THE CHRIST MASS [2014]: Homily

“AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US”

Saint John 1. 1-18

THE CHRIST MASS: 25 December Anno + Domini 2014

Fr Jay Watson SSP

 

In The Name + of Jesus

   God is not known by mysticism, i.e. looking within oneself.  God is not known by charismaticism, i.e. looking for miraculous outward signs and wonders.  You do not know God by reason, rationalism, or science, i.e. also looking “without” but with your brain.  God only comes by His revelation to you—and it is only in, with, through and by The Word.  The Word of Holy Scripture preserves in solid visible form, God The Word—also solid and real but ever-so “outside” the perception of visible sinful eyesight. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by The Word of God.” [Ro. 10.17]

   God had Moses record “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” [Ge. 1.1]  God had blessed Saint John fully interpret and unpack this creation “In the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God, and The Word was God.” [Jn. 1.1]

   You need not try and plumb the depths of inter-Trinitarian essence for God has given you His Son.

You don’t have to try and imagine or “capture” The Father or The Paraclete because The Lord Jesus has captured you, i.e. rescued you from Satan’ gaol.  Why the Christ Mass?  “For God so loved the world…not that the world or you were loveable or deserving—you were not, you were enemy traitors—but, God loved the world this way “that He gave His only-begotten Son.” [Jn. 3.16]

   Your sin and damnation, you and your father Adam did not cause the Incarnation and Nativity of Christ The God/Man.  You as you, even your sin, are not the reason for the season.  God does nothing by way of coercion, compulsion, necessity, or re-set.  God is love. God’s love is creative, sharing, communing, and restorative.  God’s action is mercy and peace bringing.  God’s love is forgiving and healing.  A healed man repents and fights against the trespasses which bring further illness.

   On the Christ Mass, and every day, you give thanks unto The Father with Saint Paul that “God hath made you meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints of light; Who hath delivered you from the power of darkness, and hath translated you into the kingdom of His dear Son. In Whom you have redemption through His Blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” [Col. 1. 12-14]

   The life of the baby in the manger, the baby which had been carried in the Virgin’s womb, the ark of the New Testament, is the life of light—the life of all Who receive it in Word and who eat and drink it—that Blood and that Body. The Christ Mass is both The Christ—His identity, and His Mass—His Work of obedience and atonement in Body and Blood now received this day of light. 

   You eat and drink not just bread and wine but Very God of Very God and Light of Light.

   The darkness of your sorrow and separation are flooded with true light of He Who is Truth and Light.

   Again the Apostle tells you Who you feast upon, Jesus Who “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For by Him were all things created…all things were created by Him and for Him.” [vv. 15-16]

   Matthew 1 and Luke 2 are beautiful records of past Gospel events with current Gospel delivery and presence to be sure.  But John’s prologue is the meat of the Bread which once lay in the manger but this day is placed on your tongues.

   You receive the God/Man in His Sacrament and receive His power. You are strengthened as the sons of God. The Holy Ghost strengthens your faith in Him as you are IN Him and He is placed IN you.

   You were born sinful from your earthly mothers by the choice of your mother and father; a contingent act, the result of their actions. You were born in bondage and degradation.

   The Christ was born by His own will and desire to sanctify human flesh by taking it into His Godhood. He re-birthed you at His font, His Church, His mother’s watery womb by His will and action.

   Those seeing Moses as an end, trying to live by their doing the Law perfectly, rejected the Light and Life of the Nazarene. Nazareth rejected Messiah. Pharisees, Sadducees, and High Priests rejected Christ.  All those today who see Moses, their own little Moses-like pieties and methods, as the end, also spit on Him and crucify Him again.

   But those like you who receive The Word made Flesh, in The Word and in The Flesh, receive Grace—Christ Jesus!

   “No man hath seen God at any time” writes the Evangelist. True! No man views the un-shaded Trinity as Trinity. But the “only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of The Father, He hath declared Him.”  Jesus declares God to you in Himself.

   You have the Father, our Father Who art in heaven, because you eat and drink the Son.  Paul reminds you “in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” [Col. 2.9]  Or even better, Christ’s own words to you and Philip “have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” [Jn. 14.9]  You do more than see; you dine with and upon Jesus.

   In Holy Communion The Word Who is Flesh and always will be Flesh, will soon be in bread and wine, and will dwell among, and in, you.  In Christ, Christ In you, you the body, Jesus your Head, are the glory, “…as of the only begotten of The Father, full of grace and truth.”

In The Name The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost