First Sunday After Christmas, All Years

Prayer

May we welcome this mystery of your love and thus delight in the joy that will be ours as children and heirs of your kingdom. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.
From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on John 1:[1-9]10-18

"For an alternative approach, rather than helping our hearers to see the light of Christ shining in the darkness, preachers might help them to hear Jesus as God’s love song, singing life into the world’s babble, chaos, and voices of death."

Commentary, John 1:1-14, Craig a. Satterlee, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

"The gospel message does not go forward without witnesses like John, and one of the tasks in this sermon is to help show what it looks like to point our fingers towards Jesus. In the age of talk of missional churches, how does that work out practically? How can we point towards Jesus in mission in such a way that others come to know him and come to know and love God?"

Commentary, John 1:(1-9), 10-18 (Christmas 2), Ginger Barfield, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2010.

"It would be truly horrendous to be in the hands of an all-intrusive God who never left us alone, and who, when it came time to send his messiah, sent one who ruled the earth like some heavenly Mussolini. In the very unobtrusiveness of the light of Christ, God honors our finite freedom."

"Penetrating the Darkness," Ronald Goetz, The Christian Century, 1988. Atreligion Online.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text



I like how Raymond E. Brown approaches this text. There is first the Word with God (1-2). The opening verses of this Christ hymn used to frame an entrance into the Johannine Gospel are brief, and it is completely, or I should say, “seemingly”, uninterested in a metaphysical conversation about the nature of God. It is, however, very clear that Salvation history begins with the relationship between God, revealed through the living Word, and Man. Quite simply, God reveals God-self to us in the work of creation – and by John’s usage here, creation also reveals something about the salvation of man as well. Creation is by its very nature a revealing act. (John, vol. 1, 23, 24)

Secondly, there is the Word and Creation. “All creation bears the stamp of God’s Word,” Brown writes. (Brown, 25) Here we see the author reflecting and re-imagining the opening lines of Genesis. We can see that what is clearly of importance is that creation itself existed primarily for the glory of God and the revelation of who God is. The problem is that the creation is broken; it does not fulfil its purpose as God intended. It is not a sustainable creation. Instead, it is one where there is a constant battle to supplant the power and revelation of God. We can return to the creation story in Genesis, certainly this seems on the author’s mind. However, it is not really that hard or difficult to see and imagine as we read the paper or watch television how humanity has created a non-sustainable kingdom for ourselves and that we wrestle for power with God, placing our needs above our creations' explicit purpose to glorify God.

The third portion of our Gospel selection is the portion where we are re-introduced to John the Baptist. I say reintroduced because we spent several Sundays reading passages from Matthew that dealt with him and his ministry. Yet here we get a slightly different attempt to speak about how John responded to the living Word, the Light in the world. How he was clearly not the one everybody was looking for, but that he dutifully gave witness to the revelation of God. Moreover, that John the Baptist called everyone to a time of preparation and repentance for the light itself, the living Word was entering the world.

We come to the final and fourth portion of our reading, and we return to the relationship between God and humanity, specifically in how the community of God (God’s people) responds to the living Word. God is dwelling with his people. He has made a “tent”, he is incarnated, and he is present within the community. (Brown, 35) The images here in this last section return not to Genesis but play on our remembrances of the Exodus and the idea that God came and dwelt among the people as they made their way in the wilderness. Here, too, is an expressed intimacy between God and people. God is not simply outside, having wound the clock tight and is now letting it run. On the contrary, just as God was intimately involved with creation and the people of Israel, God also is involved in the new community post-resurrection. God has come and is dwelling with the people in wisdom and in truth. God is the living Word is making community within God’s tent and is revealing himself and the purpose of creation to all those who would call him by name: Jesus.

Some Thoughts on Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7

"So insidious is Sin that even the good gifts of God, like the Law (Galatians 3:21) or even the gospel, can be easily misused."
Commentary, Galatians 4:4-7, Erik Heen, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2014.

"The Spirit that God pours into all our hearts is a Spirit of compassion. It is a Spirit that embraces us and makes us a part of a family defined by God's love. It is that compassion that gives us our meaning and purpose in this life."

