(A GOOD DEVOTIONAL READ -- ON THE EPISTLE FOR THE FEAST)

A sermon for the Feast of the Epiphany -- Fr Louis Tarsitano of Savannah GA.

"Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; And to make all [men] see what [is] the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly [places] might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Ephesians 3:8-11).

This rather long quotation from St. Paul is necessary because Paul is attempting to express as a single complex thought the purposes of men, angels, the Church, and the world, as they all begin in the unified purpose or "intention" of Almighty God. All of the effort, all of the work, and all of the striving of every creature is rooted in the good will of God and in his wisdom, which St Paul calls "manifold" or "comprehensive and including all things."

All behavior on the part of any of God's creatures whatsoever is, thus, unavoidably connected to the will and wisdom of God. We can, however, without any effort at all, think immediately of all sorts of wicked, destructive behavior. We can see it all around us every day. This observation does not, nevertheless, disprove the derivative nature of all creaturely purposes from God's purpose. Rather, the evil behavior that we see confronts us with a hard fact-all behavior, including our own and that of those we love, is either undertaken in obedience to God's purpose or in rebellion against it.

There is not the least word, thought, or action that is "morally neutral," so that it can be regarded as separable from God's comprehensive purpose for creation. We both serve and praise God by every breath we take, or we fight against him. And if we fight against him, we will lose, and we will join Satan and every other rebellious creature in the abyss of hell. The irony of hell, of course, is that those who have insisted on their own loss and condemnation still praise God by their self-inflicted punishment. Their pain and their self-separation from everything good and decent still point to the grandeur and glory of God and demonstrate eternally that God's good will, his purpose, and his manifold wisdom cannot be changed or overcome. The damned still serve, despite themselves.

Now, St. Paul calls the fixed and changeless will of God, along with all of its workings out in his mighty acts and in the behavior of his creatures, a "mystery," but we have to understand that word as Paul meant it, and not in the careless way that we often use it today, as an excuse for not thinking about what we don't understand. In St. Paul's Greek, a "mystery" was a truth that could be known, but only if someone of greater wisdom revealed and taught it first. We find an echo of this old meaning of "mystery" in the modern "mystery story," where the detective is the person of superior wisdom who reveals the solution of a crime. The whole point of this sort of "mystery" is that the truth can be known, but only through wisdom and revelation.

St. Paul makes it very clear in his Epistle that the riches of Jesus Christ are "unsearchable" (Eph. 3:8). He means by this that no mere creature can discover on his own the glory of the Lord God in Jesus Christ. The purpose of God in Christ, which is the single, changeless eternal purpose of God in creation, cannot be discovered by any earthly means. Even in heaven, the greatest of the angels, which St. Paul calls "powers" and "principalities," as mere creatures, still do not possess the power to know the mind and purpose of God, since that common mind and singular purpose are the sole possession of the Blessed Trinity, of God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, in eternal unity.

And so we come to the remarkable event that we celebrate today-the Epiphany, or the Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. The "gentiles" are all of the peoples and nations of the world not directly descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And on the day we commemorate, the wise men received on behalf of their fellow Gentiles the revelation that God had first given the angels and the Israelite shepherds and villagers on Christmas night.

An "epiphany" is a "showing forth," and in the Epiphany of Jesus Christ, God revealed the mystery of his eternal purpose in the face of his only-begotten and eternal Son made man. God himself, from within his manifold wisdom, revealed in the blessed Person of Jesus Christ (true God and true man) the divine Truth that ratifies all truth. All creatures exist for God's glory, and that glory is expressed in God's love for his creatures and in his creatures' response to that love with love, in obedience, in duty, in worship, and in awe.

So great is the love from within the Blessed Trinity for creation, that the Second Person of the Trinity entered the realm of creation by being made man, by the will of the Father, and by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary. God's purpose is to share the life, love, and unity of his own eternal existence with creatures, with mankind, made in his own image and likeness.

