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Christmas 1, Year B
December 29, 2002
Christ Church, Covington
“But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power
to become children of God” (Jo. 1:12).
Christmas is a time of remembering; not one of us, I suspect, has failed
to take a backward glance at our own past and our own childhood as we
celebrate the birth of Jesus. Part of this is simply the chain of pleasant
memory created by the repeated celebration; we have been here before,
after all, in earlier versions of our selves, surrounded by family and
folk who are dear to us. People say that “Christmas is for children”, but
what they really mean is that Christmas speaks to an essential part of who
we are. Through memory, we’re touching base with ourselves. There’s a
sense, as well, in which the celebration of the birth of Christ is a
landmark for us, as we make our way into the future.
Part of the connection that Christians make at Christmas is what the birth
of this child means for us, as we attempt to make sense of who we are. The
Gospel writer John, as well as the Apostle Paul in our reading today,
suggest that in Jesus Christ we have been made “children of God”. For
Paul, we are children by adoption, redeemed from slavery and brought into
a new relationship with God. “And because you are children, God has sent
the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Gal.
4:6). For John the Evangelist, belief in the name makes one a child of
God, another way of saying that God’s initiative is responsible for the
new relationship.
So, we’ve been given a new identity in Jesus Christ. There are some truths
we would do well to keep in mind about this new identity, about being
children of God. First of all, being children makes us brothers and
sisters; in other words, this new relationship with God gives us a new
relationship with each other. Being children of God makes us part of a
community. As John’s Gospel says elsewhere, Jesus died “to gather into one
the dispersed children of God” (Jo. 11:52). As children, we are brought
into unity with God, but also with each other.
John links this explicitly with the death of Jesus Christ. This community
of brothers and sisters that we have been brought into came at a high
price. Christian community is costly: not only in its foundation upon the
crucifixion of Jesus Christ, which purchased this new life together for
us, but also costly in the living out of the thing itself. What made us
think that life together would be easy, that a life lived in community
would be undemanding? Community requires love, and love is costly. It’s
naïve to think that community will demand nothing of us, because it will
do so. The good news is that it is worth the price.
The second truth is related to the first. Though Paul uses the metaphor of
adoption in our reading today, the other great metaphor (from John) is
that of birth. Children are born, they do not grow under toadstools; and
to be God’s children we must be born again. Matthew and Luke are fairly
clear about the reality of Jesus’ birth; and John’s Gospel is clear as
well about the reality of new birth. For some of you, there is probably
nothing useful I can say about the trauma of birth, since you have
first-hand experience of it, but I hope you will take the point that
rebirth is as much of a trauma, as much of a new beginning as birth
itself.
“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being
born from above” (Jo. 3:3). This rebirth is costly and life-changing as
well. It means leaving old habits, and embracing a new way of life. It
means being willing to die to self, and opening oneself to new
possibilities. It means accepting forgiveness and being able to forgive
others as well. All of which is costly work, the work of a lifetime, but
infinitely rewarding, because with it comes new life.
An outward token of this inner transformation is the Sacrament we share
today. The Eucharist is a sign of God’s love for us, the community
activity that makes us one with him. Jesus gave us this gift in the shadow
of the cross, and each time we celebrate it we are filled with the power
of his resurrection. It is the meal and the sacrifice that reminds us that
we were bought at a price, and that we are the children of God, reborn as
a community of faith. Coming to this altar reminds us of our identity, and
our calling, and gives us the grace as God’s children to be faithful.
Christmas is a time in which we remember the past, and perhaps our own
childhood; but even more, we remember that we are children of God, adopted
by God into his family, born again into a new reality and a new community.
The Rev’d John Bauerschmidt is Rector of Christ Church, Covington.
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