"Love Came Down," Alan Brehm, The Waking Dreamer.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

The theologian Robert Farrar Capon in his book on parables (Kingdom, Grace, Judgement, 2002) offers that God in Christ comes to us in the incarnation as both our savior and judge. But his act of redemption and reconciliation is one of grace, forgiveness, and mercy. He judges with love, and so we are presented to God through the eyes of our beloved Jesus. It is the eyes of his heart that redeem us.  

Capon, though, also says that it is our renunciation and rejection of this coming which judges us guilty. It is our rejection of the spirit of God in our hearts, it is our rejection of our forgiveness, and the rejection of Jesus AND our focus upon the law which, in the end, finds us guilty. 

Paul in Galatians is offering a vision of God who comes and blesses and redeems us. Jesus undoes the power of the law over us. Jesus enables us to be God's children. We are no longer slaves to the law. This is our new reality.

However, the truth is the longer we live focusing on the law and our own failure and the failure of others - the longer we struggle outside the family. Our message is clear God loves. God forgives. God invites us. In this season of incarnation may we offer a message that does the same and enables us to live in the grace which has come into the world. 

May we know in faith our deliverance is real. May we receive it in remembrance of the first Advent and Jesus' birth? May we live it.

Some Thoughts on Isaiah 61:10-62:3

"The mission given to the prophet of Isaiah 61:10-62:3 is still needed today, so long as the world is populated by those who are brokenhearted, mourning and in captivity."
Commentary, Isaiah 61:10 - 62:3, Michael J. Chan, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2014.

"In other words, the people as a whole will be entrusted with the former monarchical function of administering God's justice and righteousness in the world."
Commentary, Isaiah 61:10 - 62:3, J. Clinton McCann, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2008.

"The messages from both Isaiah and Luke have some points in common. As well as the overwhelming joy in the coming of the lord to his people, both have an ethical note to them."
The Old Testament Readings: Isaiah 61:10 - 62:3. Weekly Comments on the Revised Common Lectionary, Howard Wallace Audrey Schindler, Morag Logan, Paul Tonson, Lorraine Parkinson, Theological Hall of the Uniting Church, Melbourne, Australia.


"This "righteousness" stands, likewise, in parallel position to the "salvation" of the previous clause. There, again, the salvation to be achieved by the Messiah is metaphorically portrayed as "garments" (bigdhey-yesha^Ñ [BDB, 447]) with which He has simply "clothed" us [BDB, 527). The hiphil perfect of lbshis, here likewise, employed with the force of a present perfect explaining the basis of the future joy of the church."
"Christmas 1b - Exegetical Notes on Isaiah 61:10 - 62:3," Douglas MacCallum Lindsay Judisch, Concordia Theological Seminary (LCMS - Indiana).

Oremus Online NRSV Text 

"I will greatly rejoice in the Lord..." sings out the prophet. The people are to be delivered and have been changed through their estrangement, captivity, and enslavement in Babylon. The prophet sings out in joy in receiving the God who abhors injustice. The mixed images of wedding garments and the continued eschatological imagination of Isaiah play on the joy and heighten the joy. The prophet "is completely absorbed in his intense expectancy, and it is clear that he will continue to speak until the dawn of the day of salvation." (See the comments by Australian exegetes on this passage here.) The passage is about the present and future joy of the people at God's deliverance. 

I suggest the passage is a character of prophetic joy. 

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks reminds us that the Greeks and the Romans believed in fate. He gives this example:

This was a major difference between ancient Israel and ancient Greece. The Greeks believed in fate, moira, even blind fate, ananke. When the Delphic oracle told Laius that he would have a son who would kill him, he took every precaution to make sure it did not happen. When the child was born, Laius nailed him by his feet to a rock and left him to die. A passing shepherd found and saved him, and he was eventually raised by the king and queen of Corinth. Because his feet were permanently misshapen, he came to be known as Oedipus (the “swollen-footed”).