The revelation on the day of the Epiphany looks backwards and forwards. The life of Jesus Christ proves beyond a reasonable doubt that words and promises spoken by the Holy Ghost through the Prophets of the Old Testament are all true. The birth, life, preaching, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ prove that God's good will is towards all men in Jesus Christ, and that nothing in this world, nothing in our lives, is purposeless or random. God wills good for us, even if the whole world should hate us and inflict its worst cruelties upon us. We are secure in God made man for our salvation, come what may.

Moreover, what is coming is very good for those who love God by the grace made manifest at the Epiphany. Our Lord Jesus Christ is coming again to judge the quick and the dead on the Last Day, when all evil will be put down and shut away for ever. The earth and the heavens will be made new, and we will be resurrected from the dead as Jesus Christ rose again on Easter.

All of this splendor was in the face of the holy Child at the Epiphany, but God has made the now-revealed truth of his will even more explicit. He has revealed the details necessary to take us to the life of the world to come "unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit" (Eph. 3:5). The Old and the New Testaments of the Bible deliver to us, together, the ongoing Epiphany of God in his Son. Still today, those who open the Bible in grace and faith receive exactly what the shepherds and the wise men received-the Son of God made manifest in their lives for their salvation.

But the true Epiphany is never solitary or individualistic. Israelites and Gentiles alike received the Christ together, becoming one new people in God' s grace. We call that new people "the Church," from a word that means "those who serve in God's house." The New Testament generally calls this redeemed and recreated people in Jesus Christ "the ecclesia," those who have been called out of old lives for the new. And St. Paul uses a very special term today, when he calls the faithful united in Jesus Christ, sharing through him his fellowship with the Father and in the Holy Ghost, "the fellowship of the mystery" (Eph. 3:9).

We are a fellowship or communion of revealed truth, life, and purpose in Jesus Christ, or we are nothing-that is, we are still at war with God. If we live according to God's revealed truth, we will find that all our purposes have been replaced by God's purpose: "To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly [places] might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." We are to teach angels and men by our love for God. We are to continue the work of the Epiphany by our own lives. And a life lived this way, whatever troubles we encounter, however we stumble in our weakness, is already the beginning of our eternal life, just as long as we maintain the fellowship of the mystery, and just as long as we continue to love God as he has loved us first.

==============


The Revd. Dr. Peter Toon
Christ Church Rectory
Hot Lane, Biddulph Moor
Stoke-on-Trent ST8 7HP
England

THE EPIPHANY COLLECT [January 6]

O God [the Father], who by the leading of a star didst manifest thy only begotten Son to the Gentiles; Mercifully Grant that we, who know thee now by faith, may after this life have the fruition of thy glorious Godhead; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

[Note that this Collect is to be said daily throughout the Octave]

Epiphany means "showing forth" or "manifestation". God the Father manifested and showed forth His only begotten Son with/ in his human nature to the magi from the East. They came to worship this Son, the baby Jesus, whom they confessed as the King, the Messianic King of the Jews.

God had led these Gentiles by various means ( a star and Jewish prophecy) to Bethlehem where having been shown the boy King, they offered their kingly gifts of gold, incense and myrrh. They had desired and longed for communion with GOD and this was given to them as the Incarnate Son of God was showed and revealed to them. In and through the Son, God the Father almighty was made known to them.

Taking the content of Matthew 2:1ff. to heart as facts of divine providence, revelation and redemption, baptized Christian believers pray that God the Father will likewise grant to them - to us - a "showing forth" and a "manifestation" of himself and of that one Divinity/Deity/Godhead that he shares within the Blessed, Holy and Undivided Trinity with the Son and the Holy Ghost.

We ask God the Father in his great mercy that at the end of our present pilgrimage, wherein we know him by faith, we shall be given "the fruition" of his "glorious Godhead." We ask that we move from seeing by faith to a more profound means of knowing and seeing God.

