4 EPIPHANY, YEAR A

Sunday 29 January 2023

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

Matthew 5:1-12

 

In my childhood in the late 1960s, the comic strip Peanuts popularized the slogan, “Happiness is.” Happiness is a warm blanket. Happiness is a fresh pile of autumn leaves. Happiness is a home run. 

 

The “Happiness is” craze soon spread to advertisements, T-shirts, buttons, and bumper stickers. The point was that you could fill in the blank in an almost infinite variety of ways. Happiness is a new car. Happiness is a perfect golf game. Happiness is a vacation in the Bahamas. And so forth.

 

Throughout history, observers of the human condition have remarked on our natural desire to be happy. Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence of our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

 

All this begs the question of where true and lasting happiness is to be found. The Peanuts philosophy implied that individuals are free to define their own subjective meanings of happiness. But the Church’s traditional understanding is that the true sources of human happiness are objective and given—they’re something more to be discovered or revealed than invented or constructed. 

 

And the paradigmatic Christian understanding of happiness is nowhere summed up more succinctly than in the collection of sayings from Saint Matthew’s Gospel known as the Beatitudes. The very word beatitude means blessedness or happiness. An equally accurate although not quite as elegant a translation of the word “Blessed” in the Beatitudes would be “happy”—as in “Happy are the poor in spirit … Happy are those who mourn … Happy are the meek,” and so forth. So, the beatitudes give us our Lord’s answer to the question of where true and lasting happiness is to be found.

 

Down through the centuries the Church has made use of easily memorized lists that sum up its teaching about the Christian life. The Ten Commandments give a basic set of dos and don’ts. The Seven Deadly Sins give a comprehensive analysis of the destructive patterns of behavior that separate us from God and one another. The four Cardinal Virtues and the three Theological Virtues sketch out the contours of Christian character. The seven Gifts of the Spirit and the twelve Fruits of the Spirit describe God’s movement and action in the human soul.

 

Entire books have been written on each of these catalogues of commandments, virtues, vices, and gifts. But the Church has always given pride of place to the Beatitudes as the clearest statement possible of the Christian life’s goal in the blessedness and happiness of God’s Kingdom.

 

The Gospel readings for today and for the coming two Sundays are taken from the Sermon on the Mount. “Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain, and his disciples came to him.” Here Matthew is portraying Jesus as a kind of new Moses. Just as Moses led the children of Israel through the Red Sea and into the wilderness, and then ascended Mount Sinai to deliver God’s Law to the people, so Jesus, having been baptized in the River Jordan, and having fasted forty days in the wilderness, now goes up another mountain to deliver his instruction, his teaching, his law. When he sits down, his disciples come to him, and he begins his discourse.

 

A key point is that the people to whom Jesus is speaking are the very ones whom he’s describing in the beatitudes. His listeners are the ones who’re blessed because they’ve become—or are becoming or will become—poor in spirit, meek, merciful, and so forth. The ninth beatitude makes this point clear, when our Lord shifts from the third person to the second person and declares, “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil falsely on my account.”

 

So, Jesus begins his most famous sermon by pronouncing a series of blessings upon his disciples. Each blessing has two parts: a present condition, and a future reward: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. In each case, the present condition describes a quality of those who follow Christ, and the future reward describes some aspect of true happiness in the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

Notice that the people whom our Lord pronounces blessed are the very opposite of those whom the world thinks blessed. We tend not to think of the poor in spirit or those who mourn as being particularly happy. The world’s wisdom is that nice guys finish last. But our Lord subverts this world’s values. The time is coming, he promises us, when present-day fortunes shall be reversed. The meek shall inherit the earth. The kingdom of heaven belongs to those suffering persecution and exile on this earth—and no humanly constructed walls or administrative orders will keep them out.

 

The time available doesn’t permit going through each beatitude in detail. Entire books have been written on the Beatitudes; each one of them alone could easily be the subject of an entire sermon.

 

The key point, not to be overlooked, is that Jesus himself is the perfect fulfillment of everything he says here. He displays perfectly what it is to be poor in spirit, to mourn, to be meek, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, to be merciful, to be pure in heart, to make peace, and to be persecuted, reviled, and spoken against for righteousness’ sake. First and foremost, then, the Beatitudes are a portrait of Christ.

 

Secondly and derivatively, they’re a portrait of those who faithfully follow Christ. Only in Christ can we make the Beatitudes our own and enter into the happiness that they describe. 

