The Second Sunday of Christmas
Jeremiah 31:7-14, Psalm 147:12-20, Ephesians 1:3-14, John 1:1-18
This year, we have two Sundays in the season after Christmas Day. While in some congregations, the focus moves from the lectionary to Epiphany, there is good reason to continue the Christmas season throughout all its twelve days. For the past several years, I have made celebrating the twelve days of Christmas at the heart of my winter spiritual practices: I continue to listen to Christmas carols and ponder the stories of Jesus’ birth, the flight to Egypt, the slaughter of innocents, and conclude with the Feast of Epiphany. This has eventuated in the publication of seven “twelve days of Christmas” books with an eighth on the way in 2026. I want to keep the Christmas spirit, and need the spirit of Incarnation, God with us, especially in this time of chaotic and destructive national leadership.
As we ponder the incarnation, we need to remember that the Word became flesh in space and time, in the midst of history. It important to remember that Jesus was born in an oppressed nation and virtually all the biblical witness occurs in times of national and international uncertainty and threat.
The prophet Jeremiah, speaking for God, proclaims that the Holy One will Israel’s mourning into joyful celebration. With hope on the horizon, the beleaguered people now dance with joy at the positive future that lies on the horizon. In the spirit of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s campaign song, “Happy Days are here again!” the people shout with joy with the dream of a new age. The nation is in recovery and hope is on the horizon. God is at work to bring about a new age of freedom and prosperity. Although the people are not passive, they celebrate what God is doing to transform their international and national situation. God is at work in the world and God’s work is liberative.
Psalm 147 offers a hymn of praise at God’s restoration of the nation. God once more shines the divine face on the nation, and the people are radiant with joy. God is the great deliverer. Yet, can we be certain that such deliverance will occur in our histories? In our time of troubles? Still, we must hope in God’s presence in a future that is open to possibility. If hope is lost, then agency is paralyzed, and we are mired in the prison house of injustice and chaotic leadership. God is the source of our hope that life can be different and that the moral and spiritual arc aim toward healing and justice for us as persons and as a community.
The reading from Ephesians speaks of God lavishing grace and knowledge on those God has “chosen.” While Paul is clearly speaking about the experience of new believers, is divine election restricted to believers with unbelievers left in the darkness of unforgiven sin and retribution? In contrast to those who believe in limited atonement and chosenness, I believe that God chooses everyone God’s work of healing, creativity, and salvation are offered to everyone. We don’t need to live in fear, nor do we need to be dominated by scarcity when God promises abundant life Despite the darkness of our times, and the challenges faced by first century Christians, God will have the final word, and it is the healing of creation in its totality, embracing traumatized undocumented residents as well as heartless ICE agents, social activists and prevaricating politicians, and – I believe – the non-human as well as the human worlds. God is God and we aren’t. God is God and God’s vision is greater than Christian nationalists and self-interested politicians.
I think it is important to join global and personal grace and revelation. John’s Prologue describes the cosmology of grace in which the Infinite becomes intimate, the Word is made flesh, and light pierces the darkness of our troubled times. The apparently abstract metaphysics of John’s Gospel is grounded in a mystical and personal vision. The Word is made flesh not in abstract irrelevance but in the concreteness of our daily lives. God’s light shines in creating the cosmos and also guiding our personal lives. The preference for darkness – and not all darkness is bad! – is the stuff of our morning newsreels as well as the challenges we face in our families and our own internal conflicts. But darkness is penultimate and light will triumph.
John’s Prologue provides hope in troubled times and healing and purpose for those who feel lost. God’s light is everywhere. The Word and Wisdom of God ground and guide every moment of experience. In the language of process-relational theology. More that that, the true light present in Christ enlightens everyone – eventually, the passage promises – and all will glimpse the glory of God, despite their present waywardness.
The light shines in the darkness and to our surprise and amazement, the darkness cannot defeat it. Further, when we open to the light, we receive the power to become God’s beloved and illumined children. Yet, what does it mean to “believe in the Word’s (Christ’s) name” and how does that believe empower us? Surely, John meant much more than a few words muttered at an altar call, a transaction with God ensuring our salvation and, conversely, deliverance from hell. I believe that “believing in God’s name” is a personal commitment to join the Word and Wisdom of God in our personal and political lives. It involves aligning with God’s vision, and letting God’s light guide and challenge us in the domestic and relational – economic and political – aspects – of our lives
Aligning with God’s light, we receive the power of children of God. God’s energy of love and wise insight guide and envelop us. We become powerhouses of grace and healing and discover that we can do all things through God’s light flowing in and beyond us.
Today’s scriptures encourage activity, not passivity, agency and not dependence. God’s prevenient, all-encompassing prior, grace creates the way forward to a world of rejoicing and recovery, but we must follow the path and hew our own way through wilderness times. Divine call empowers our agency and response. God’s enlightenment is always available to everyone and yet we must call upon it and then act as light bearers in accordance with it. “Ask, seek, and knock. God show me the way to holy and loving power.” The door is open, and we are invited to walk through and keep walking, bringing others along with us, to life in all its abundance. We can be agents of adventure in our confrontation with the powers of chaos in our lives. We can be lights in the darkness bringing healing to broken souls and communities.
+++
Bruce Epperly is Theologian in Residence at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ, Bethesda, MD and a professor in theology and spirituality at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington DC. He is the author of over eighty books, including Jesus: Mystic, Healer, and Prophet; Creation Sings: Forty Days of Spiritual Wisdom from the Non-Human World; Messy Incarnation: Meditations on Christ in Process; and Homegrown Mystics: Restoring Our Nation with the Healing Wisdom of America’s Visionaries. His latest books are Creation Sings: Forty Days of Spiritual Wisdom from the Non-human World and Three Wise Wisdom: The Twelve Days of Christmas with Mary, Elizabeth, and Anna (volume seven in “The Twelve Days of Christmas” series along with his upcoming Lenten devotional, Just a Little Walk with Jesus: A Spiritual Saunter with Mark’s Gospel. He can be reached at www.brucepperly.com.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In