It is by grace and mercy that we know God the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Ghost in this present evil age. We walk by faith in hope and with charity.

In hope we look for the resurrection of the dead and the glorious life of the age to come wherein we shall be totally and completely satisfied and ravished in our service of the Holy Trinity. We shall behold and enjoy with exceeding great joy the glory of the Father shown forth in the face of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son.

Thus we shall have "the fruition of thy glorious Godhead." We shall have the immense, satisfying pleasure and joy of possessing by grace the beatific vision, the sight of the glory of the Father in all his majestic and pure divinity revealed by the Incarnate Son.

What was showed forth to the magi was glorious. What shall be showed to the saints in glory is and will be even more glorious.

We pray daily for 8 days for this heavenly Epiphany!

[ Note: The word "fruit" here bears the meaning of the experience of enjoyment --- e.g. of what is eaten as the produce of the tree or the bush or the plant. See a larger Dictionary.]

The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon The Feast of the Epiphany 2002

[the letter inside the January parish magazine of CHRIST CHURCH, BIDDULPH MOOR. My 0.5 status means I shall have time to write if I can make enough to keep the rectory lit and warm….]

Dear Parishioners,

New Year Greetings in the name of Jesus, the Christ and the Lord.

Out of the window I can see snow on the ground, and for us this is the first sight of English snow for eleven years. On my many visits from the USA to the UK from 1990-2001 we do not recall seeing any snow. But it is a pretty sight.

It is good to be back in the Church of England again, where there is a level of sanity and orthodoxy which is absent from the Anglican Church in the USA (called The Episcopal Church). And it is very good to be in a parish where the classic Prayer Book, The Book of Common Prayer, is still in regular use. I am not against the use of dignified and biblically orthodox modern services; but, I do rejoice to use the great treasure of Christian doctrine, liturgy and piety, and also standard English, which is the Prayer Book of 1662.

It is also good (and exciting for me) to come to a parish that is called CHRIST CHURCH. This is a marvelous name for a building that is consecrated to the service, worship, adoration and praise of the Lord Jesus CHRIST.

Christ Church is the translation of the Latin, AEDES CHRISTI, and means “The Temple of Christ.” I cannot think of a better Name for a consecrated building (= church) than this. It is also the Name of the Cathedral in Oxford and since there is attached to the Cathedral a College, its name is also “Aedes Christi.” And this is my Oxford College from where in the mid 1970s I studied to obtain the Doctor of Philosophy degree.

I think that I need to explain that the Diocese of Lichfield has determined that this parish, Christ Church, Biddulph Moor, in terms of clergy work and stipend a 0.5 (or half-time parish). Thus do not be surprised if you see my helping out at another parish soon.

You may have seen me walking around the parish. I try to walk a mile or two most days of the week and I have been seeking to discover the many roads and lanes within the parish boundaries. Soon I hope to learn all the footpaths.

I would like to visit every person/family who is on the Electoral Roll and also any persons who are home-bound and would like me to visit. Please call me to tell me that I would be welcome – 513323. I am desirous to do this as soon as possible.

In a week or two, when we have got the Rectory sorted out you will be most welcome to knock on the door and pay us a visit. Vita and I will be glad to see you.

We all are most grateful to the Church Wardens, the Reader and others who have worked hard and long to keep this parish in good shape in the long period since the Rev’d Mr. McGuire left.

At the beginning of 2002, I would like to express my earnest desire & prayer that that you will find CHRIST CHURCH in Biddulph Moor a holy place where, by the presence and help of Almighty God, your spiritual and moral needs will be fulfilled.

The Rev’d Dr. Peter Toon

The Revd. Dr. Peter Toon
Christ Church Rectory
Hot Lane, Biddulph Moor
Stoke-on-Trent ST8 7HP
England

THE EPIPHANY -- Greek, TA EPIPHANIA [The Manifestation]



In the Western Church since the fourth century January 6 has been kept as “The Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles” in the person of the Magi [wise men from the East – see Matthew 2].

With this Festival we reach the Twelfth Day and the end of the Christmas Season.

The traditional Collect, Epistle and Gospel in the Western Church take up the theme of the visit of the wise men to Jesus and the supreme benefits brought to the Gentiles by the Incarnation of the only-begotten Son of the Father [see the Collect, Epistle and Gospel in the BCP of 1662 & 1928].

In contrast, in the Eastern Church the manifestation of the Son of God Incarnate to the world is associated with his own Baptism by John in the river Jordan and his first miracle [sign] at Cana in Galilee. Here it is kept as a major Festival, a Day of Lights, with the blessing of the waters.

As we are westerners let us stay within our tradition for January 6 and reap the great benefits associated with the right keeping of the Feast of the Epiphany. We can turn to meditation upon the Baptism of Christ in a week’s time.

Let us begin with the GOSPEL – Matthew 2:1-12. Perhaps we are tired of singing carols about the three kings or wise men! If so let us concentrate on the internal spiritual state of these visitors from afar who looked for God’s salvation in the land of the Jews.

“They rejoiced with exceeding great joy” at the culmination and completion of their long pilgrimage. They knew that they had reached the place where the baby King was to be found and they were overjoyed. Do we rejoice each time we recall and remember that the Incarnation of the only-begotten Son of the Father has truly occurred?

“They bowed down and worshipped him.” Though a babe, he was the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Son of God in human nature/flesh and they as Gentiles recognized him as such and offered their adoration and worship. Do we, who are Gentiles, worship the Lord Jesus Christ as God each time we enter into a Sanctuary or do we treat him merely as a kind of super leader and saviour who is above us but not truly God incarnate?

Let us turn to the Epistle – Ephesians 3:1-12. Here the apostle Paul announces his commission to take the Gospel of the Father concerning his incarnate Son to the Gentile world. Further, he writes of what the offering of the whole Gospel to the Gentiles means, that they are actually and really fellow heirs with Jewish believers and members together of one Body. Do we take this great privilege of being made members of God’s People in the new covenant of grace for granted?

Let is turn finally to the Collect where there we pray that we shall be led by heavenly light on to “the fruition of thy glorious Godhead” even as the wise men were led by the star to experience the manifestation of the only begotten Son of the Father in Bethlehem. The end of the pilgrimage for the wise men was to see the face of the King of kings and to worship and adore. This manifestation from him to them of his glory and veiled divinity was the fruit of their long search.

Likewise, the end and fruit of the discipleship & pilgrimage of the people of God will be after the resurrection of the dead. And it will not be the open vision of the Blessed, Holy and Undivided Trinity [which even archangels cannot behold], but the sight of the all-glorious Father reflected in the face of the exalted incarnate Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, by the presence of the Holy Ghost. This will lead to adoration and worship and praise that is unceasing and perfect.

Is “fruition of thy glorious Godhead” the supreme goal and purpose of our lives? To partake in the Feast of the Epiphany is to claim that it ought to be, should be and is!


January 4, 2002 the Rev’d Dr Peter Toon Peter@toon662.fsnet.co.uk

The Revd. Dr. Peter Toon
Christ Church Rectory
Hot Lane, Biddulph Moor
Stoke-on-Trent ST8 7HP
England

New Year’s Day 2002 – a Collect & Message

“O eternal Lord God, who has brought thy servants to the beginning of another year; Pardon, we humbly beseech thee, our transgressions in the past, and graciously abide with us all the days [of 2002 and] of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

This Collect is from the Proposed English [Deposited] Book of Common Prayer of 1928 and is found in The Shorter Prayer Book of 1946.

This prayer contains two general petitions which apply to every baptized Christian --- forgiveness for sins past and divine help through the divine presence for the present and future.

If we add to this Collect, the old English Collect for January lst, feast day of “The Circumcision of Christ”, then we give more content to the petition for divine assistance in 2002.

In this Collect we pray: “Grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit; that, our hearts and all our members, being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will…”

It was Moses and the prophets of Israel who first talked and wrote of the “circumcision of the heart and mind” (see Deuteronomy 10:15-16; 30:6; Jeremiah 4:4; Ezekiel 36:26-27). They did not deny the need for the covenant sign of circumcision of the flesh for Jewish males, but they emphasized that with the fleshly went the spiritual. Circumcision of the heart pointed to inner repentance and a humbly and right response to and relation with God and applied to male and female.

The Apostle Paul took up the teaching of Moses and the prophets and wrote:

“It is not the outward Jew that is a Jew;
Nor is external, physical circumcision true circumcision:
He who is one inwardly is the (real) Jew:
And circumcision is of the mind, spiritual not literal" (Romans 2:28-29).

In the days of the New Covenant, inaugurated by the blood of Jesus the Christ, Paul teaches that what God the Father looks for is not an outward cutting of the flesh, for the law of the Lord is not to be seen as being fulfilled at this level. The circumcision that God now looks for is the circumcision of the heart, what the prophets had called for and thus something that applied to male and female, Jew and Gentile. And this spiritual and moral circumcision which involves the cutting away of all forms of sin and selfishness can only be achieved by the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit and by his guidance and help.

In his Epistle to the Colossians the Apostle takes up the theme of TRUE circumcision again:

“In Christ you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ; and you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead…” (Colossians 2:11-12).

In union with the Lord Jesus Christ through faith by the Holy Spirit and in Baptism, believers are circumcised in heart and mind. The old is put away the new is put on. However, in the Christian life, this newness has to be put on continually and the old put off continually. Thus Paul constantly calls for the mortifying of the evil thoughts and deeds of the body of flesh, an humble submission to Christ Jesus as Lord, and the worship of the Father of the Lord Jesus in spirit and in truth.

Thus to the church in Philippi he wrote: “We are the true circumcision, who worship God in spirit, and glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh” (3:3).

Here, then, is the message for New Year’s Day. By union with Christ Jesus in Baptism you have been spiritually circumcised. Resolve to Renew that circumcision daily in your humble trusting, obeying and following of the Lord Jesus Christ.



New Year’s Eve 2001 Peter@toon662.fsnet.co.uk

The Revd. Dr. Peter Toon
Christ Church Rectory
Hot Lane, Biddulph Moor
Stoke-on-Trent ST8 7HP
England

Circumcision of flesh & spirit -- for January 1st and for all 2002

The traditional English Collect for the feast of the Circumcision & Naming of Jesus on January 1st moves quickly from the historical fact of the circumcising of the infant Jesus on the 8th day of his human existence to the need and duty of his disciples, female and male, to be circumcised spiritually.

The content of the Collect was suggested by the words of “A Benediction on the Octave of the Lord” (=eighth day after Christmas Day) in the Sacramentary of Gregory I. Translated from the Latin this reads:

“Almighty God, whose only Son on this day underwent bodily circumcision, that he might not break the Law which he had come to fulfill, purify your minds from all incentives to vice by spiritual circumcision, and pour into you his own blessing. Amen.”

Thus in 1549 Cranmer produced for The Book of Common Prayer the Collect for the Circumcision:

Almighty God, who madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law for man: Grant us the true circumcision of thy Spirit; that our hearts and all our members, being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The scriptural passages in mind here were of course Luke 2:15-21 and Paul’s teaching on baptism and spiritual circumcision in Romans 2-4 & Colossians 2.

Later the Collect was amended to read “circumcision of the Spirit”.

When did you last hear a sermon on the Pauline teaching of spiritual circumcision?

Or when did you last hear a sermon on the submission by Jesus to the Law of Moses as a necessary part of his vocation to be the Messiah of Israel and Redeemer of the world?

