Posts Tagged ‘Word Made Flesh’
The Word Was Made Beautiful – Br. Keith Nelson
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Isaiah 52:7-10 & John 1:1-14
We are here to celebrate Christ, to rejoice and revel in the revelation of the Word made Flesh, to fall headlong into belief for the first time, or the five-thousandth time. You are here, probably, to listen – for the first or the five-thousandth time, to “hear the good news of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation,” in the words of Isaiah. But, probably, you are also drawn to see. To see and exclaim, even before hearing, How beautiful. How beautiful: the messenger’s feet upon the mountains. How beautiful: the holy arm which the Lord has bared. My God, how beautiful: this Child we have sought with the eyes of our hearts for so long.
Christmas, for Christians in the West, is the foremost opportunity to re-embrace the Medieval impulse to look and to touch; to show things of great meaning first, then to tell as commentary on the showing. As the faith of Christians in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America remains to this day, the faith of the Medieval West was unabashedly sensory. Looking and touching and tasting were essential to believing, and they are even more so today. Read More
Sermon for the Last Day of the Year – Br. David Allen
1 John 2:18-21
John 1:1-18
On this last day of the current year we can look back over the year now coming to an end. We can repent of our failures, and we give thanks for our blessings.
As we look forward to the New Year about to begin we can expect challenges. We should look with courage and hope, and we give thanks for rewards.
The first reading tells us knowledge of the truth will protect us from the antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Read More
Christmas Day – Br. James Koester
Hebrews 1:1-12
John 1:1-14
If you have paid close attention you may have noticed that something is missing this morning, or perhaps I should say, someone is missing, and you would be right. We have all been waiting a long time for his arrival, and suddenly the day has come, and there is no sign of him.
At least there is no sign of him in the way we might expect. In a flash, the stable and manger have disappeared, and with them the donkey and cow and sheep. Everything has been swept clean and there is no sign of star or shepherds or angels or even of Mary and Joseph. Except for passing references in the hymns this morning, and the shrine at the back of the chapel, the baby is gone.
So here we find ourselves on Christmas morning and the very thing we have all come to see, a baby in a manger, is missing. Only the vague memory of his birth lingers like those baby pictures we have seen of our parents and grandparents. Like them, we know he must have been a baby at one time, but even on the day we celebrate his birth the memory of the baby is fleeting at best. Read More