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The First Sunday After Christmas: The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
Almighty God, who hast poured upon us the new light of thine incarnate Word: Grant that the same light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives; through the sameJesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.Amen.
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Scripture citation(s): John 1:1-18; Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7
A Sermon by
The Rev. Canon Carl Turner
on
John 1:1-18; Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7
✛
There is light despite all of the darkness.
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Just before Christmas I was reading a joint Christmas message from the Archbishops of Armagh in Northern Ireland – Richard Clarke and Eamon Martin – one Roman Catholic and one Anglican. Both, by historical coincidence, have the same title ‘Archbishop of Armagh’ and both are the senior primates of the whole of Ireland. During ‘the troubles’ between the 1970’s and the 1990’s, Armagh became known as ‘Murder Mile’; these two Archbishops are working towards true reconciliation.
They begin their letter with a quotation from Paul’s Letter to the Romans:
‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.’ (Romans 15:13)
They then go on to say:
‘In the world around us, with all the violence and destruction that we have seen in recent weeks and months, there seems to be little interest in any scenario of hope. Yet as Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” Pope Francis has also often said: “Do not allow yourselves to be robbed of hope.”’
Imagine being robbed of hope…yes, there are many who find themselves in situations which are desperate – made homeless, made refugees, facing terminal illness or redundancy at work or debt or addiction – but to be ‘robbed of hope’ means that someone has taken it away and that is truly desperate and despicable.
I remember many weeks ago, Father Austin preaching about doctors sharing bad news about someone’s medical condition and that awful phrase sometimes used, “There is nothing more we can do” and I remember Father Austin saying, “But that is a lie! There is something we can do – by simply by being with that person.”
And the challenge to us this Christmas as we look to a new secular year is to think about those people who have been robbed of hope – those who are powerless to make any change, and who need us to give them some hope back into their lives; to help them find light in the darkness.
In our beautiful reading from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Paul reminded his hearers and reminds us today that before faith we were imprisoned, effectively, without hope; robbed, by ‘the fall’ and by the presence of sin in our world. But God did not accept that there was no hope. God did not say ‘There is nothing more we can do:” “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.”
As an adoptive parent, this is a powerful passage for me. When my wife and I adopted our children in 1999 they truly became our children; adoption in the bible is as powerful thing as it is today. To be adopted is to be given a family, an identity and afforded hope. It has never been easy being adoptive parents; adoption in England is not like it is in some other parts of the world or, indeed, in the United States. Most children in Britain who are adopted are subject to court orders; they have been placed into care; they have been abused or suffered serious neglect and, in many cases, they have been robbed of hope. So, when I became an adoptive parent, for the first I began to understand why the passages in the New Testament about adoption are so powerful – because they are about belonging and identity.
We have heard the beginning of John’s Gospel several times now over the past week or so; it is God’s answer to the hopelessness of our world. God sent his Son: ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory…’ God assumed our mortal body in order to help us discover his redeeming love. And, since we are adopted as God’s own, we become his children; as St Paul goes on to say, “And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
“Abba – Father!” Abba means, literally, ‘daddy’. The intimacy of the Incarnation works both ways – God comes to us so that he can draw us back to himself but into a relationship of free love…and hope.
“So,” says St Paul, “you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.” The message of the incarnation – the message of Christmas – is that, far from being robbed of hope, we have been given the greatest of gifts and become inheritors of eternal life. And, as many have commented, eternal life is far more than life everlasting – it is a quality of life that makes us whole again or, as we heard quoted at the beginning – as Desmond Tutu once said, “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”
