The Second Sunday after Christmas Day

"Sent Through the Incarnation"

The Rev. William H. Joyner, Jr.

The iconography, the pattern, of the stained glass windows in this church is very traditional. As in many churches and cathedrals, we come into the church at the liturgical west end under images of the incarnation, of the birth of Jesus, and we are drawn to the altar, and above it, images of the crucifixion. To see more, and learn more, about these windows, come in here on a bright day with a pair of binoculars and look at the detail and the inscriptions. Oh – somebody has put a footnote here – I should remind you that there is a stained glass plan for the rest of the windows in this church. Its implementation awaits only the generosity of prospective donors.

Anyway, there in the back, supported by the Old Testament figures representing the law and the prophets – Moses, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel – are Mary with the baby Jesus, and Joseph, and the shepherds, and the wise men, and angels – cherubim and seraphim – watching over them. This is the traditional way we enter the church – through the incarnation, through a birth. The font is at the back too, marking our entrance into the church in our baptism. And this may be, symbolically, the way visitors, seekers, inquirers are introduced to the church as well – there is a knowledge and awareness of Christmas, mangers, shepherds, wise men, animals, and so on, earlier, and easier, than an appreciation of Holy Week and Easter, and of the crucifixion, the image we see here in the central window over the altar, in this church and in most churches, with Mary and John, and again with angels watching over them. We enter the church as Jesus entered our world, and are drawn forward, literally and figuratively down this aisle, to the death and resurrection of Christ. We come up these steps to the altar, and receive the Body and Blood of our Lord under this representation of his death. We come in and go from the nativity to the cross.

But there is something else about this iconography, this pattern. We also leave the church, we are also sent from this church, out under the same images of the incarnation. We are not called to stay at the cross, to sacrifice our lives, to be crucified, we are not asked to die as Jesus died. But we are asked to live as Jesus lived. We are asked to be human as Jesus was human. In today’s collect, we ask the God who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature, to let us share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity. This sharing of our humanity also means that we must step into and fulfill that humanity, as modeled by Jesus, if we are to share that divine life. We go out of here under the image of the child Jesus, the incarnate Lord, the Savior begotten before all worlds but who shares our humanity, who shares our life and shared our death. We are asked to share the life of Jesus. We are asked to go, not only from the nativity to the cross – we are asked to go back from the cross to the nativity, to the incarnation, to do the ministry of Jesus in the world, back to the stable and out the stable door, out the church door, into God’s creation.

And we don’t just leave this church after the service: we are sent. Like the wise men sent home by another way, like the shepherds sent rejoicing into the fields, like Mary and Joseph, sent to Bethlehem, and then to Egypt, and then back to Nazareth, like the figures representing the law and the prophets sent to the people of the Old Testament, we are sent. And we are sent together. We don’t just come her as individuals – we are gathered here as the people of God. Here we wait together during Advent, celebrate together at Christmas, and are sent together, like the wise men, by a new way, not the way we have come, especially at the Epiphany. We are gathered here – we come to the cross – we are fed with the body and blood of Jesus, and we don’t just go out, but we are sent out, sent together from God’s table with God’s word, with the prayers of the people, as proclaimers of the gospel. The pattern of the stained glass windows – from nativity to cross and back – models the gathering and sending of us as God’s people.
One of the great joys and privileges of deacons is to give the dismissal at the end of the liturgy, to send and go with the people into the world. In fact, sometimes it is said that the deacon has the last word in the service. But the deacon doesn’t have the last word – the people have the last word. The people say “Thanks be to God” – not because we are thankful that the service is over, not because we can now go home, or to lunch, or wherever, but because we have come here, have been united with God in the sacrament at the altar, have been blessed in hearing God’s word, have been joined to each other in prayer and fellowship, and now are sent into the world in witness to God’s love, as we pray at each baptism. The people have the last word. We are sent out those doors under the sign of the nativity, supported by the Old Testament prophets, watched over by the angels with their beating wings who are there, in our windows, at the manger and at the cross.

The New Year is an opportunity for all of us to begin this journey again, with each other and with God. In 1939, as the Second World War was breaking out, King George VI, not knowing what lay ahead in the coming year, included this poem in his Christmas broadcast to the empire:

I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year,
‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’
And he replied, ‘Go into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!’

Let us go together, as we begin this New Year, like the wise men, guided by God, not only to transform ourselves as we seek to model the humanity of Jesus, but as instruments of transformation in the world. We are invited, especially here at the Epiphany and in the days following, to understand what God seeks to reveal, not only to us, but through us, as we are sent into the world together under the sign of the incarnation of Jesus Christ to love and serve the Lord. Thanks be to God.