Or when did you last hear a sermon on the shedding of the blood of Jesus at his circumcision and the connection thereby with his shedding of his blood on the Cross for us and for our salvation?

Or when did you last hear a sermon on the meaning of the Name of JESUS and the connection of this Name with the act of fleshly circumcision?

Finally why not ask your bishop or priest to use the Benediction given above on January lst and/or the following Sunday?

The Rev’d Dr Peter Toon the Sunday after Christmas 2001 Peter@toon662.fsnet.co.uk

The Revd. Dr. Peter Toon

Christ Church Rectory
Hot Lane, Biddulph Moor
Stoke-on-Trent ST8 7HP
England

The Incarnate God is circumcised – A MESSAGE FOR NEW YEAR’S DAY IN THE SECULAR YEAR



“On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived” (Luke 2:20).


The shepherds called the male child in the manger “the Messiah, the Lord and the Saviour” but not Jesus. The Incarnate Son of the Father had no name until he began to fulfill the Law of Moses and was circumcised on the eighth day after his birth. Then the Name chosen for him by heaven, by the almighty and eternal Father himself, and revealed to Joseph his adoptive father, was given to him.

In the Gospels, the Incarnate Son is called JESUS around 600 times – in contrast he is called Jesus Christ only 4 times (but of course in the Epistles he is often called Jesus the Christ)

The Name of Jesus is the perfect Name for the One who is sent to be the Messiah of Israel and the Saviour of the world. Let us examine it briefly.

First of all, for the Jew in the days of Joseph & Mary, JESUS was a reasonably common name. It is in fact the Greek form by which three Hebrew and Old Testament names are presented – “Joshua” (Exodus 17:10); Jehoshua (Zechariah 3:1) and Jeshua (Nehemiah 7:7). In what we call the Apocrypha there is a book called “Ecclesiasticus” and its author is “Jesus the son of Sirach.” In the New Testament we find “Jesus Justus” (Colossians 4:11) and “Bar-Jesus” (Acts 13:6). From other sources than the Bible we also know that “Jesus” was a common name.

The fact that Jesus was a common name proclaims to us that the Incarnate Son of the Father truly became one of us, belonging truly to common humanity, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. The name JESUS reminds us that the eternal Son/Word truly became flesh/human.

In the second place, the name of JESUS is a highly significant and symbolic Name. It is in both Hebrew (the language of the Jews) and Greek (the language of the Roman Empire) a one-word summary and statement of the identity and work of the Incarnate Son of the Father.

In Hebrew “Joshua” and “Jehoshua” mean “the LORD is my help/rescue” or “the help of the Lord”. The angel told Joseph that he should give to Mary’s Son and his adoptive son, the name of JESUS “for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Thus JESUS is the Saviour & Redeemer sent from the LORD [Jehovah/Yahweh] who will rescue his people from their sins and from the clutch of the devil.

In Greek, it was usual to connect in sound the word Jesus [iesous] with the verb “iasthai” which means “to heal”. Thus JESUS meant for many “the Healer” and was proclaimed as the physician of soul and body and the one who cured spiritual and physical and mental sickness.

The fact that Jesus was a name with built in meaning points to both his real and full identity and to his vocation given him by the Father.

When the Name of Jesus is joined to the titles that belong to him then he is Jesus the Christ, the Lord, the Saviour & the Son, and it is this Person with two natures [divine and human] whom we serve and adore.

In the CHURCH YEAR the first day of January [now in the West the first day of the secular year] is the Feast Day when the Church remembers both his circumcision and his naming for these two are joined together in the record of the biblical text (Luke 2:20).

In The Book of Common Prayer (1662/1928) the words of the Collect are:

“Almighty God, who madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law for man: Grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit; that, our hearts, and all our members, being mortified from all wordly & carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Here the emphasis is upon the fact of the circumcision of Jesus, his shedding of blood for us and his submission to the Torah, and then the fact that for us, as believers in Jesus, circumcision is (as the apostle Paul explains) spiritual and moral. But his Name is not mentioned.