 

Some commentators have pointed out that the wording is not, “If you want the kingdom of heaven, then be poor in spirit; if you want to be comforted, then mourn.” It doesn’t quite work that way. The point is more that as we seek to follow Christ and become like him, we’ll gradually take on these characteristics and so become heirs of the accompanying promises. They’re not so much a how-to manual as a promise and reassurance of the divine reward held in store for those whom the world counts least blessed in this life.

 

What we can’t achieve on our own our Lord can and will achieve in us. In our baptism, we’ve been made members of his Body, the Church, and we receive his very life in the blessed Sacrament of his Body and Blood. 

 

Provided that we persevere in making use of the means of grace that Our Lord has appointed for us in his Church, then he will make us into the very people that he describes in the beatitudes: a people on the way to true and lasting happiness, the goal and end of human existence, a reward great in heaven. 

THIRD SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY

January 23, 2011

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

Amos 3:1-8

Psalm 139:1-11

I Corinthians 1:10-17

Matthew 4:12-23

 

The readings appointed in this Season after the Epiphany emphasize the theme of light. And today’s readings associate this image with the proclamation of God’s word and the preaching of the Gospel. 

 

The Collect of the Day asks God that—like Peter and Andrew, James and John— we may “answer readily the call of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and all the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works ...” (In the biblical languages, the word “glory” literally signifies a bright, shining light.)

 

The Old Testament reading from Amos speaks of the irresistible prophetic impulse to proclaim God’s word: “Surely the Lord God does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?” 

 

In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul identifies preaching as at the heart of his calling as an apostle: “For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the Gospel …” 

And in today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, Christ himself arrives in Galilee after the arrest of John the Baptist: “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

 

Matthew describes Our Lord’s ministry of preaching and calling disciples as fulfilling a possibly familiar but somewhat obscure prophecy from Isaiah: "The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali … Galilee of the Gentiles—the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned."

 

Zebulun and Naphtali were the names of two of Jacob’s twelve sons, and hence of two of the twelve tribes of Israel. After leading the Hebrews across the River Jordan into the Promised Land, Joshua allocated each tribe its own territory. And Zebulun and Naphtali received their inheritances up in the northernmost region, the area that would eventually become known as Galilee.

 

These remote northern territories were the most vulnerable in the land of Israel. They were first to be conquered by the Assyrians in 732 BC. At the time of this catastrophe, the prophet Isaiah of Jerusalem uttered the words quoted by Matthew, saying in effect that even though a great darkness has descended upon Zebulun and Naphtali, and Galilee has become subject to the nations, nonetheless God has the last word. And then, speaking as if it’s already happened, Isaiah announces a great reversal: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned."

 

Whatever Isaiah may have understood by this prophecy, it wasn’t fulfilled in his lifetime. The lands of Zebulun and Naphtali remained under Gentile control for centuries—under first the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, then the Persians, and then the Greeks.

 

It wasn’t until the first century BC that Jews reconquered and re-colonized the area, some 600 years after the Assyrian conquests. These Jewish settlers established the towns whose names feature so prominently in the Gospels, such as Nazareth, Cana, and Capernaum. The entire area came under Gentile control once again in 37 BC when the Romans conquered Jerusalem. But by this time a permanent Jewish presence had been established in Galilee, the ancient tribal lands of Zebulun and Naphtali.

 

And so, when Jesus returns to Galilee after his baptism and begins to preach the Kingdom of God, Matthew discerns the fulfillment of the Isaiah’s ancient prophecy: "The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, … Galilee of the Gentiles—the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned."

 

Mathew possibly considered the area to be still "Galilee of the Gentiles" because it was a place where Jewish towns and villages coexisted alongside Gentile towns and villages. Moreover, in the first century, the Jews of Galilee had the reputation of not being very knowledgeable in the Law or observant in religious practice. To their co-religionists in Judah and Jerusalem, Galilee may have seemed a place of darkness. 

 

Yet Matthew’s point is that God often appears on the scene and acts in history in the least likely and most unexpected places—not, initially, in the great metropolis of Jerusalem, the nation’s religious and administrative center, but up north in a rural backwater of farms and fishing villages.

 

So, for Matthew, our Lord’s public ministry in Galilee—preaching, teaching, and calling his disciples—represents the dawning of God’s light upon those who sit in darkness. And this raises the question: What might it mean for us in our contemporary world to sit in darkness and under the shadow of death?

