Sermon for second Sunday after Christmas, 2021

Driving back from James and Chloe’s wedding this past week, I observed the following message on a roadside sign: “2022: Let’s Try This Again.” I could certainly resonate with that sentiment: 2021 was supposed to be the year that we put the pandemic-related challenges of 2020 behind us, and now here we are at the start of a third year in which our schools, our communities, and our lives continue to be disrupted by Covid. Still, we can hope that as the calendar turns from 2021 to 2022, better times lie ahead. But while it may be tempting to leave 2021 in the past, this second Sunday of the Christmas season reminds us that the themes we have been exploring at the end of 2021 are still worthy of our attention now at the start of 2022.

At the Christmas Eve vigil, we introduced the Christmas theme of the Light shining in the darkness with a close look at the prologue of St. John’s Gospel. We considered how Jesus Christ is the Light of men, the promised Lamp for the people of God as we make our pilgrim journey through this world. As we noted, the Light shines that we too might bear light in the darkness around us. We considered the words of the English writer and mystic Evelyn Underhill, that “every Christian is, as it were, part of the dust-laden air which shall radiate the glowing epiphany of God, catch and reflect his golden Light.” This theme continues on this second Sunday after Christmas, as our Collect directs us to pray that God, “who has poured upon us the new light of [his] incarnate Word,” may “grant that the same light enkindled in our hearts may shine forth in our lives.” This morning, then, we will consider in more detail what it means for the light of Christ to enkindle our hearts and for us that light to shine forth in our lives.

This Collect dates back at least to the time of a tenth-century liturgical manuscript called the Gregorian Sacramentary. The Latin perfundo, which is translated in the Collect as “poured,” has the sense of “to pour upon” or “to sprinkle,” and is often used in the context of describing the sacrament of Holy Baptism. The writers of this Collect, then, almost certainly intended us to view this “pouring” not as an abstract metaphor but as a clear reminder of our baptism. How, then, do we “catch and reflect [Christ’s] golden Light”? It is, first and foremost, through our baptism. In part for this reason, baptism was called phōtismos, “illumination,” by the early Church. In his oration on Holy Baptism, the fourth-century church father Gregory of Nazianzus speaks of baptism as illumination with the following words: “Illumination is the splendor of souls, the conversion of the life, the question put to the Godward conscience. It is the aid to our weakness, the renunciation of the flesh, the following of the Spirit, the fellowship of the Word, the improvement of the creature, the overwhelming of sin, the participation of light, the dissolution of darkness. It is the carriage to God, the dying with Christ, the perfecting of the mind, the bulwark of Faith, the key of the Kingdom of heaven, the change of life, the removal of slavery, the loosing of chains, the remodelling of the whole man.” Baptismal illumination, Gregory concludes, is “the greatest and most magnificent of the Gifts of God.”

It is at baptism, then, that the light of Christ “enkindle[s]” our hearts. How, though, does this light then “shine forth in our lives”? Simply put, it begins with allowing the light of Christ to transform every aspect of our persons through the work of “spiritual formation” or what we might call an “education in virtue.” In contrast to our present day, in which we tend to emphasize ensuring that we all think right thoughts and know the right facts, the church fathers, in their writings on how people learn and grow, consistently emphasized how human beings are fundamentally embodied beings. Thus, while the intellectual domain was undoubtedly important, it was also important for these church fathers that we tend to the various parts of the physical body as means by which we receive training in faith and virtue. To return to the aforementioned oration by Gregory Nazianzen, then, we should not be surprised to see Gregory implore the baptized, “Let us cleanse every member, let us purify every sense; let nothing in us be imperfect or of our first birth; let us leave nothing unilluminated.” In other words, the natural outworking of our baptismal illumination is that this illumination works its way out into not just our souls or our minds but into every member of our bodies. Thus, Gregory begins, “Let us enlighten our eyes, that we may look straight on, and not bear in ourselves any harlot idol through curious and busy sight; for even though we might not worship lust, yet our soul would be defiled. If there be beam or mote, let us purge it away, that we may be able to see those of others also.” What Gregory is saying is that the first way in which we can think of Christ’s light “shining forth in our lives” is to ensure that our eyes have been “enlightened.” While in Gregory’s context he most likely had in mind concerns about guarding one’s eyes from the temptations of of mixed-gender baths or the scandalous lasciviousness on display at the ancient theater, we can easily extend the application in our present day to protecting our eyes from those corrupting sights of our age. This would of course most notably include things like internet pornography but could also reasonably encompass much of what we view on social media or on our television screens. And so, here at the start of the year 2022, we can ask: are my eyes enlightened? How could I do a better job this year of filling my eyes with what will lead me more into the light of Christ and keep myself from filling my eyes with the things of darkness?

Gregory goes on to consider the senses of hearing and speech: “Let us be enlightened in our ears; let us be enlightened in our tongue, that we may hearken what the Lord God will speak, and that He may cause us to hear His lovingkindness in the morning, and that we may be made to hear of joy and gladness, spoken into godly ears, that we may not be a sharp sword, nor a whetted razor, nor turn under our tongue labor and toil, but that we may speak the Wisdom of God.” As we know well from the epistle of James, the tongue is powerful but very difficult to control; with it we both praise God and curse those made in God’s image (Jas 3:9). Often, what comes out of our mouths is directly related to what we allow to come into our ears. The music we listen to, the podcasts that we download, even, in a sense, the books we read–all these influence and shape our patterns of thought and therefore our speech. And so, here at the start of 2022, we can likewise ask: are my ears and my tongue enlightened? How could I do a better job this year of filling my ears and my tongue with what will lead me and others more into the light of Christ and keep myself from filling my ears and my tongue with the things of darkness?

