
- The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
- We have beheld his glory, as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
But why does that matter to you and to me, especially since it happened so long ago, and we are here, now, today?
I am struck by a phrase in today’s Old Testament reading, from the prophet Isaiah. As he looks toward the future, toward Messiah, he doesn’t yet know of Jesus. But he does know of God’s promises. And he says that when that time comes:
…you
shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give…and you
shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, a royal diadem in the hand
of your God.
He is speaking about Jerusalem, but I think he is also speaking about the citizens of Jerusalem, and of the whole Kingdom of God. Ultimately he is speaking to, and about, us.
Why on earth do we need a new name? I think the answer is that some of the old ones we carry with us diminish us and keep us from becoming what God intends for us to become. In the Eastern branch of Christianity—among the orthodox of various flavors (Greek, Armenian, Russian)—the Incarnation is summarized in this way: God became human, that humans might become divine. To our post-Reformation ears that may sound almost scandalous, and maybe even a little bit “new agey.” But it is actually a teaching of the Church Fathers which insists that we are changed by the Incarnation, that we are restored and made a new creation, and a holy people after God’s own heart.
Yet we carry around with us, all of us, so many old names. Names perhaps from the schoolyard, perhaps even from the homes we grew up in. “Stupid.” “Fat.” “Ugly.” You know the names, I’m sure. There are others too vulgar to say aloud in a church or for that matter in a locker room.
And probably if we stopped for a minute you could add the ones that most hurt you, the ones that you carry around inside of you even if on the outside you’ve long since moved past them. You may have become a beautiful swan at fifteen, but if you were called “ugly duckling” at twelve it may very well be a name you are still trying to let go of…
Let it all go today on this
fifth day of Christmas. At Baptism each and every one of us has received the
new name that Isaiah promises us. As the priest pours water over us we are
called “beloved child of God.” As the sign of the cross marks our heads in oil
we are claimed as a royal priesthood, kings and queens who are esteemed of God,
partners with God in mission. As
Not only is that our “new name” but it is our true name. Beloved child of God. Royal priest. Servant of Christ. Holy people. Those are the names we are called—each of us—names we are called to live into as this New Year unfolds. Let go of those old names in order to embrace the new ones. It won’t be a smooth process that can be graphed as steadily upward. But that’s the direction we are called to move in, even if we do so by “fits and starts.” That’s who we really are, who we truly are; those are the names given to us by the One who knows us best.
That may sound to some like an “I’m ok/you’re ok” message, but it’s not exactly that. It’s an invitation to broken people who have experienced good and bad along the way in life’s journey to become more fully who God means for us to be, to become who we truly are. Living into that reality is a journey and sometimes even a struggle. It’s not permission for stasis but an invitation to be healed and made new.
And that, Charlie Brown, is the meaning of Christmas. It’s why the Word has become flesh. It is why God has dwelt among us. It’s what the angels and the shepherds and all the rest were trying to get us to see. How we respond to that good news is up to us. But we don’t need to do it alone. We walk together by God’s grace, one step at a time.
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