 

Darkness is an image of many dimensions, including ignorance, error, false teaching, and prejudice. In Scripture, moreover, darkness often symbolizes sin, wrongdoing, and disobedience to God. 

 

In more contemporary formulations, darkness can be a metaphor for psychological conditions of hopelessness, depression, and despair. It can also describe social maladies of injustice, exploitation, violence, oppression, and war. It’s no accident that the beginning of the First Word War was described as the time when the lights went out across Europe.

 

The good news of today’s Gospel, then, is that no matter what form the darkness may take for us, Jesus brings us the light. He is the light. He’s the one who illuminates our lives with the radiance of divine glory that dispels all darkness.

 

To Jesus, then, we’re able to sing with the psalmist: “If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn to night,' Darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike.”

 

We can do nothing to induce or compel the light to shine upon us. Today’s Scripture readings announce it as a fait accompli, something that God has already done—"the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned." So, when we find ourselves sitting in the darkness, we take comfort in the assurance that even if we don’t yet see the light, we shall, soon enough. We need only wait patiently for the dawn.

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY, YEAR A

January 15, 2023

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

Isaiah 49:1-7

Psalm 40:1-10

I Corinthians 1:1-9

John 1:29-41

 

A question I like to ask when looking at the collect and readings appointed for the coming Sunday is this: What Good News do these texts give us about God? What do they tell us about Jesus—about who he is and what he does? In other words, what theological truths do these propers reveal? And how might we be called to respond?

 

Asking these questions about today’s readings, we encounter two principal images of Jesus. The first is that of light. Today’s Collect sets the stage by opening with the explicit address: “Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world …”  And in our Old Testament reading, God declares through the prophet Isaiah: “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” 

 

About whom Isaiah is speaking is not entirely clear in the reading itself, but the Christian tradition has understood it as applying first of all to Israel, then to Christ himself, and then to the Church. As the Collect concludes: “Grant that thy people, illumined by thy Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory, that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth …”

 

The opening greeting of Saint Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians picks up on this theme of a worldwide fellowship enlightened by Christ. Paul addresses his readers in the Church in Corinth as those who are “called to be saints together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours …” So that’s the first image of Christ in today’s readings: the Light of the World, illuminating all nations and peoples to the earth’s farthest ends.

 

When we turn to the Gospel reading, however, we encounter another image of Christ: the Lamb of God. At the River Jordan, John the Baptist sees Jesus coming toward him and says, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” The next day, John repeats the proclamation to two of his disciples as Jesus walks by, “Behold, the Lamb of God,” thus prompting those two disciples to follow Jesus and spend the day with him. On this basis, just before Communion at almost every Eucharist, we sing or say the hymn known as the Agnus Dei: “O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world: Have mercy upon us … Grant us thy peace.”

 

What would those two disciples have understood when they heard John describe Jesus as the Lamb of God? Well, the image has multiple layers of meaning in the Old Testament. It could refer to the lambs sacrificed twice daily in the Jerusalem Temple’s regular morning and evening services. It could refer to the lambs individual Israelites brought to the Temple to offer as sacrifices for their sins. It could also refer to the Passover Lamb, sacrificed every year to commemorate the Exodus from Egypt when the angel of death passed over the Israelites’ houses whose doorposts were smeared with the blood of the lamb. And it could evoke the mysterious figure of the Suffering Servant in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, who “opened not his mouth, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter …”

 

Another possible meaning is what’s been called “the Apocalyptic Lamb.” In certain apocryphal Jewish writings dating from the period between the Old and New Testaments, the figure of a lamb represents Israel’s Messiah, who is opposed by an array of ferocious wild beasts representing the nations of the earth. Against all odds, the lamb defeats and subdues the wild beasts, inaugurating God’s kingdom and the dawning of the messianic age of universal peace. 

 

For this reason, some biblical scholars argue when John the Baptist proclaims Jesus the Lamb of God, he means simply that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, God’s anointed one. It seems to me, however, that when John adds that this Lamb takes away the sin of the world, he’s saying something more: namely, that Jesus has come to shed his blood in a sacrificial offering that will reconcile a fallen world to God.

 

So, today’s readings offer us two images of Christ: the Light of the World and the Lamb of God. An obvious question for further reflection is how these two images link up with each other. What do they tell us about Jesus when we take them together?

