The second season of the Christian Year is Christmastide. Some traditions begin it on Christmas Eve and others on Christmas Day. Traditionally, Christmastide is a twelve-day holiday, beginning with Christmas Day (December 25), and running through January 5 (the “Twelve Days of Christmas”). January 6 is then the celebration of the coming of the Magi, initiating the season of Epiphany. In our lectionary, we are following the traditional schedule that preserves the twelve days of Christmas, and therefore sets Christmas Eve as the concluding celebration of the season of Advent.[1]

In importance, Christmastide is one of the two most notable seasons of the Christian year. It is dedicated to the festival of the birth of Jesus Christ and the consequent celebration of the incarnation. Since it was first celebrated, Christmas has always been a time of joy, merriment and exuberance. Its color, consequently, is white.

There is no indication that Jesus was actually born on December 25. In fact, the likelihood is that he was born in April or in May. That can be concluded on the basis that Luke’s account is built around “shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night” (Lk. 2:8). December 25 was much too cold and inclement for sheep to be bedding down in the fields; normally, shepherds didn’t take their flocks into the field until April.

Why, then, is December 25 the traditional day for Jesus’ birth? The selection of that date represents a political and social coup on the part of the church.[2] The period between December 21 (the winter solstice) and December 30 was the period of greatest celebration and worship of the sun, both in the Mithraic festivals of Egypt and in Rome. This observance reached its climax on December 25, when the “birthdays” of at least five ancient gods were celebrated. In essence, Christians decided to counter this pagan festival by worshipping the birthday of their god – Jesus, and they so overwhelmed the pagan celebrations that December 25 became a major Christian holiday (“holy day”). In 336 A.D., December 25 was changed in the Roman calendar from Natalis Solis Invicti (“the birth of the Sun of Righeousness”) to Natalis Christus in Betleem Judeae (“the birth of Christ in Bethlehem of Judea”). Thus, the “Sun of Righteousness” was eclipsed by the “Son of Righteousness”!

By the latter part of the 4^th century, the name given to December 25 was “Christ’s Mass”, stressing the idea that this was a day for consecrating the birth of Jesus in worship and in the celebration of the eucharist. As early as the 5^th century, Christmas music and “carols”, liturgies and customs began to be developed. The name for December 25 evolved into “Christmas” by the eleventh century.

Whereas Christmas, as a religious holy day, concentrated upon the worship of the Christ Child, much of the festivals of the formerly pagan solstice carried over into the Christian celebration of Christmas. Thus, for example, the giving of gifts was initially part of the Roman celebration of the solstice. Germany contributed the evergreen tree as a symbol of everlasting life, and its decorations come from the hanging of the body parts of conquered enemies upon these trees. The Druids gave their sacred mistletoe, under which the ill received the kiss of healing from a young virgin. The holly, representing the crown of thorns with drops of blood, came from England. The yule log, receiving into its flames the hatreds and distrusts of the past year, came from Scandinavia, along with candles burning in the windows to light the way of the Christ child. So one can say that, whereas early Christianity succeeded at “baptizing” the pagan holidays into the worship of Christ, the pagans “re-baptized” Christmas by diverting it into play, sport and finally into commercialism.

The two major events of the Christian Year – Christmas and Easter – are the celebrations around which Christendom is centered. One marks the birth of our Lord, the other his resurrection. One celebrates the incarnation of our God upon the earth; the other celebrates our atonement and rebirth through his death and resurrection. Both celebrate the transformational love of God for humanity, as God acts to give his son for the redemption and liberation of the world.

CHRISTMAS DAY

Christmas Day December 25, 2006

John 1:1-18. There are no more dramatic and profound words in scripture than the opening words of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:1-5).

With these dramatic words, the Gospel of John begins its Christmas story. But unlike Matthew and Luke that tells us of the birth of Christ, John tells us about creation itself – and Jesus’ relationship to that creation.

“In the beginning was the Word”. The Gospel of John opens with identical words to Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning”. Through the Hebrew creation story runs a profound theme, repeated eight times (Gen. 1:3-6 and 7, 9, 11, 14-15, 20-21, 24 and 26-30). That theme is “And God said . . . And it was so.”

Genesis tells us that God spoke the world into existence. So, John is declaring the same truth. The Word – in Greek, “logos, in Hebrew “dabar” – is not just a word spoken by human beings. It is the word, for the “dabar” or “logos” is the conduit by which Yahweh invades humanity and writes sacred history into our history. The “logos” of God is God, the voice of God speaking the creation into life. Without the Word, there is no world!

For whom is this Word intended? The Word, John is telling us, is intended for the world. The Greek word used here for “world” is “cosmos”. The cosmos is not simply the geographical world – our sphere. The cosmos, to the Greeks, was the entire created order, the universe. The Word, John tells us, has entered the “cosmos” which God created, bringing to that cosmos “life”, “light” and “power”.

But how did the cosmos and its people respond? “The cosmos did not know him.” “His own people did not accept him.” Rejection of the Word (and therefore of God) occurred at two levels – societally (i.e., the cosmos) and individually (i.e., people). The “cosmos” and its “people” had refused to come into an intimate relationship with its creator because “darkness” had kept it and its people from the “light”.

However, such rejection of the Word is not universal. “But to all who received (the Word), . . . he gave power to become children of God” (1:12). There are those who have responded to the Word and have become right with God. But how do they do that, John asks?

God’s people are to be shaped around their embracing of the free gift of God’s redemptive love (1:13), and making that “amazing grace” the foundation for their life together. God’s “shalom”, the “cosmos” as God intended it to be will come into existence through “all who received him, who believed in his name” and who therefore create together a new community, an alternative society built upon God’s love and grace.

The magnificent prologue of the Gospel of John now rushes toward its climax, as it gives to the reader the essential theme of the remainder of the Gospel of John.

“The Word became flesh”. The Word – the “dabar” of God, the “logos” of God, has become an actual, living human being. The Word “lives” among us within a human being! The Son of God, the enfleshment of the “Word”, is journeying through the human experience, John is telling us, as the personification of “grace and truth”.

But what does John mean by “grace and truth”? What John is doing here is using two Greek words to capture the essence of one Hebrew word – “chesedh”. “Chesedh” is the depth of God’s love expressed towards us, a love that accepts us as we are and yet calls us to become all that we have the potential that God has created us to be. And now John is telling us that God has “tabernacled” (the actual meaning of the Greek) among us so that we might become God’s people as we live out “chesedh” in both our private and public lives and in the very ways we carry out the political, economic and religious functions of our society.

Now the Prologue reaches its climax. It names the “Word”. The “father’s only son, full of grace and truth” is Jesus Christ. “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (1:17).

God’s “chesedh” is not going to come to humanity and the “cosmos” any longer through “Moses” (that is, the Jewish political, economic and religious system). The Law created by God to incarnate God in humanity’s structures has become the exact opposite, for it has become the oppressive system of the first century that is designed to maintain power for the few while holding the populace in economic, political and religious slavery. The “Law” has become so exploitive and dominating that it is beyond redemption.

But “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ”. God has had to find another way. And that way is Jesus!

What John is proposing here is radically revolutionary. Is he right? The remainder of the Gospel According to St. John is his effort to demonstrate through the life and ministry, the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth the authenticity of what he has here proposed. And it is to demonstrate that authenticity against the landscape of the horrendous oppression of the Jewish and Roman systems!

Isaiah 52:7-10 proclaims, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, rings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns” (Isa. 52:7)!

In a passage that would later be echoed by Paul in his moving description of the preachers of the early church spreading the gospel (Rom. 10:15), that would over a millennium later enter the Anglican liturgy and would then become the text of one of Handel’s best known arias in The Messiah, the prophet tells us of the most beautiful sight in the world – the feet of a messenger running with overwhelmingly good news.

This rich Old Testament lesson begins with the description of a messenger running from the scene of a battle with the good news that the general and ruler, Yahweh, has won against the foes of darkness! As he runs, shouting the good news at the top of his voice, the watchmen of Jerusalem, standing guard over the rubble of its walls destroyed by the enemy hear his cry, and respond with a shout of triumph (vs. 8). The people hear the joy of the guards, and so join in with a riotous triumphant shout of victory and of rejoicing “for the Lord has comforted his people” with the news of triumph.

Then, suddenly, behind the shouting, ecstatic messenger comes God himself on his great steed, leading the conquering army. God has returned to the destroyed and devastated city. And he has returned as both redeemer (vs. 9) and liberator (vs. 10) of Israel. God has brought spiritual salvation to his people (vs. 9), and political and economic deliverance (vs. 10).[3] But that liberation is not for Israel alone, the prophet declares. It is so “all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God” (vs. 10).

The striking poem that begins the Gospel of John and introduces Christ as the Word and Light of the world is not the first statement in scripture that presents God as political, economic and spiritual liberator and savior for the entire world (that is, “to all who received him, who believed in his name”). What would someday become the magnificent prologue of the Gospel of John initially is given voice in this magnificent prophecy of Isaiah who sees God coming in human flesh to his people, setting them free from the tyranny that had previously oppressed them.

Hebrews 1:1-12 states, “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:1-3)

This Epistle Lesson for Christmas Day is the logical successor to Isaiah’s image of the redeeming, liberating God returning in triumph and of John’s poetic prologue of the creating Word of God being made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth to become redeemer and liberator of the world. The unknown author of Hebrews tells us that God did reveal himself and his saving work to and through the prophets of the past. But now, he has acted in a unique and a definitive way through God’s Son. And with that revelation of the Son, the world has moved from an era of preparation to the era of fulfillment

Hebrews then goes on to make seven affirmations about the Son – Jesus Christ. And those seven affirmations, considered together, present one of the clearest affirmations of the deity of Christ that appears in the Bible. The affirmations are as follows:

This is whom God brought to earth as a little baby lying in a manger in a peasant stable in an obscure province of the Roman Empire, watched over by a teen-age mother, an awe-filled father, shepherds among Israel’s lowest of the low and the cattle of the field. This is the miracle of redemption, of liberation, of transformation for “those whom God favors” and for the society that they would be called to build (Luke 2:1-14).

“He comes, a Child, from realms on high, He comes the heavens adoring; He comes to earth to live and die a broken race restoring. Although the King of kings is He, He comes in deep humility His people to deliver, and reign for us forever.[4]

[1] In the medieval church, all twelve days of Christmas were celebrated as a single feast, with only work necessary to preserve life being done. The Twelve Days of Christmas are Dec. 25 – Christmas Day; 26 – St. Stephens’ Day; 27 – St. John’s Day; 28 – Holy Innocents Day; 31 – Watch Night; Jan. 1 – Jesus’ Circumcision and Jan. 5 – Epiphany Eve. The remaining days would be feast days or, according to the calendar, the First and Second Sundays of Christmas.

[2] F.L. Cross, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), pp. 277-278; George Gibson, The Story of the Christian Year (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1955), pp. 87-98.

[3] The political and economic liberation is expressed in the phrase, “Yahweh has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations”. To “bare one’s arm” was a poetic way of expressing a righteous conqueror who, in his conquest, was righting the political and economic conditions of repression that the nation had earlier faced (cf. Isa. 51:9-11).

[4] Joseph Barlowe, “Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light”, stanza two, The Hymnal for Worship and Celebration (Waco, TX: Word Music, 1986), hymn 129.

1ST SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS DAY

December 31, 2006

I Samuel 2:18-20, 26 is a commentary on the prophet Samuel as a boy. It tells us, “Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy wearing a linen ephod. His mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year, when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife (Hannah), and say, “May the Lord repay you with children by this woman for the gift that she made to the Lord”; and then they would return to their home. Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people”.

