The Christmas Sermon - 3 Births of Christ: Eternal, Temporal, Mystical
Speaker Notes
Collect for Christmas Day
Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin; Grant that we being born again, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
John 1:1-18
The Word Became Flesh
1.1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
Dante in Paradiso
God is ‘the love that moves the sun and the other stars’
Susan Howatch quote
My personal life was shown to be a devastating failure when my daughter chose to return to America to live with her father. I found I had been quite stripped of any illusion that I was doing very-nicely-thank-you. In the eyes of the world I was still the successful “Susan Howatch,” but this persona no longer seemed to be related to me. Behind this glittering image was someone else, someone who no longer knew who she was. I began to feel as if God had seized me by the scruff of the neck, slammed me against the nearest wall and was now shaking me until my teeth rattled. Why people think a religious conversion is all sweetness and light I have no idea. It must be one of the big spiritual misconceptions of our time.
Dag Hammarskjold Markings quote [letter titled Whitsunday, 1961 in the Chapter 1961]
I don’t know Who-or what-put the question, I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone-or Something-and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.