Gregory goes on to talk about the need for still other parts of the body to be illuminated with the light of Christ, but the pattern is clear enough: if we want Christ’s light to shine forth in our lives, we should give serious thought to the transformation of every part of our persons. In all these things, we have a model in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word. By taking on human flesh, Christ has given us an example of what it means to be fully–truly–human. This Christmas season, as we reflect on the mystery of God becoming man and all the blessings that flow from this mystery, let us not forget that Christ came not only to reveal to us the way of true life but also to send us the Holy Spirit, who empowers us to catch and reflect the light of Christ. It is a startling and remarkable truth that at baptism we receive the same Spirit that anointed Christ in his earthly ministry so that we can continue his work, his mission, as his people for the good of the world. To this end, let’s look at our Epistle for this morning, from Isaiah 61. In this prophecy, placed on the lips of the incarnate Christ, we see that the Spirit of God was upon Jesus, enabling him to perform the particular vocation to which he was called. It is not a coincidence that Luke records Jesus quoting this exact passage at the start of his public ministry, shortly after his baptism, at which the Holy Spirit had descended upon him in the form of a dove. Clearly, it is an important prophecy for understanding the connection between Jesus’ baptism, Spirit-empowerment, and mission. It is, as N. T. Wright explains, “unambiguously Davidic, and explicitly messianic,” and “is perfectly consistent with the overall picture of Jesus’ work” throughout his public career. It is, given the fact that the same Spirit that anointed Jesus has now been poured out on us, a picture of what it might look like for us, as the Collect puts it, to allow the light of Christ to “shine forth in our lives.” 

Looking more closely at Isaiah 61, then, we see a set of activities that collectively portray the characteristics of the comig kingdom of God. Where God’s reign and rule arrives, first in the person of Christ and now in his Body, the Church, we should expect to see the good news go forth, to see that the brokenhearted will be bound up, the captives will be liberated, the mourning will be comforted, God’s enemies will be repaid, and all of this leading to the flourishing of his people and the glory of the Lord. Yes, it is true that these things will be fully realized only when the Lord comes again, and yet we believe that even now Christ’s kingdom is advancing among us, in us, and through us. This truth is recognized in the name of our church, Christ the King; at the Ascension, Christ was seated at the right hand of the Father, where even now he rules over the world as its true Lord and King. And so, the same Spirit-empowered mission announced by Isaiah and enacted by Christ now becomes our own vocation. And so I ask, in 2022, how can we, Christ the King Anglican Church in Marietta, Georgia, preach good tidings to the meek? Bind up the brokenhearted? Proclaim liberty to the captives? Comfort all that mourn? 

This task seems too large, an impossible calling for our little mission. Indeed, given that we are unlikely to cure cancer, end sex trafficking, or solve poverty here in Atlanta in this new year, how, practically, can we live out this Isaiah 61 vocation? It can, I think, be easy to get so lost in thinking about systemic issues that we can lose sight of the needs of the actual, individual people that God brings into our lives. Was this not, after all, Jesus’ own model, as he engaged with individual, broken people, calling them back into right relationship with God and with others? Dostoevsky, in his classic novel The Brothers Karamazov, has a scene in which the wise Father Zossima, leader of the local monastery where one of the brothers finds himself, meets with a woman who had come to him for counsel. Father Zossima tells the woman a story about a doctor who had told him, “The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams, I have often come to make enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary; and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he’s too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.” Christ, though, shows us a different way: an “active love,” to use Dostoevsky’s term, that was relentlessly personal and attentive to the needs of each person who came into his path. This, then, is where you can start: that you “strive to love your neighbor actively and indefatigably.” What would this “active love” look like in your cell group, in your family, in your workplace, or in your school? In my case, for example, as a teacher it can be easy to love my students on a collective or on a theoretical level, but can I really love each student individually–even the ones that goof off in my class, cheat on their assignments, and perhaps even mock me and my beliefs? Can I endeavor anew to show my students an “active love” that reveals to them the light of Christ in me this year? By asking questions such as these as they are relevant to your own circumstances, you’ll be on your way to exhibiting an “active love” in which the light of Christ shines forth in your life.

Consider a time when you’ve been at the beach or the lake, and seen how the light from the sun hits the surface of the water, being reflected and refracted in a way that makes the beams of light visible to our eyes. Generally speaking, we can’t see the beams of light as they traverse the heavens and pass through our atmosphere, but when they strike the water’s surface, they suddenly become manifest to our eyes in all their glorious splendor. This, I suggest, is what Underhill meant with her charge to “radiate the glowing epiphany of God, catch and reflect his golden Light,” and it provides a wonderful image of what this morning’s Collect is calling us to in this new year. May we, in 2022, be a forest of “trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord,” radiating the goodness, truth, and beauty of King Jesus across northwest Atlanta. Amen.