postID: 7052; title: The Fourth Sunday Of Advent
groupKey: secondary
postID: 351408; title: O Adonai — “O Lord”
groupKey: other
O Adonai — “O Lord”
The Fourth Sunday Of Advent
We beseech thee, Almighty God, to purify our consciences by thy daily visitation, that when thy Son Jesus Christ cometh he may find in us a mansion prepared for himself; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Array
(
[date] => 2016-12-18 16:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 1344
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => formatted
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2016-12-18 16:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2016-12-18postID: 351408 (O Adonai -- “O Lord”)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 351408; date_type: fixed; year: 2016
fixed_date_str: December 18
fixed_date_str (mod): December 18 2016
formattedFixedDateStr: 2016-12-18
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 351408
displayDates for postID: 351408/year: 2016
Array
(
[0] => 2016-12-18
)
postPriority: 999postID: 7052 (The Fourth Sunday Of Advent)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 7052; date_type: variable; year: 2016
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 7052
displayDates for postID: 7052/year: 2016
Array
(
[0] => 2016-12-18
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2016-12-18 with ID: 7052 (The Fourth Sunday Of Advent)
secondaryPost found with ID: 351408 (O Adonai -- “O Lord”)
The Fourth Sunday Of Advent
O Adonai -- “O Lord”
Array
(
[date] => 2016-12-18 16:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 1344
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => simple
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2016-12-18 16:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2016-12-18postID: 351408 (O Adonai -- “O Lord”)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 351408; date_type: fixed; year: 2016
fixed_date_str: December 18
fixed_date_str (mod): December 18 2016
formattedFixedDateStr: 2016-12-18
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 351408
displayDates for postID: 351408/year: 2016
Array
(
[0] => 2016-12-18
)
postPriority: 999postID: 7052 (The Fourth Sunday Of Advent)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 7052; date_type: variable; year: 2016
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 7052
displayDates for postID: 7052/year: 2016
Array
(
[0] => 2016-12-18
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2016-12-18 with ID: 7052 (The Fourth Sunday Of Advent)
secondaryPost found with ID: 351408 (O Adonai -- “O Lord”)
The reading_id [310106] is already in the array.
reading found matching title 'John 1:1-14' with ID: 73411
The reading_id [73411] is already in the array.
No update needed.
Scripture citation(s): John 1:1-14; Genesis 1:1-4, 26-27
A Sermon by
on
John 1:1-14; Genesis 1:1-4, 26-27
✛
In the beginning...
Array
(
[0] => 60758
[1] => 60703
)
book: [Array
(
[0] => 60758
)
] (reading_id: 73411)bbook_id: 60758
The bbook_id [60758] is already in the array.
book: [60703] (reading_id: 310106)
bbook_id: 60703
The bbook_id [60703] is already in the array.
No update needed for sermon_bbooks.
When we celebrate Christmas we look back, but further back than the brightly lit night in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago.
“In the beginning” are the first words of John’s Gospel. The reading that completes our annual Festival of Lessons and Carols takes us back to the very beginning of time.
“In the beginning.” These words echo for all time the words of the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” “In the beginning,” says John, “In the beginning was the Word.” And what is this Word? It is none other than the creative Word of God; “The Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.”
That same Word is, therefore, essential to our understanding of the cosmos and our place in it; it is crucial for our understanding of this planet and our responsibility for it; it is the only way to answer the old conundrum ‘What is the meaning of Life?’
The Gospel writer makes it clear: “All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.” This Word of God is more than speech or language, it is the quickening of all that exists for it is God’s very self.
“And God said, ‘Let there be light.’” The Book of Genesis begins the creation story with light, which permeates everything in the universe and shatters the darkness of chaos; thus creation at its very beginning is filled with life that comes from the light of God. That is why I find scientific theories for the creation of the universe so unsatisfying; the ‘Big Bang theory’ and ‘expanding universes’ are very fascinating but I do not want to be an accident or the product of the collision of matter or antimatter – and even if that were the case, no scientist has ever then answered the child’s probing question – “So, sir, what was there before the big bang?”
“In the beginning was the Word…In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness: and the darkness comprehendeth it not.” How true that has been, but not just simply in recent years; since the very beginning when God created humankind and gave them free will. We heard earlier in our service the story of the fall – In the beginning God gave us light – his light and we rejected it, preferring the darkness of sin. “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”
“In the beginning.”
Everything points to the Creator – to God – the source of life and light and yet we have so often rejected that light and that chance to live in loving relationship with him. From the very beginning God has yearned for us to have a relationship with him. Why? Because in the beginning he cherished us and continued to cherish us even after the consequences of the fall: “So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them.”
Our identity is bound up with God’s creative Word and that is why we are made in his likeness – his life, breathed into each one of us at the moment of our conception: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.”
Throughout history, God has had his friends. The fall marred our relationships with him, with one another, and even with the earth for which we are responsible as stewards, but God still had his friends.
But even that was not enough for God. God wanted all of his creation to be in relationship with him and so the one who was the source of everything in the beginning decided to empty himself into it. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” In time, in space, in history – The Word that was there in the beginning took human flesh in the womb of Mary of Nazareth. In Jesus, humankind met the Word face to face and, most beautiful of all, God who created the face of each human being took the features of a human being – became one of us in order to redeem us. And this emptying, this pouring out of God’s limitless love for his creation, allowed the creature to see the glory of the Creator; allows us to see God’s light and glory.
We read in the first letter of John: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.” (1 John 1:1)
Michael Ramsey, the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury said this: “The manifestation of the glory of the Son of God…cannot be torn from its cosmic context. The glory, which the disciples saw in Galilee, Jerusalem and Calvary, is the glory of him who created the heavens and the earth, and who made himself known in the redemption of Israel. All that is learnt of the glory of God…is both fulfilled and outshone in the glory of the Word-made-flesh.” (The Gospel and the Catholic Church pp.57-58)
In the beginning:
Here in our midst:
Coming back to make all things new.
The Word of life is Jesus. And you can invite him into your life to fill you with light so you can touch God’s glory.