The rest of the story is well known. Everything the oracle foresaw happened, and every act designed to avoid it actually helped bring it about. Once the oracle has been spoken and fate has been sealed, all attempts to avoid it are in vain. This cluster of ideas lies at the heart of one of the great Greek contributions to civilization: tragedy. (See Sack's article on prognosticating the future here.) 

There is a present fatalism in our society too. Superhero movies and comics promise a Greek ethic of fate.

Against such fate, I suggest prophetic joy stands out. Sacks speaks about how joy is such an "unexpected" word used by the prophet Moses, and I would add Isaiah. Not unlike the Israelite's escape from Egypt and their wandering in the desert, the Babylonian captivity and the feelings of God's silence have been anything but categorically joyous. I offer that Isaiah, like Moses, reminds us that prophetic joy is what "the life of faith in the land of promise is about." No less than a return and commitment to an old Israel is Isaiah's imagining. (See Sacks' article on Moses and collective joy here.) Rabbi Sacks reminds us of the ancient Deuteronomic instance of the idea of collective joy.

The central Sanctuary, initially Shilo: “There in the presence of the Lord your God you and your families shall eat and rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the Lord your God has blessed you” (Deut. 12:7).

Jerusalem and the Temple: “And there you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites from your towns” (Deut. 12:12).

Sacred food that may be eaten only in Jerusalem: “Eat them in the presence of the Lord your God at the place the Lord your God will choose – you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites from your towns – and you are to rejoice before the Lord your God in everything you put your hand to” (Deut. 12:18).

The second tithe: “Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine, or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice” (Deut. 14:26).

The festival of Shavuot: “And rejoice before the Lord your God at the place He will choose as a dwelling for His name – you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, the Levites in your towns, and the strangers, the fatherless, and the widows living among you” (Deut. 16:11).

The festival of Succot: “Be joyful at your feast – you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites, the strangers, the fatherless, and the widows who live in your towns” (Deut. 16:14).

Succot, again. “For seven days, celebrate the feast to the Lord your God at the place the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete [vehayita ach same’ach]” (Deut. 16:15).

Sacks suggests that even given the journey that has been made by the people, Moses emphasizes joy because he has a vision of the whole course of Jewish history unfolding before him. Sacks paraphrases this moment "It is easy to speak to God in tears. It is hard to serve God in joy. It is the warning he delivered as the people came within sight of their destination: the Promised Land. Once there, they were in danger of forgetting that the land was theirs only because of God’s promise to them, and only for as long as they remembered their promise to God." The point being made is that left to any one of us the promise and joy will be forgotten. This is then a collective act of joy. again Sacks writes, "What Moses is articulating for the first time is the idea of simcha as communal, social, and national rejoicing. The nation was to be brought together not just by crisis, catastrophe, or impending war, but by collective celebration in the presence of God. "

I want to pull from Sacks' work the idea of collective joy. Isaiah is offering a prophetic joy in that he is inviting the people to look up and see the horizon before them, and like Moses before, he is suggesting that the work of joy is collective. I propose then that far from being a joy experienced by individuals, scriptural joy is prophetic and collective. 

Then prophetic joy is collective. It is about what God has done and what God will do. Christ adds a new dimension to this collective prophetic joy by making it present in the world through the incarnation. It is true that the Old Testament (Indeed Moses and Isaiah, but we might add Hosea and Malachi, too) offer a vision that the collectivity of joy means sharing with the poor and hungry. Prophetic joy is a collective act not simply because the tribe comes together but because the family shares the goodness of the joyful table with others. “Be joyful at your feast – you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites, the strangers, the fatherless, and the widows who live in your towns” (Deut. 16:14). See also Hosea 9:4 and Malachi 2:3. 

The prophetic joy of Christ and the incarnation is not a mere congregational event but one intended from the earliest days to not be mere individual deliverance or religious corporate observance. The prophetic joy of Christ is meant to look behind and look forward. But from the perspective of Scripture (old and new), it is to be collective in the moment of its reading. A prophetic joy that is transformed into a collective joy that includes strangers, fatherless, motherless, widows, lost, and lonely.