This story tells us of Samuel’s service of God in the Temple as a small boy. He is in permanent residence there, does not return to his home but does know his parents, and assists the priesthood in their performance of the liturgy and worship of Israel. It tells us that he wore a linen ephod (sort of like a long tee-shirt that reached to his knees), which was the garb exclusively for those assisting in or leading priestly worship in the Temple. It further tells us that his mother made him “a little robe” each year that was placed over the ephod, much as a jacket would be placed over a tee shirt. The fact that she made a robe annually and it was reported to be “little” is an indication that this service was performed by Hannah while Samuel was still a growing boy, because he outgrew the robe each year.

The text tells us that Eli, the high priest, blessed Elkanah and Hannah for their annual service of the Temple and of Samuel in their making a robe and presenting it each year to the boy. His blessing was “May the Lord repay you with children by this woman for the gift that she made to the Lord”. What is intriguing is that the Hebrew literally reads, “for the gift that she asked of the Lord”. So that passage can just as equally be translated “for the petition she asked of the Lord” (see the English Standard Version of the Bible) as it can be translated “for the gift that she made to the Lord” (NRSV). That is, Eli is saying two things in this blessing. Hannah should be blessed by God because of her service to God and the Temple by preparing clothing for Samuel. But Hannah should even more be blessed by God for surrendering her right over Samuel in contributing him to the Temple (and eventually, to all of Israel). She had asked of God for pregnancy, but did so in order to give back to God the child forthcoming from that pregnancy. That was obedience of the highest order!

The final sentence in this lesson is “Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people” (2:26). That is a remarkable statement, given what is told the reader in the paragraph between the earlier statement about Hannah’s gift (2:18-20) and this statement, and in the paragraphs that precede that initial portion of our Old Testament lesson (2:11-17).

Samuel was serving the Lord by participating in the daily liturgy of the Temple (“Samuel was ministering before the Lord” – 2:18a; 3:1-21). The Temple in which he was ministering was the primary sanctuary in Israel to which the people came to offer their thrice-yearly offerings and in which God “tabernacled” (the Hebrew word literally meant, “to take up residence”). Yet by no means was this Temple without sin.

Eli, the high priest, is presented in I Samuel as a very weak and indecisive man, unwilling to call either the nation or his own adult children to accountability (1:12-14; 2:27-36). Further, his sons were evil personified, using their position as chief priests of the Temple to gather wealth for themselves, to rob the people and to rape many of the women of Israel (2:12-17; 22-25). In the words of the author of I Samuel, “Now the sons of Eli were scoundrels” (2:12)! Yet, when Eli rebukes them for their behavior, he doesn’t remind them of their duty to God and the people as priests. Rather, he warns them of the danger and compromised position into which they are putting themselves (2:22-26).

Although it was dedicated to be a house of prayer for Israel in which God would tabernacle, the author of I Samuel is telling us that the Temple was being used by the priests to exploit, oppress and control the people and had become the very epitome of evil in Israel. But it is over against this sad picture of a thoroughly corrupt Temple that the author writes, “Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people” (2:26). This contrast is being intentionally made by the writer. God had placed in this most corrupt Temple his servant – a mere boy – who would bring about the transformation, not only of this Temple but of all Israel. And people sensed that great future for the boy Samuel. So it was that he grew, not only in stature, but also “in favor with God and with the people”. God knew what God was about!

Luke 2:41-52 is the story of the boy Jesus in the Temple, closing with Luke’s commentary about Jesus’ continued maturation into adulthood. Jesus and his parents went each year to the Temple in Jerusalem to celebrate Passover (vs. 41). But this incident in the Temple that Luke wants to note takes place when Jesus was twelve years old. Jewish custom specified that a boy should be brought by his parents to the Temple before he was thirteen where he would be made a “son of the commandment” and thus become an adult member of the Jewish community. It was, consequently, a most auspicious event in the life of any Jewish boy and his parents, and it would have been so for Jesus. It was the occasion when, in essence, he would begin “acting like a man”, including moving into his vocation.

