Christ Has Come

Fr. Scott Homer

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Merry Christmas! This is day three of Christmas—the third of twelve days—so again I say merry Christmas, as I will again next Sunday. So let’s start with a quiz, in the carol, The Twelve Days of Christmas, what did her true love give to her today? (Three French Hens, two Turtle Doves, and a Partridge in a Pear Tree.)

The season of Christmas is, of course, about celebrating the coming of the Christ into the world. But the season of Christmas is about more than just his birth. Before Christmas is over we will also celebrate his presentation in the Temple where Anna and Zechariah recognize him to be the promised messiah—the one prophesied about who has come to save his people. We will also celebrate the child receiving his holy name Jesus, which means “Almighty God Saves.” And the season of Christmas will not end until feast of the Epiphany—or what many parts of the world call Three Kings Day. Three wise men come to worship the Christ child, they bring him gifts for a king, and a priest, and a man doomed to die, and when these foreigners see Jesus, they bow down before him and worship him as King. Jesus is not just King of Israel but of the whole world—“A light to enlighten all the nations.”

Christmas is about Christ coming into the world—but not just entering history in some small cave in Bethlehem. Christmas is about Christ coming into your heart. Christmas celebrates the light shining in the darkness—and being too powerful for the darkness to consume it—but it is not just about Christ illuminating the darkness around and about us. It is also about Christ illuminating the darkness in our own hearts. It is about the light of life entering into our hearts and driving out the evil that resides there, and transforming us into beacons of faith, hope, and love. Because of Christmas, we become light bearers. We carry the Light of Christ into the world. And Christmas is not just about giving and getting cameras and mp3 players and LCD HD TVs. Christmas gives us another opportunity to grab onto the real treasures—hope, faith and love—and to really know joy and peace—not as concepts or principles—but as realities in our lives. As we look once again on this holy mystery of God becoming man—of Spirit becoming flesh—we are given the opportunity once again to seize the story and make it our own by receiving the Christ into our hearts and by allowing his light to shine in us and through us.

Now, if you ask most anybody, the story of Christmas is the one found in the second chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke. That’s the story told by most Christmas carols. It’s the story Linus tells Charlie Brown. It’s the one commemorated by the Creches and nativity scenes that we see in store windows and town squares and front yards and Christmas cards. It’s the baby Jesus lying in a manger. It is the story of angels visiting shepherds in a field and announcing to them that the savior—Christ the Lord—has been born. And the shepherds go to Bethlehem where they find the baby lying in a manger just as the angels told them. St. Luke’s account focuses on the humanity of the Christ. The Christ child displays all the characteristics that make us human. He is small and powerless. He is vulnerable. He is weak, unable to care for himself, and must depend on others if he hopes to survive. This is what it means to be human. As much as we like to pretend that we control our own destiny, we do not. Anyone who has suffered or watched someone they love suffer through a dread disease understands that we are not in control. Our lives are not in our own hands. And so, the Christmas story according to St. Luke teaches us that the Christ comes, not as some other worldly, celestial, superior, unsympathetic being but as one who understands us, knows our needs, and sympathizes with our pain. God has taken on flesh. The immortal has become mortal. God is with us, not just in spirit but in flesh too. And the Christ would suffer and he would die in order to rescue us from the certain failure of the flesh. God has become like us. Do you remember what the angel said we would call the child? Emmanuel, which means, “God with us.” St Likes account of the birth of Christ is an important story, but it is only half the story.

There is another account of the birth of the Christ and it is a very different account that serves a very different purpose. In St Luke the good news of Jesus Christ begins in Bethlehem. But in St John’s gospel the story begins in Genesis chapter 1, verse 1. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” And the way he created it was by speaking a word. “God said,” the writer of Genesis tells us, “God spoke the Word, and the world came to be.” Over and over God spoke the Word and the light shone, and the planet was filled with oceans and fish, the sky and birds, the land and all the animals. God spoke humanity into existence. God spoke and man was given life. This Word that was spoken, this eternal Word, the Word so powerful that it caused the entire universe to be created—what the scientists reduce to a ‘Big Bang’—“[this] Word” St John tells us, “was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God…” Did you notice what St John said? St John calls the word “He.” Now the Greek language is very specific about its pronouns and there can be no mistake here. St John has been very deliberate. He means what he says: the Word is not a what. The Word is a He. And that masculine, singular, “He” was with God in the beginning. In fact it was this Being that was the Voice of God during creation and it is this Creative Force of God that has come into the world. Christmas is the celebration of this immense and all powerful Word becoming flesh. In St. John’s story, God has come into the world. Immortality has put on mortality. Eternity has invaded the temporal world. Strength has taken on weakness, and perfection has submitted to imperfection, for a time, so that the presence and power of God might come into the midst of the people—in order that they might see this Great Light. In order that having seen it the people might believe that Jesus is the savior and redeemer of the world.

Here is the heart of this morning’s readings. St John says, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name [Jesus Christ], he gave power to become children of God…” When we finally receive the Christ we are adopted as Almighty God’s child. When we finally accept the name of Jesus Christ as the only name under heave by which we can be saved, then we are adopted as the King’s kid. And as one of the King’s kids we receive all the rights and privileges that belong to royalty. All that the Father belongs to us. It is an amazing promise. What must you do for this promise to become a reality in your life? You must repent and be baptized. When the Bible says you have to repent, it means you have to change your mind. You have to admit that you have been wrong and you have to make the decision to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and live life on his terms, as best as you are able. And you need to be baptized into the household of God. Even Jesus insisted on being Baptized in order to show us that Baptism is essential for all who seek to become children of God.

We celebrate Christmas as an historical fact. The Son of God was born of a Virgin. The Son of God became a human being and humanities isolation from God was ended. God was no longer distant, no longer alien to us. In Jesus Christ we saw God for who he is. In Jesus Christ God sees humanity as it truly was meant to be. But Christmas is more than an historical fact—it is also an existential reality—the Christ has come in order that you might believe and that believing you might become children and heirs of God. This Christmas and every Christmas we are reminded that the Christ child has taken up residence in the hearts of all believers and that we enjoy true freedom, peace and joy because the Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. God bless you all and merry Christmas. Amen.