We may note that this Collect is not popular at New Year celebrations!

In the American Episcopal 1979 Prayer Book the Collect is as follows:

“Eternal Father, who didst give to thine incarnate Son the holy name of Jesus to be a sign of our salvation: Plant in every heart, we beseech thee, the love of him who is the Savior of the world, even our Lord Jesus Christ:…..”

Here the emphasis is upon the Name of Jesus and its meaning but there is no reference to his circumcision for us.

This Collect is less offensive at New Year celebrations!

Happily in the new “Common Worship” of the Church of England the name of the Festival is “the Naming and Circumcision of Jesus” and the Collect [which could be improved] reads:

“Almighty God, whose blessed Son was circumcised in obedience to the law for our sake and given the Name that is above every name; give us grace faithfully to bear his Name and to worship him in the freedom of the Spirit and to proclaim him as the Saviour of the world…”

BE SURE ON JANUARY THE FIRST TO GIVE DUE EMPHASIS BOTH TO THE NAMING AND TO THE CIRCUMCISION OF THE SON OF MARY WHO IS THE SON OF GOD INCARNATE.



(On a snowy Saturday morning, December 29, 2001, the Revd Dr Peter Toon, Peter@toon662.fsnet.co.uk )


The Revd. Dr. Peter Toon
Christ Church Rectory
Hot Lane, Biddulph Moor
Stoke-on-Trent ST8 7HP
England

The Innocents' Day

December 28th is the day formerly called "Childermas Day" and has been observed since the fifth century by the Church. In medieval times the mournful nature of the Day was reflected in the use of Black Vestments and muffled peals of bells.

The Gospel is obviously Matthew 2:13-18 which tells of the slaughter by Herod of children of two years and younger and the escape by Joseph, Mary and JESUS to Egypt.

The Epistle, Revelation 14:1-5, speaks of the 144,000 who were redeemed and are the firstfruits amongs the Christian saints. Apparently, some folks in the Middle Ages did equate the 144,000 with the number of children killed by Herod, especially because of the words, "and in their mouth was found no guilt; for they are without fault before the throne of God" (v.5)

Today it is possible to use the slaughtered, innocent children of Bethlehem and its environs as a symbol of the cruel and vicious treatment of other children in the world. Naturally, the killing of thousands in the womb through abortion is a natural application by devout Christians.

However the Collect for this day points to the glorifying of God in the death as martyrs of the innocent babes and then applies the message to all believers.

"O Almighty God, who out of the mouths of babes and sucklings has ordained strength, and madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths; Mortify and kill all vices in us, and so strengthen us by thy grace, that by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our faith even unto death, we may glorify thy holu Name, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Thus the relation of the Incarnation of the Son of God to his passion and death and then the vocation of his disciples to be witnesses and martyrs for him are brought before our minds and sink into our hearts during this Christmas week.

There is a rather large gap between the general merriment and secularization of the season and the Christmas call to witness and martyrdom for the sake of the INFANT of Bethlehem who had to flee from martyrdom in order to be the Messiah and become a Martyr thirty years later in Jerusalem, a few miles from Bethlehem.

December 28, 2001

The Revd. Dr. Peter Toon
Christ Church Rectory
Hot Lane, Biddulph Moor
Stoke-on-Trent ST8 7HP
England

St John, Apostle & Evangelist [Dec 27]


During the Christmas Festival we heard read the majestic and poetic Prologue of the Gospel according to St John. We heard his statement concerning the Incarnation of the only begotten of the Father. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth.”

Today, appropriately, two days from the Feast of the Nativity, is the Feast Day of the beloved disciple (see the Gospel for today John 21:19ff.), John apostle and evangelist, who was given by his Lord long years to propagate and meditate upon the Gospel of the Father concerning His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Collect for this day, based upon a very ancient one from the 6th century or earlier, has within it the theme of Light, for both in the Gospel of John and in the Letters of John in the New Testament, Light is a major theme. Jesus is himself the Light of the world according to the Gospel, and also, as the Epistle declares, “God [the Father] is Light” [1 John 1:1ff.]

