FINAL RESPONSIBILITY

 

Sermon delivered on the Sunday after Christmas Day the 30th December 2007 by Fr Nicholas JG Sykes at St. Alban's Church, 461 Shedden Road, George Town, Cayman Islands

Scriptures: Isaiah 63:7-9    Hebrews 2:10-18    Matthew 2:13-23

Isaiah 63: 7 "I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has granted us."

 

Such words originally encouraged a downhearted nation of Israel, that was in a state of near-despair, knowing how it was rooted in a great deliverance from slavery in Egypt, yet how it had been apparently punished to the point of abandonment when it was taken into Gentile captivity. The people of Israel and Judah felt lost, but there were a few prophetic voices like the one that voiced the words of our text, that gave them hope.

 

The Christmas Word, if I may put it so, the Word of the Incarnation as it has been expounded to us in many ways over the past days and weeks, should likewise be words of hope to us. For there is truly much to make ordinary people downhearted at this time. For many people the whole Christmas fandangle, symbolised for me by the local television station’s so-called 27 days of Christmas, none of them actually within the real 12 days of Christmas, proves to be an occasion of tension and family strife, and even for those of us more securely rooted in the rhythms of the Church, sometimes more of an upsetting rather than a securing of spiritual equilibrium. The tragedies of the outside world, such as the Asian tsunami, or the assassination of Benazir Bhutto last week, take on an extra tinge of sadness through occurring at this time of year. We need therefore to look more to the centre of the celebration, to the logos or logic or reason for the season, and be only moderately rather than addictively attached to the outward trappings of the happy holiday, and in that centre we shall find peace because we shall find the constancy of what is true.

 

A priest-friend of mine who I know only through the internet, Fr Roy Bowler, wrote: ‘When the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us the whole relationship between God and his Creation was completely changed. At Bethlehem in the reign of Caesar Augustus something happened which goes beyond any human understanding. To ordinary human eyes a baby was born, but with the vision which only the Holy Spirit can give this was THE singular event in the history of all Creation.

 

During the whole Christmas season this event should never have been very far from the minds of all Christian people. The joyful festivities are right and proper, but too often they distract. In their right place they should have reminded us repeatedly and constantly during our waking hours that unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. There is only one response which we can make to that: "O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker" (Psalm 95:6).

 

The thing about any human baby is that he is very vulnerable, and this vulnerability remains for the whole of his human life. So, inevitably, this human baby was eventually crucified. But this human baby was also the Son of God, so that death had no final dominion over him. "This Jesus hath God raised up ... being by the right hand of God exalted (Acts 2.32f). "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:25). This is what we should be having in mind as we too kneel before a replica of the Christmas crib in our home or in the church. We "... go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us" (Luke 2:15). It is not just a baby. It is THE singular event in the history of all Creation. "O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker".’

 

Look again at the prophetic word of our text from the Old Testament "I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has granted us." The Church is saying this Sunday that if we want to see the truth of these words, look into the heart of Christmas. Look at the manger scene behind me, which is a version of the great family photo of the new-born babe and His family, printed out year after year to be admired by those who love Him. Don’t we love to see such family photos, but particularly this one of the Holy Family? For in this scene, God has granted us the knowledge of His steadfast love to us. Hurricanes may blow us away, earthquakes may knock us down, our accustomed houses of worship may even be reduced to rubble, but the prophetic word stands sure because in the fulness of time God found a woman to bear His only Son into the world of men, to be made a member of our race, to be cared for, as is related in the Gospel today, by a guardian, St. Joseph, who was always obedient to what God prompted him to do. As in our own day, the world into which Jesus was born was a difficult and dangerous place, and like some of our race, the Son of God was to be found fleeing from place to place to escape destruction.

 

So in being incarnated into human flesh, God entered the perils of our existence, and as we know, he finally drank of those perils to the uttermost so that we might be delivered from their power. Now I understand that in taking upon Himself our manhood, and in drinking from the cup of a perfect sacrifice, God the Father and God the Son, in the love of the Holy Spirit of God, took upon Himself the final responsibility for us. Although it is only human to feel a sense of abandonment and lostness in certain circumstances, objectively we can know for sure that we are not abandoned, because we know that God has taken the final responsibility for us, and this is the certain Gospel. "Therefore," as the Epistle to the Hebrews puts it, "he had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people."

 

May you rest then this Christmas in the knowledge that in His steadfast love for us, in spite of our many faults and failings, and in the midst of a difficult and dangerous world, God has taken final responsibility, and in His grace and mercy, even yet serves us to eternity. And from that rest, let us rise up invigorated to love and serve the Lord and to take on responsibility ourselves for whatever is around us, in the days and weeks ahead.