A Sermon preached on Dec. 29 Christmas I at
St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden
Isaiah 61:10-62:3,
Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7, John 1: 1-18
If you were at our late service on Christmas Eve, just 5 days ago, you
will already have heard the reading from the prologue of John’s Gospel. I am
not at all tempted to reuse my sermon from a few days ago. For one thing, there
are too many witnesses, for another I would get bored reading the same sermon
again. But most importantly it would not be “contextual.” We interpret
scripture in context, and there are many different contexts that apply. We have
the context in which the passage was written – what was going on, what was
society like, what was important for the Christian community of that time? We
have the context and content of the reading itself – where is it in the Gospel,
what has or is about to happen, what sort of text is it? And we have the context
in which the passage is being read and heard. Today’s context, Sunday December
29, the 1st Sunday after Christmas, is different to that of Christmas
Eve. We are in the same place, but at a different time, with different (and fewer!)
people and today we also have the context of Holy Baptism.
In that context, what jumps out for me among the many other wonderful promises
of this passage is this:
“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.” (John
1:12)
And in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, we have a similar promise:
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a
woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so
that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are
children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying,
"Abba! Father!" So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a
child then also an heir, through God.” (Galatians 4:4-7)
What does this mean? Well a god or gods having children was nothing
unusual in the religions and mythologies of that time. The senior Greco-Roman
God Jupiter or Zeus was infamous for the number of children he had with goddesses
and humans, some of them in circumstances that we would probably call rape
today. Some of his many divine and usually also heroic offspring include
Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen
of Troy, Minos, and the Muses. But there are key differences between these children
and our role as God’s children.
For Jews, and for Christians, and also for Muslims, God, our God, can’t
have children in a physical way, because God is not a being, God is wholly
other, God is separate, God is the creator of all. That’s why Paul uses the
language of adoption and spirit to describe how we become God’s children, and
John – in the NIV translation – talks about “children born not of natural
descent” (NRSV: “not of blood”).
Both John and Paul also make clear that the power or ability to become God’s
children is very closely connected to Jesus Christ. John says that it is those
who receive Jesus and believe in his name who are given the right to become
children of God. Paul says that it was necessary that
God first send his Son, born of a
woman, to redeem – liberate and release us – before we receive adoption as
children, and that to strengthen and support this new connection with God, God
has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. Our direct, human to human relationship
with God is through Jesus Christ, whose incarnation, whose becoming human we celebrate
at Christmas. Put simply, with Jesus as our brother, God is our father.
Now, this has all already happened. God became human on that first
Christmas, and God’s Son redeemed us on the Cross in a once and for all sacrifice
on that first Good Friday.
So, Julie, (Omar), Jazmarie, and Mason are already children of God. Why
does it sound as if we only making them members of God’s family today, in
Baptism? What does it mean when we pray after they have been baptized with
water and the spirit: “We receive you into the household [family] of God.
Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share
with us in his eternal priesthood.”[1]
Well, what we are actually doing today in Baptism is recognizing and celebrating
that they have accepted, acknowledged and chosen to believe in that relationship.
In some verses we did not hear this morning – they were left out from the selection
from Galatians - Paul makes the connection between being or becoming children,
faith, Christ, and Baptism very clear:
“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all
of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed
yourselves with Christ.” (Galatians 3:26-27)
He also immediately goes on to say (3:28) “There is neither Jew nor
Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all
one in Christ Jesus.” God’s family is universal and inclusive and knows no barriers.
The children of Zeus or Jupiter were just those select few, heroic, superhumans.
In our faith, everyone has the potential and the power to become children of
God and truly human, not superhuman.
One more thing, and one more difference between today’s reading from
the prologue to John’s Gospel and Christmas Eve’s. Today’s selection has four extra
verses (15 – 18) including the last one we heard: “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.” God’s Son has made God known to us in his life, acts, teaching, and in
his death. We have seen God’s love in the person of Christ and in the context
of Baptism, as Paul writes, we clothe ourselves with Christ. That makes it our
job as children and heirs, as Christians to make Christ known and through
Christ, to make God known! This is a key part of the promises you will
make – together with everyone else here – in the Baptismal Covenant right now.
Amen.