 

Well, it so happens that a certain passage in the Revelation to John does explicitly join these two images. In this mysterious last book of the New Testament, John repeatedly represents Christ in heaven by the figure of a lamb, who’s paradoxically been slain and yet lives and reigns victorious over all creation. And in his wonderful vision of the New Jerusalem descending from heaven, John exclaims, “The city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the lamb.” Or, as hymn 490 paraphrases it, “The lamb is the light of the city of God. Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.”

 

The juxtaposition of these two images teaches us a deeper truth. Christ is the light of world precisely because he’s the Lamb who’s been slain and yet lives. And we’re invited to take our part in spreading Christ’s light to the world in no other way than by pointing to his sacrifice, and by bearing witness to his death and resurrection.

 

As Psalm 40 puts it: “I have declared thy righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I will not refrain my lips, O Lord, that that thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; my talk hath been of thy truth, and of thy salvation.”

 

That may seem like a tall order but it’s really a very simple process involving ordinary people like you and me. We encounter a prime example of it in today’s Gospel. John the Baptist bears witness to what he’s seen and heard, and two of his disciples are moved to follow Jesus. Then, having spent the day with Jesus, Andrew finds his brother Simon, and testifies: “We have found the Messiah.” 

 

And so it has continued from that day until now. We encounter Jesus, we tell our friends what we’ve seen and heard, and we invite them to come and see for themselves. In this very way, we begin to fulfill the prayer that as God’s people, illumined by his Word and Sacraments, we may shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory, so that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth.

FIRST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY

January 8, 2023

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

Matthew 3:13-17

 

But Jesus answered him, "Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." 

 

For the earliest Christians, the baptism of Jesus by John in the River Jordan was a potential source of embarrassment, for two reasons. 

 

First, John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. But the apostolic Church discerned from the beginning that Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God, was without sin. So, an obvious question was why Jesus, the sinless one, would need to submit to such a ritual of cleansing and purification.

 

Second, the common assumption was that the person administering such a rite was superior—morally and spiritually, if not socially—to the one receiving it. The baptism’s unmistakable implication would thus have seemed to be that John was the leader and Jesus his follower: John the master and Jesus his disciple.

 

For these reasons, even the most skeptical New Testament scholars admit that the Gospel accounts of Christ’s Baptism must be historically accurate. The early Church would never have made this up. It’s to the credit of the early Christians—and testimony to their basic honesty—that they didn’t attempt to cover up this episode, but rather let it stand as written in the Gospel tradition.

 

The little dialogue in today’s Gospel, found only in Matthew, acknowledges the problem. When Jesus comes for baptism, John tries to prevent him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But our Lord’s somewhat enigmatic response persuades John to go ahead: “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

 

One interpretation is that while Jesus is acknowledging that he has no personal need to repent and be cleansed from sin, he nonetheless submits to John’s baptism as a sign of his commitment to fulfilling the life of righteousness to which John’s baptism points. That explanation seems plausible as far as it goes, but I think much more can be said about what Jesus means by fulfilling all righteousness.

 

The early Church Fathers soon got over any embarrassment Christ’s Baptism might have caused them, and came to glory in its paradoxes. In the third century, Saint Hippolytus of Rome wrote: “Could anything be more wonderful? The source without limits that engenders life for all mankind is covered by the poor waters of this world.” Similarly, in the fifth century, St. Proclus of Constantinople wrote: “Come then and see the new and overwhelming miracles: the sun of righteousness bathing in Jordan, the fire immersed in water, and God being sanctified by human ministry.”

 

The Fathers discerned in these paradoxes the mystery of the divine self-emptying and self-abasement. Jesus fulfills all righteousness by not standing on his divine prerogatives and insisting that he baptize John, as would clearly be his right. He thus reveals the true way of righteousness to be the way of humility, of taking the lowest part, of serving rather than of being served.

 

But the symbolism goes even deeper. In accepting a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, Our Lord identifies himself with the fallen human race he’s come to save. In this sense, Christ’s Baptism anticipates his Crucifixion and Resurrection. The Church rounds off the Christmas season with this feast anticipating Holy Week and Easter. Even though he’s personally without sin, Christ takes the place of sinners at the River Jordan, just as he will one day take the place of sinners on the hill of Calvary.

 

In the biblical worldview, moreover, the Jordan’s muddy waters evoke the primordial waters of chaos and death. His descent into the waters foreshadows his descent into hell. And his re-emergence from the waters similarly foreshadows his Resurrection from the dead. 