After the celebration of the Passover, Joseph and Mary begin the return to Nazareth with a large band of pilgrims. Since the women and children would be in the front of the band and the men would be behind, each parent assumed Jesus was with the other parent (still as a child with Mary or assuming his new role as a man by being with Joseph). At the end of the day, when the entire party made camp, Mary and Joseph discovered Jesus was missing. They returned to Jerusalem to find Jesus in the Temple, “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions”, and so engaging them in theological argument that these priests, lawyers of the Law and Pharisees “were amazed at his understanding and his answers”. Both relieved at finding Jesus and angry at his absence from the caravan, Mary and Joseph take him to task, only to have Jesus respond, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house” (2:49)? Luke reports, “They did not understand what he said to them” (that is, they didn’t understand the implications of what he said, implications that would be lived out in his later life, ministry and death). But after this exchange, Jesus then returns obediently with them to Nazareth. And the story concludes, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and the people” (2:52; my translation).

That is the story. What does not immediately meet the eye about this story of Jesus’ childhood, however, is the skillful way in which Luke constructed this story to be like the story of Samuel that is our Old Testament lesson for today!

Samuel was a boy. Jesus was a boy, officially becoming a man by his participating in the Passover festival in his twelfth year. Samuel was in service to God in the Temple, participating in its liturgy. Jesus also participated in the liturgy of the Passover at the Temple (a man was not an observer in Jewish worship as if he were attending a performance; he was a participant in its liturgy, doing the “work of the people” - the actual meaning of the word “liturgy” - while the priest did the “priestly work”). Jesus was engaged in theological debate with the scholars of the Temple, which was also understood by the Jews as the service of God. Samuel stayed in “his Father’s house”, the Temple while Elkanah and Hannah went home each year. Jesus stayed in the Temple while Mary and Joseph were returning home; it was his Father’s home (where God tabernacled) in which he needed to be. But the clearest indication that Luke intentionally meant to compare Jesus with Samuel was in the summary statements used by himself and the author of I Samuel to describe the maturation of these two boys into men.

The author of I Samuel wrote, “Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people” (I Sam. 2:26). Luke wrote of Jesus, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and the people” (Lk. 2:52). The parallel construct and the use of the same identical words to describe the maturation of the two young men are obviously intended!

Why would Luke want to compare Jesus to Samuel? I would suggest Luke wanted to make that comparison because of the unique role that Samuel played in Hebrew thought and belief.

Samuel was considered the greatest prophet of the Old Testament (I Sam. 3:19-21); Jesus was the greatest prophet of the New Testament era (Mt. 11:9; Lk. 7:16; 24:19; Jn. 4:44; 6:14). Samuel was a priest of the Temple, set aside by God and the people to offer sacrifice for the sins of the people (I Samuel 16:1-5). Jesus was the great High Priest of God, who himself was the sacrifice for the sins of the world (the entirety of the book of Hebrews). Samuel was not only the last judge of Israel but was considered by the Jews its greatest judge (I Sam. 7:3-17); as a judge, he was closest to being Israel’s king without being named as such (to be named as a king, in Samuel’s eyes, would be to usurp the authority of God as king – I Sam. 8:4-9, esp. vs. 7). Jesus was seen by the people as Israel’s rightful king – that was what his trial before Pilate and crucifixion was all about (John 18:28-38), and what it meant for Jesus to be claimed by his followers as the “Messiah”. Paul the Apostle particularly testified that Jesus became king of the world through his crucifixion and resurrection (Col. 1:15-20; Eph. 1:20-23).

In other words, Samuel had been prophet, priest and “king” – the only person in the Old Testament so designated! Jesus, like Samuel and yet far beyond Samuel, has been and is even now “prophet, priest and king” both to the Church and to the Kingdom of God!

What is particularly significant about Luke’s intentional comparison of Jesus with Samuel was that both served God through service to and in a highly corrupt Temple system. God might have “tabernacled” in both temples. But Samuel’s temple was run by wavering; indecisive leadership and morally corrupt leadership, seeking their own economic and sexual gain. Jesus’ temple, likewise, was run by a cabal of priests, Sadducees, scribes and Pharisees that were committed to building personal power under the guise of obedience to the Law that resulted in the political oppression, economic exploitation and religious control of the people. Both Samuel and Jesus, once grown into young manhood, confronted this systemic evil and sought to reform their nation’s political, economic and religious systems for the good of their people. Both failed! But in their failure, both also brought about the building of a new “kingdom of God” for the people – Samuel through his anointing and then mentorship of David as king, and Jesus through his own redemptive sacrifice and the creation of the church. Thus, to Luke, Samuel was the premier example of the service of God that the man from Nazareth would perform as the Jubilee Jesus!

“Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people” (I Sam. 2:26). “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and the people” (Lk. 2:52). And what about us? How are we as Christians to grow in Christ?

Colossians 3:12 states, “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.” The Greek words translated “clothe yourselves” captures the sense of one putting on clothes (in fact, in some translations, it is translated as “Put on compassion, . . . ”; e.g. RSV, ESV, NEB). What Paul is driving at in this passage is that Christians “put on” the character of Christ, just as they would “put on” clothing. In their receiving of Christ as their Lord and Savior, Christians have become a “new self” through the redemptive work of Christ appropriated in their lives (see Col. 3:9-11 that immediately precedes this passage). A transformation has begun in them because of God’s grace activated in their lives through their embrace of Christ. Now, this new Christ-like identity takes shape in them, much as they might put on layers of clothing that give them a new identity (thus, a naked man “becomes” a soldier, a priest, a political official, a wealthy man or a beggar as symbolized by the clothing he puts on). As each Christian comes to know Christ better, he increasingly acts out the image of the invisible God revealed in him (1:15; 2:3).

What, then, does this newly clothed Christian look like? What does it mean for him to grow “in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and the people”? Paul states that a Christian who is becoming identified with Jesus Christ is a person who exhibits the characteristics of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. He or she bears with others and is quick to forgive. But the underlying characteristic of a Christian who is becoming more Christ-like is the characteristic of love. It is her genuine love-commitment to her brother and sister Christians, to the pagans or people of other religions whom she encounters every day, and even to the society into which that Christian is placed that is the true manifestation of that person’s “Christ-likeness”. And that Christ-like love manifests itself in compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, thankfulness, forbearance and forgiveness.

Paul then uses a rather unusual term. It is translated as “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body” (3:15). The word translated “rule” is, in reality, a sports metaphor that can better be translated “be referee”. What Paul is stating is that “the peace of Christ” should be the referee of your heart, that is, Christ’s peace must be the “sports official” who has final authority in the actions you take in the game of life in which you are playing!

But what does Paul mean by the “peace of Christ”? If that peace is to underlie all that you are and do in life as a Christian (perhaps even more than love), what, precisely, does he mean by the “peace of Christ”? It’s obviously very important to be able to answer that question.

Paul does not define this term in this passage. Perhaps he thinks he doesn’t need to, because it is so clear to everyone who is a Christian what the word “peace” (eirene in Greek, shalom in Hebrew) means. It does not mean “nobody is fighting right now”. It is not the absence of hostility. Rather, both “shalom” and “eirene” meant the world as God intended it to be – humanity and their society that is at one with God, at one with each other, committed to the acting out of justice in public life and the equitable sharing of wealth so that poverty would be eliminated. So when Paul states that the peace of Christ is to be the referee of a Christian’s live, he is declaring that a Christian’s life and actions must be centered in working for the transformation of the world as it is into the world as God intended it to be. The Christian may never see that fully happen, but he or she is to work for such a world as the ultimate living out of his or her faith in Christ.

Paul then concludes what it means for Christians to increase “in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and the people” by insisting that the transformational work Christ is doing in and through us needs to be acted out in the Church itself, manifesting itself in our life together, in our study of scripture together and in our worship together. He then ties it all up by declaring that, whether you look at the interior growth of Christians, their involvement in the church or their engagement in the public life of the world, “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (3:17). And that is what it means to “increase in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and the people”.

Lectionary Bible Study - Christmastide

INTRODUCTION TO CHRISTMASTIDE

CHRISTMAS DAY

Christmas Day December 25, 2006

1ST SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS DAY

December 31, 2006