“Merciful Lord [the Father], we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon the Church, that it being illuminated by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John, may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to life everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

The Church of God is called to walk in the light of God’s revealed truth that it/she may attain unto the light of everlasting life.

Modern forms of the Collect (as in the English “Common Worship” of 2001) have changed the second “it” to “we” [“we may so walk…”] in an effort to make it more relevant to people today so that they think of it as applying to them. Whether this is necessary is debatable for it loses the full sense that the Body of Christ is not only one people but also one unit that can be spoken of in the singular as the Bride of Christ, the Household of God, and so on.

But the main point is that the Church of God, all its members both clergy and laity, allow the Light of God the Holy Trinity to illuminate and enlighten their minds and hearts as they read the inspired Gospel and Epistles of John, the beloved disciple.



7 a.m. Dec 27th Peter@toon662.fsnet.co.uk



The Revd. Dr. Peter Toon
Christ Church Rectory
Hot Lane, Biddulph Moor
Stoke-on-Trent ST8 7HP
England

Stephen the Martyr

26 December is a public holiday in Great Britain. But not because of St Stephen the Martyr whom the Church commemorates. The holiday is Boxing Day to open the boxes given at Christmas! It is a day when churches in the main are locked for the people are out at the "sales."

What is the connection between the Incarnation of the only-begotten Son of the Father and his birth from Mary the pure Virgin, which we celebrated yesterday, the 25th December, and the Saint's Day we call SAINT STEPHEN'S DAY?

Stephen was the first Christian martyr, the witness for the Gospel of the Father concerning His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was actually
put to death because of that witness. Thus the Epistle for this Day is
from Acts 7:55-60 where we read that Stephen had a vision of the exalted Lord Jesus and that his accusers stoned him to death. But as they stoned him he prayed to the Lord Jesus and asked forgiveness for his killers.

Jesus, the Messiah Saviour and Lord, was born in order to live and then to die as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Thus He shed his blood for the world, first a drop when he was circumcised a week after his birth (see the Feast of the Circumcision, Jan 1st) and then much when crucified. Stephen likewise shed his blood, not to atone for our sin, for that his Lord had already done, but to witness to and for his Lord and to begin that holy process where the blood of the martyrs is the seed from which the Church of God grows.

The Collect for this Day closely follows the information given in the Acts of the Apostles 7:55ff.: and it is addressed directly to the exalted Lord Jesus Christ:

"Grant, O Lord, that in all our sufferings here upon earth, for the testimony of thy truth, we may steadfastly look up to heaven and by faith behold the glory that shall be revealed; and being filled with thy Holy Ghost, may learn to love and bless our persecutors, by the example of thy first Martyr Saint Stephen, who prayed for his murderers to thee, O blessed Jesus, who standest at the right hand of God to succour all those that suffer for thee, our only Mediator and Advocate."

There is no expansion of Christianity in the present world without the witnessing that is prepared to go all the way and lay down its life for the Lord. And thanks be to God the Father such Faith exists in this world and is operative today. However, it is highly probable that much that goes by the name of Christian Faith in the old-line/main-line denominations of America and Europe (not to mention in the abundance of more recent "churches") has little or no connection with the Faith to which Stephen was committed. Western Christianity is so often merely the accommodation of aspects of the Christian inheritance to the secularist western society and culture to produce a comfortable form of religion.

So the feast of this day, December, 26, reminds us what truly is the Christian Faith and what is our calling as baptized believers - to be witnesses which may mean to be martyrs.

December 26 2001

The Revd. Dr. Peter Toon
Christ Church Rectory
Hot Lane, Biddulph Moor
Stoke-on-Trent ST8 7HP
England