 

The Holy Spirit’s descent in the form of a dove, accompanied by the voice from heaven, verify that Jesus is God’s beloved Son. Here we encounter a revelation or epiphany of the Holy Trinity: the Son is baptized, the Father speaks from heaven, and the Spirit descends to empower the Son for his earthly ministry.

 

At his Baptism, Jesus shows that he fulfills all righteousness precisely by the way of love: specifically, a self-giving and self-sacrificing love that comes to the aid of the beloved no matter what the risk, no matter what the cost. He manifests this love for us, and so fulfills all righteousness, by being baptized for us just as he will die on the cross and rise again for us.

 

Moreover, his baptism sets the precedent and example for our baptism. The fourth century Church Father Hilary of Poitiers writes that instead of being cleansed by the waters at his baptism, Jesus himself cleanses and sanctifies them, infusing them with his life-giving grace and power. John’s baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins is thus transformed into the Church’s baptism of new birth and eternal life.

 

When we were baptized, our sponsors committed us to a life of fulfilling all righteousness. Then, when we were confirmed, we took that commitment upon ourselves of our own free will. But what does it mean for us to fulfill all righteousness in our own day? The answer to that question is to be found in our baptismal covenant.

 

In the ancient world, a covenant was an agreement in which two parties made reciprocal promises. For example, in a covenant between a lord and vassal, the vassal would promise loyalty, obedience, and tribute, and the lord would promise protection against enemies and the fair and equitable administration of justice.

 

The baptismal covenant similarly comprises two sides: God’s promises to us and our promises to God. In Holy Baptism, God forgives us our sins, makes us members of Christ’s Body, the Church, gives us the gift of his Holy Spirit, and adopts us as his sons and daughters making us inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. That’s God’s part. In return, we promise to repent of our sins, to follow and obey Christ as Lord, and to work, pray, and give for the spread of the God’s kingdom on earth. That’s our part.

 

Periodically, at various times in the year, the Church invites us to recommit ourselves to our baptismal promises. Today, the First Sunday after the Epiphany, is one such occasion. And then, fortuitously, we have the opportunity in our Annual Meeting to examine more closely how we’re called in practice to live out our baptismal promises in our life together as a parish. So, renewal of our baptismal covenant and participation in the Annual Parish Meeting area really two sides of the same spiritual coin.

 

Today, then, as we commemorate Christ’s baptism, we acknowledge our calling to walk in the way of love that Christ sets before us. We thus invite him to fulfill all righteousness in us, as the members of his Body in the world today.

THE EPIPHANY

Friday 6 January 2023

Christ Church, Woodbury, N.J.

 

Isaiah 60:1-6

Ephesians 3:1-12

Matthew 2:1-12

 

The Feast of the Epiphany is subtitled in the Book of Common Prayer, “the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.” In the biblical languages, the term “Gentiles” is interchangeable with “the nations.” The Hebrew word goyim means both “nations” and “Gentiles,” as does the Greek ethnē, from which we get the English word “ethnic,” and the Latin gentes, from which we get “Gentiles.”

 

So, an equivalent subtitle for Epiphany would be “the revelation of Christ to the nations.” And to appreciate the full force of what’s happening as the wise men bring their three gifts from afar, it helps to review the biblical understanding of how the nations fit into the grand scheme of God’s plan of salvation.

 

To go back to the beginning: the creation story in the Book of Genesis envisions humanity as essentially one. All are descended from the same first parents, Adam and Eve. Later, after the Flood, all human beings can trace their descent to Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. This common descent symbolizes the common humanity that we all share, and that binds us all together, regardless of race, language, nation, or culture.

 

But human sin rends this primordial unity asunder. The story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 describes how all the earth’s peoples once spoke a common language. But when they attempted to build a tower reaching up to heaven, God confused their language and scattered them over the earth in punishment of their pride and presumption. This story thus symbolizes the various nations and peoples’ estrangement from one another as they lapse into mutual incomprehension and mistrust.

 

Later, God calls Abraham to be the ancestor of a new people, in whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed. From this point on, the Old Testament tends to divide humanity into two parts: Israel, the People of God; and the nations, everybody else.

