A Short Christmastide Wedding Giving-the-Gift-of-Yourselves Homily: for Neil and Leah Broadbent

Jesus is the reason for the season as the saying goes. The season being Christmastide still; until sundown tomorrow to be precise. Then Epiphany kicks in. Christmastide is a great time for a wedding and this is why. “For to us a child is born,” wrote the great prophet Isaiah, “to us a son is given.” (Is 9.6)

Jesus was given—a God-given gift to the world. In a few moments I will ask Neil and Leah, in turn, if they will each give the greatest and most precious gift they have to offer; the gift of themselves; to the other—even more lovingly wrapped and prepared, I'd like to think, because it's given in Christmastide. And it's especially fitting because, as we just heard, marriage itself is a gift of God. In this case, a special Christmastide gift for Neil and Leah, in which "husband and wife give themselves to each other in love" so they will "grow together and be united in that love, as Jesus, the great Bridegroom, is united with his Bride, the Church—which brings us back to Jesus being the reason for the season and for this Christmastide wedding.

So, Leah and Neil, as Robert Fulgham wrote in the first reading, “shortly you shall say a few words that will take you across a threshold of life, and things between you will never quite be the same." You’ll spend the rest of your lives opening, being challenged by, delighting in, misunderstanding and enjoying this Christmastide gift of each other.

Here are some Christmastide wedding gift-of-yourselves opening tips:

First, I noticed not everybody and everything you hoped would be here this weekend is here. It will be the same in your marriage, you will both miss things, make mistakes, be careless, take one another for granted. You won’t always be there and present for one another. Jesus always is. “I am with you always” (Mt 28.20), he said. Look to Him. He is the very best helper and comforter through life’s disappointments.

Second, change is the only constant in life. You will change—they way you look, the way you behave, what you like and don’t like; sometimes for the best and sometimes for the worse. Jesus never changes. He stays the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb 3.18). He is the very best and absolutely constant source of help through life’s changes.

Third, life is noisy. Have you noticed? (Lots of kids present and a good thing, too!) All this gift opening and discovery and growing together and being united in love happens in the midst of kids, work, anxieties, distractions, temptations—all vieing for our attention and having the power to divert our attention from the most important people in our lives. Robert Fulgham, reminds us to remember the "common things," the conversations, walks, informal little day by day commitments made to each other. He called these little, seemingly inconsequential things, "the real process” of a marriage. I agree.

Finally, the “still more excellent way” (1 Cor 12.31) to unwrap and enjoy the Christmastide wedding gift you’ve given each other today. Live in love—not so much the romantic love into which you’ve fallen, delightful as it is, but the more determined, act-of-the-will, toilet-seat-up-or-down, toothpaste-tube-scrunched-or-not kind of love which will grow you together as long as you both shall live; the love we heard about in the second reading. Jesus personifies it. Jesus is patient. Jesus is kind, does not seek his own interests. Jesus is not quick-tempered, does not brood over injury, or rejoice over wrong doing. Jesus rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes and hopes for the best for you both in all things. By following his example, you can love each other better than you know how. This is love with muscle which never fails and will have you celebrating your fiftieth wedding anniversary on the fourth of January, 2064. Mark your calendars.

May Jesus by your way, your truth and your life in your marriage as you open and enjoy the Christmastide wedding gifts of yourselves you have given each other today.

All praise be to Jesus Christ.

Perfect Through Suffering? A Short Homily on the First Sunday After Christmas

Jesus was the Son given us. We celebrate His birth emersed in the rich flow of Christmastide, of which this, the First Sunday after Christmas, is a part. Low Sunday it is sometimes called. Low in attendance, not in meaning or importance. How can attendance ever be low considering what we celebrate each Sunday and who we worship? So, let’s not think of low things. It’s Christmas. It would be better to just talk of the warm afterglow of Christmas. Good company and good food, children and grandchildren at your knee. Glory to God and peace to His people on earth. For many of us that would be true and good. Thanks be to God! We can say what Isaiah wrote in our first reading with full hearts!

I will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord, the praiseworthy acts of the Lord, because of all that the Lord has done for me, and the great favor…that he has shown me according to his mercy, according to the abundance of his steadfast love. (Is 63.7)

And I can be grateful that, in God’s grace and mercy, I have been able to hear the good news about Jesus, to believe that He is who the Bible says He is, and by God’s amazing grace, I have come in from the cold.

Yet, there are low Sundays, and there was and is violence and darkness and loneliness in the world. Christmases marred by grief and loss and poverty and broken relationships. Jesus Himself was in danger very early in life. Herod wanted to destroy him (Mt 2.13) so much so that he unleashed a massacre in Bethlehem. Joseph was instructed to flee to Egypt (Mt 2.14). Thankfully, he listened and obeyed, just as he did when he was instructed to keep pregnant Mary as his wife.

What’s all that about?

It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. (Heb 2.10)

Fitting? Perfect through sufferings? How does that work?

Do sufferings make Christmas perfect? On one level, yes. What would Christmas, or Easter for that matter, be without The Cross? But were the grieving mothers of those little boys killed in Bethlehem made perfect in their suffering? Are the mothers and fathers grieving over children killed in suicide bombings in the middle east made perfect in their suffering today? What about the mothers and fathers of the missing and murdered women, or men, in Canada today? No. Jesus was The One made perfect through sufferings so “he is able to help those who are being tested” (Heb 2.18) by suffering and tragedy. He shared our flesh and blood (Heb 2.14), so that “through death (his death, not the deaths of the baby boys or the bomb victims or the women) he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and free those (that’s you and me) who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.”

In his love and pity, our God and Father, has provided us with a perfect Saviour, Jesus, and has redeemed us. He lifts us up and carries us still (Is 63.9) no matter how low our Sundays, our fortunes or our spirits.

Jesus.

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One Giant Leap for Humankind

Praying Evening Prayer from the Church of England website during Christmastide. This around the Magnificat:

When peaceful silence lay over all,

and night was in the midst of her swift course:

from your royal throne, O God, down from the heavens,

leapt your almighty Word.

It's from the book of Wisdom in the Apocrypha. Lovely imagery. Jude pointed out that the leap must have happened at Jesus' conception. We wondered what it must have then been like in heaven around that royal throne after the leap. We were reminded of Robin Mark's song, The Wonder of Your Cross:

Were heaven's praises silent in those hours of darkness?

Your Holy Spirit brooding round that empty throne?

Mark, of course, is writing about the time between the crucifixion and the resurrection. But was the Holy Spirit actually brooding around that empty throne for thirty-three years? All the way from conception to resurrection?

Mark again (Robin, not the other):

Until the declaration "He is Risen", You are risen, Jesus,

"He is not dead, behold He lives for evermore".

O, yes!

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