The King of Glory is Born: Nativity of the Lord
Sermon by Emmanuel Suntheni OSB – The Nativity of The Lord
Sermon And Christian Act In The Word
Theme: “The King of Glory is born! “Immanuel is here: the saviour is born!”
Point of Reflection: Is my heart clean enough for the Son of God to be born in my heart? Advent season has been a time for us to clean our hearts to receive the Lord and today the Lord is born as the King of glory. The heart of the good news celebrated at Christmas, and so clearly presented by John the Evangelist, is that the faithful have the King who himself came down to earth in a human body, in order to bring them to union with himself, the union which gives eternal life. Isaiah saw the promise of this union in a vision of the restored Jerusalem, and the author of Hebrews proclaimed it describing God’s ultimate communication with the world through his Son. When Christians celebrate Christmas, they declare that their God is indeed the King, echoing the call of the Psalmist, “with trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord.”
First Reading: Isaiah 52:7–10
Psalm: Psalm 98:1–6
Second Reading: Hebrews 1:1–6
Gospel: John 1:1–5, 9–14
Sermon (Reflection): The three readings of the Midday Mass of Christmas Day celebrate God’s acts which can rightly be called the heart of the Good News. However, the Christmas Season is about acknowledging, celebrating and reflecting on what God has done for believers through the gift of his Son. Sending Jesus into the world God endowed human life with meaning and purpose, uniting believers to himself and making them his people, his kingdom.
The liturgy begins with a triumphant song from the book of Isaiah, the grandeur of which can only be understood in relation to the context in which the prophet pronounced the key phrase of the passage, “your God is King.” The Israelites, from the beginning of their existence as a nation, acknowledged and celebrated God as their true king. And yet, at times they were not loyal to this king, and they suffered as a result of it. The King is born today, are we ready as Christians to take newborn Son to our homes?
May the newborn king of glory be in our hearts for now and ever.
The author of the second reading celebrates another manifestation of God’s kingship which expresses itself in God “speaking” the Good News: his Son. The writer begins his elaborate work called the letter to the Hebrews with an indication of the way in which God delivered the Good News. This time, the message of God’s salvation would not be brought by the heralds coming over the mountains from the East, it would be brought directly from the heavenly world by God’s own Son. The author emphasises that this Son of God is not merely somebody who resembles the Father.
Like the Father, he is a creator and sustainer of the world. Being an exact “imprint” of the Father, the Son is God himself. Should there be any doubt of the Son’s Divine identity, the author re-emphasises that he is infinitely superior to the angels, the heavenly beings who inhabit the supernatural world. The author goes to great lengths to emphasise that the communication brought by the Son is the perfect and fullest revelation of God Godself. The author also briefly indicates what the Son accomplished during his mission on earth, thus, he purified God’s people from their sins. In his revelatory work the Son thus reunited the people with their God. During this Christmas season let us reunite with our enemies and friends and be better people.
The magnificent opening lines of the Gospel of John build on the theme of the second reading, spelling out in detail the effects of God’s Son’s arrival in this world. John unambiguously identifies God’s Son as Jesus Christ (Cf. John 1:17). As in the second reading, the author begins with an emphasis that Jesus is one with God, co-creator and sustainer of everything that is. He follows with details of Jesus’ mission in the world describing him as the light. As the light, Jesus reveals God in his person. To make God visible was the essence of his mission and the purpose of his coming into the world (cf. John 1:18).
To disclose the invisible God, Jesus, the divine being himself, became “flesh”, that could be seen and directly experienced by other fellow human beings. The Good News that this Gospel passage celebrates is that God has descended into human flesh in order that humanity, without doubt, or hesitancy, can know and understand God and God’s ways. The rest of the Gospel of John will present various ways in which Jesus manifested God through his words and actions. The most significant part of that disclosure of God could be seen in Jesus’ sacrificial death. Before his passion, Jesus said, “no one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends …” (Cf. John 15:13-14). Offering his life for the salvation of humanity, Jesus illustrated in the best possible way the truth about God which Isaiah had celebrated 500 years earlier, “your God is King.” God is the kind of king willing to offer himself for the people he holds as friends.
In his life and in his body Jesus demonstrated that God the King will stop at nothing to bring salvation to his people.
Christian Act in Word of God “The King of Glory is born”
One of the characteristics of our leaders today is that they are mostly distant and far from us. For example, they are always accompanied by bodyguards and, even when they travel by car crossing ordinary streets, there is a motorcade and a procession of cars in front and behind them. Wealth, prestige and power define rulers of our time. Even the homes they live in are closely guarded, and only a few can come in and out freely. Of course, there are reasons for having security, but this relative isolation inevitably leads to a loss of the connections with ordinary people, those who are under their leadership. Since this is the dominant pattern of leadership that we experience today, it is hard to imagine that there is another type of leadership that is completely different. And yet, Christmas celebrations point our hopes in the right direction.
Because we hear and know the Christmas story so well, it is easy to miss the point about the type of ruler and king that has been given to us by God.
Instead of coming with all the ceremony and show of power and wealth, the king we were given was born where no person, even the poorest of the poor, would choose to be born, that is in a stable, surrounded by the smell of animals and welcomed by the grunting of cows.
In this low estate the king that God has given to us in Jesus went beyond the poorest of the poor to include all who are vulnerable, marginalised, despised and poor. Yet in this state, the richest and wisest persons came to honour Jesus at his birth because they recognised his kingship even in the midst of a stable – far from the pomp and palaces of that time.
These highly esteemed visitors gave up much to find Jesus and honour him as king, the one sent by God to be himself human in complete identification with all of humanity.
Christmas is about a different kind of leadership, one that fully identifies through sacrifice and self-giving with humanity, in order to redeem and bring true freedom which comes through following the paths of God. As we respond to the invitation of Christmas to follow Jesus and embody his ways, we become different to the world in all we do and are. If we are leaders, we identify ourselves with those we lead as servants; as women, men, young and old we live our lives in solidarity with those who suffer in anyway, so that we bring the good news of the kingdom of God to them. It is a kingdom that is so radically different from everything we know and experience daily, that even those who lived during the time of Jesus could not recognise the coming of God in him.
Happy and Blessed Feast Day to us the Emmanuel
Action: May Jesus Christ be born in my heart today and I will take Christ to my family and friends.
Prayer: Almighty Father, may your Son Jesus Christ be born in our hearts today, and May the light of the newborn son the saviour be the light of our deeds and actions each and every day as true Christians. May the birth of your Son Jesus bring peace in this world and as Christians, may we be instruments of your peace. May Immanuel your son intercede for us, Amen.
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