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This Sunday's sermon is a series of scripture readings and poetic reflections for the first Sunday after Christmas, which was January 1, 2023 this year. I. “For unto you is born a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord”
Lesson: Isaiah 12:2-6, Matthew 1:18-21 What is a Savior? With all the dangers and worries and stresses of the world, we would be forgiven for imagining that a SAVIOR must be someone who comes with power and influence, changing our circumstances so that we can live the lives we’ve always wanted, freed from all of those dangers and worries and stresses. But that’s not the savior we got. The savior we got was a tiny child, born in obscurity, with no power or influence to change our circumstances in any way we’d recognize. And yet, they are changed. How different are our lives because the savior turned out to be a baby, and not a general, leading armies-- a child, and not a statesman, guiding policy-- a poor infant, and not a businessman, leading global markets? How could our lives not be different, since this is how God chose to save us? II. “For unto you is born a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord” Lesson: Isaiah 61:1-3, 11, John 1:19-23, 29-34 Destiny can feel like such an out-of-the-way thing, like a bygone idea of purpose and direction given to us by God or Fate or the Universe. Destiny can feel out of place in a world that seems to have lost meaning in so many ways, lost direction in so many ways, lost purpose in so many ways. But Destiny sat on the head of that tiny baby boy, born in Bethlehem. “Anointed,” they would call him-- Messiah, Christ. Anointed, Destined, Chosen to be the one who would bring good news to the world. To bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners, to announce the year of the Lord’s favor. Could it be that his destiny, his anointing, would lead to our own? Could it be that this child in the manger, named by the angel as the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, was anointed to blaze a trail that we are called to follow? Could it be that the babe born in Bethlehem, who would take away the sin of the world, was destined not simply to free us once, but to free us each and every day? Freeing us to do what he, too, was anointed to do? Is his anointing your destiny, too? III. “For unto you is born a Savior, who is Christ, the Lord” Lesson: Isaiah 6:1-8, Luke 1:26-35 He is the Lord, maker of heaven and earth. He is the Child, nursing and small. With only his voice he welcomed creation into being, transforming the darkness into light and the formless into body. With small, new eyes he could barely focus on his mother, his tiny systems just learning how to turn her milk into usable energy for his growing body. He knows where the rain is stored, and commands the sea to stop at the shore-- He cannot lift his head, and waits for his father’s strong palm to lift him. The edge of his robe fills the Temple-- too much for earth to contain. He barely makes a dent in the hay of the manger-- do you remember how small newborns are? The angelic hosts are constantly with him, listening to his commands and praising his goodness. The ox and the donkey watch over him, not sure what to make of the baby in their food-trough. The six-winged seraphs attend him, singing in angelic choirs such that their voices shake the pivots of the thresholds, stunning prophets into silence! The shepherds kneel, quietly, to see him sleeping, cooing in tenderness at the tiny child still wet with birth. Exalted and holy, the earth will come streaming to Zion to learn from him and find their everlasting hope. Humble and unknown, he won’t even make it onto the census record that forced his place of birth. He is the Lord, maker of heaven and earth. He is the Child, nursing and small. He is the Word made flesh.
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