Happy Christmas To All
Arising very early of a morning, my purpose is to think, write, and walk. Have a sit down with a cup of coffee, think a moment, then write. Rather, that is to say, type. This morning my thought was to put my latest sermon down on paper for printing as has been my practice for nearly thirty years. My homily on Christmas Day, put it in print format. While doing that, an epiphany came to make this morning’s blog post an extension and completion of my Christmas homily. But by the time I got to the third page, too long for a blog post, another epiphany came: this is not my blog post, this is my sermon for the upcoming Sunday, Epiphany One. But it is simply an extension of my Christmas homily. So there’s no blog post this morning. But here’s the Christmas homily to set the stage. Yes, it makes the blog post too long, but this is not the first time, nor likely the last. Besides, it's my blog.
Furthermore, it’s still Christmas, you know, and is so until Epiphany, which is January 6th. So --
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good morning.
Christmas Day Homily Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida
Sunday, December 25, 2011. The Reverend Tom Weller, Priest Associate
Jesus is the reason for the season. Jesus: the Name says it all. Jesus, Yehshua, Ἰησοῦς means “The Lord saves,” “God saves.” I shall tell about Christmas, not from Luke, from Titus. I shall speak in the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Christmas seems an odd time to read Titus, much less preach on it, and so I shall not, but simply theologize a bit. Titus does not tell what happened, our heartwarming Christmas story of shepherds, and angels, and the child in a manger. Rather, Titus tells us why those things happened. Why God did this. Why Jesus came.
If Luke is our beautiful children’s Sunday School story of the Nativity scene, Titus is adult incarnational theology, and Titus tells that entire theology, which in the Greek is two cumbersome, rambling sentences that only a theologian would bother to pick through.
Hallmark will never get a Christmas card out of Titus, at least not one that sells. And Titus is so obscure in the Bible that we never read it in our Sunday Lectionary at all, we read it only at Christmas, and only two long, awkward, rambling Greek sentences, one sentence from Titus on Christmas Eve and another on Christmas morning.
From Titus 2, “The grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.”
Here the Bible teaches what is expected of those who believe the gospel:
- Renounce the sins of the world,
- Live godly, ethical lives, and
- Wait hopefully for the Second Coming of Christ -- who came to save us from our sins and to create his church as people of good deeds and lovingkindness.
Titus is simple, straightforward, and requires no elaboration. This is a Christmas reading for folks who come to church on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day not to listen to some preacher but to hear the enchanting story of shepherds and angels, and sing Christmas carols, and be in church with other Christians.
And our other reading,
From Titus 3 -- “When the goodness and lovingkindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life.”
Titus teaches that Jesus saves us through baptism in water and the Holy Spirit, not because of anything we do but because of God’s loving mercy -- salvation by grace alone. You do not save yourself by what you believe or do or say. You do not save yourself by confessing your sins -- which God well and truly already knows. Rather, God in Jesus Christ saves you because God loves you, it’s that simple.
Christmas, our beautiful story of the incarnation of God in the Holy Child of Bethlehem, is explained by these two ungainly, struggling Greek sentences in the very obscure letter to Titus.
In a day, Luke’s charming Christmas story about what happened will be over, you’ll be bloody sick and tired of shepherds and angels, of hearing Christmas music in the stores and singing Christmas carols, you’ll take the Christmas tree down and pack the manger scene away for another year. Luke is the romantic, but Titus is Practical Pig: Titus tells why Christmas happened, simply, and in eternal words that will sustain you every day of your life and unto the ages of ages:
Jesus came because God loves you.
Christmas is that simple and practical.
This is the Gospel of the Lord.
Happy Christmas and God bless you, in the Name of the Father, and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Time now to walk.
TW+