 

Most of the Old Testament depicts the relationship between Israel and the nations as one of mutual suspicion and hostility. The nations pose a threat to Israel on two counts. First, they’re a political menace. Israel’s existence is always under threat from hostile empires and kingdoms seeking to subjugate God’s people and take possession of their land. Second, the nations present the temptations of paganism and idolatry: a constant threat to Israel’s unique covenant relationship with God. For this reason, Israel’s prophets and teachers are constantly urging separation from foreigners to avoid pagan contamination.

 

Despite all this, the nations still have a definite place in God’s plan. The Bible never loses sight of humankind’s original unity. God’s purpose in choosing Israel is not to give Israel a privileged place over everybody else, but to make Israel a light to the nations. Ultimately, not Israel alone but all the earth’s peoples are to share in the blessings of universal peace in God’s kingdom.

 

Such is the vision expressed in today’s Old Testament reading. Addressing Mount Zion, the prophet Isaiah foretells the kings of the earth coming to worship the God who shall reveal himself in glory. To the Temple mount in Jerusalem camels will bring in the wealth of the nations, gold and incense, to show forth the Lord’s praises.

 

These prophecies begin to see their fulfillment in the New Testament. The old dichotomy between Israel and the Gentiles is overcome in the Church, the expanded People of God, in which all the nations have an equal place. The Risen Christ commissions his apostles to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. All nations, races, tribes, and tongues are to be gathered into one Church, thus restoring humankind’s original unity in Christ, the new Adam. Thus, Saint Paul writes in his Letter to the Ephesians of the mystery now revealed to the apostles and prophets, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, members of the same body, partakers of the promises of Christ Jesus through the Gospel.

 

In this light, we begin to appreciate the full force of the image of wise men from the East who travel from afar bearing their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh for the newborn king of the Jews. Matthew’s point is that Jesus coming into the world begins to fulfill the prophecies of reconciliation and healing of the ancient divisions between Jews and Gentiles, and among all races and nations. 

 

Matthew makes no mention of how many wise men there were, and nowhere does he say that they were kings. The notion that they were kings comes from the prophecy of Isaiah, “Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”

And the Christian tradition settled on the number three not only because they brought three gifts—gold, frankincense, and myrrh—but also because three is the number of the sons of Noah—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—from whom the Book of Genesis describes all the earth’s peoples as being descended after the Great Flood. 

 

By tradition, Shem was the ancestor of the Semitic peoples, Ham of the African peoples, and Japheth of the European peoples. Thus, artistic renderings often depict the three kings as representing these different races. The symbolic point is that when Christ is born, all the earth’s nations and peoples unite in the worship of the one true God, bringing with them all their wonderfully diverse gifts.

 

This symbolism suggests two practical consequences. First, the Church must always be a place where people of all backgrounds are welcome to come and offer their gifts. Unity in Christ does not mean uniformity. The diverse gifts brought by representatives of the world’s different cultures immeasurably enrich our life together in the universal Church. We need always to guard against the temptation to feel superior to the expression of cultural traditions other than our own in the Church’s life and worship.

 

And second, our membership in the universal Church bestows a shared identity with fellow Christians the world over, transcending all differences of nationality, politics, culture, and language. It’s a good and praiseworthy thing to be devoted family members, conscientious employees, enthusiastic participants in civic life, and patriotic citizens of our country. By fulfilling our responsibilities in these spheres, we contribute to the common good that God intends for all. We just need to remember that our identity as Christians comes first. The claims of our membership in the worldwide fellowship of Christ’s Body rightly takes precedence over all other claims upon our loyalty and allegiance. 

THE HOLY NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST

Sunday, January 1, 2023

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

Exodus 34:1-8

Philippians 2:9-13

Luke 2:15-21

 

“And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”

 

Since the seventh or eighth century, the Church has commemorated the Circumcision of Christ on January 1st, reckoned as the eighth day after his birth if we count December 25th as the first day. The calendar in successive editions of the Book of Common Prayer kept this designation from 1549 up through 1928. The Roman Catholic Church kept it until 1960; and the Eastern Orthodox Church still keeps it today.

 

The naming of a son was an integral part of the circumcision ceremony, and remains so in contemporary Judaism. For this reason, the compilers of the 1979 Prayer Book thought it appropriate to rename January 1st the Feast of the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. 

 

The Church of England’s Book of Common Worship, published in 2000, splits the difference and calls this day “the Naming and Circumcision of our Lord Jesus Christ.” All these variations seem to me entirely defensible in that they simply emphasize different dimensions of the same event that, following the Jewish Law, took place on the eighth day after our Lord’s birth.

 

Apart from the Circumcision, devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus has an interesting history all its own. Its inspiration clearly comes from such New Testament passages as today’s Epistle, where St. Paul hails the Name of Jesus as “above every Name” so that “at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow … and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (By the way, on the basis of this text, many of us were taught to bow our heads whenever the Holy Name is spoken, as a gesture of respect and of reparation for its misuse. I commend this practice highly.)

 

As early as the fifth or sixth century, the Desert Fathers adopted the devotion known as the Jesus Prayer, which consisted of simple repetition over and over again of the Name of Jesus in some such form as: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” The Jesus Prayer remains a staple of Eastern Orthodox spirituality. And, again, it’s a prayer technique that I highly recommend.

 

In the late middle ages, the Franciscan and Dominican orders of friars began to promote devotion to the Holy Name focused on the image of the Sacred Monogram, consisting of the first three Greek letters of the Lord’s name—Iota, Eta, Sigma; in English they look like “IHS”—displayed in a disc surrounded by the sun’s rays and surmounted by a cross. Beginning about the fifteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church kept a feast of the Holy Name on the second Sunday after the Epiphany; it was suppressed in 1969, and later re-introduced as an optional commemoration on January 3rd.

 

But why this emphasis on our Lord’s Name? Well, a distinctive feature of Christianity is that we worship a God who actually has a Name. That is, we don’t worship some nameless, ineffable, and unknowable divine Absolute: what C.S. Lewis characterized as many people’s picture of God, an “oblong blur” or a vast tapioca pudding. 

 

It's often said in the contemporary Church that because the transcendent God is beyond all words and images, any language we use to describe God must necessarily be arbitrary and ultimately inadequate. That would be true, except that God has spoken; and in so speaking God has revealed himself, giving us knowledge of his being, nature, and character that we could never have come up with ourselves. As the twentieth-century Swiss theologian Emil Brunner put it: “by God alone can God be known.” And one of the principal ways in which God makes himself known is by disclosing his Name.

 

In the biblical thought-world, one’s name conveys one’s identity, character, and purpose. To be told someone’s name is not only to learn something of who that person is, but also to enter into a new relationship with that person. In the Old Testament, God reveals his name to Moses at the burning bush: “I am that I am.” That name was considered so holy that it was pronounced only once a year, by the High Priest, in the Holy of Holies, on the Day of Atonement. 

 

So, today’s Feast invites us to reflect on the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. When my sons were born, Elizabeth and I gave them names that we’d chosen ahead of time, as is the case with most people born today. But the name Jesus is not something that Mary and Joseph come up with by themselves. Instead, the angel gives the Name both to Mary at the Annunciation and to Joseph in his dream, with strict instructions that this is what the child is to be called. The name is revealed by God. 

 

While the name Jesus—in Greek Iēsous, in Hebrew Joshua, and in Aramaic Yeshua—was fairly common in New Testament times, it nonetheless bears a special significance in relation to who Jesus is, and what he’s come into the world to do. Etymologically, it means something like, “God is salvation,” or “God saves.” It discloses that Jesus is the Savior. As the angel says to Joseph in his dream, “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

 

But why do we need a Savior? From what do we need to be saved? The biblical narrative teaches, and experience confirms, that we human beings have collectively turned away from God, our Creator, making bad choices that lead inexorably to death and destruction. (G. K. Chesterton remarked that Original Sin is the one empirically verifiable Christian doctrine.) Left to our own devices, we cannot save ourselves. We need a Savior: someone to rescue us and bring us back into the way of God’s light and life.

 

The name Jesus signifies that he’s the Savior sent to reconcile us to God and one another. The Fathers of the early Church emphasized the significance of his Name in relation to his circumcision. Remember, his name points to salvation, and he receives this name on the first occasion of the shedding of his blood. His circumcision thus anticipates the shedding of his blood upon the cross that will bring about the salvation of the world. 

 

On this first day of January, then, the Church invites us to dedicate the coming year to the Holy Name of Jesus. We have the opportunity today to make a New Year’s resolution to do everything to God’s glory in Jesus’ Name—every thought we think, every word we speak, every deed we perform. And in the weeks and months to come, the Church calendar’s seasons, feasts, and fasts will take us once again on our annual journey through the course of his life, death, resurrection, ascension, and return, by which he brings us God’s salvation and so fulfills the meaning of his Holy Name.