The Leper

John Henry Newton

Oft as the leper's case I read, 
My own described I feel; 
Sin is a leprosy indeed, 
Which none but Christ can heal. 

Awhile I would have passed for well, 
And strove my spots to hide; 
Till it broke out incurable, 
Too plain to be denied. 

Then from the saints I sought to flee, 
And dreaded to be seen; 
I thought they all would point at me, 
And cry, Unclean, unclean! 

What anguish did my soul endure, 
Till hope and patience ceased? 
The more I strove myself to cure, 
The more the plague increased. 

While thus I lay distressed, I saw 
The Savior passing by; 
To him, though filled with shame and awe, 
I raised my mournful cry. 

Lord, thou canst heal me if thou wilt, 
For thou canst all things do; 
O cleanse my leprous soul from guilt, 
My filthy heart renew! 

He heard, and with a gracious look, 
Pronounced the healing word; 
I will, be clean - and while he spoke 
I felt my health restored. 

Come lepers, seize the present hour, 
The Saviour's grace to prove; 
He can relieve, for he is pow'r, 
He will, for he is love. 

Once again this Sunday the glory, power and divinity of our Lord are revealed through his power over sickness and evil spirits.

All of Christ's miracles -- his "signs and wonders" -- were accomplished simply to reveal to the world that the kingdom of God is present in him. These miracles attest that the Father has sent him as the promised Messiah. They invite belief in Jesus as the Son of God and Savior of the world. 

Jesus' power over sickness and evil spirits particularly reveal that the coming of God's kingdom means the defeat of the whole system, or kingdom, of sin and death. Jesus' exorcisms anticipate his great victory over "the ruler of this world" (John 12:31). 

What do we know about Satan and the evil spirits or demons? Frankly, we know very little -- only that the serpent in the ancient narrative -- who seduced our first parents (Genesis 3:1-5) -- is called "Satan" or the "devil" interchangably. The fundamental thing of importance in the Scripture's telling of the story of the origin of evil is that the devil and the other demons were actually created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing (2 Peter 2:4). More exactly, they became evil by their own choosing, or willing. 

Milton in his great poem, Paradise Lost, describes Satan's defiance: "Better to reign in hell than to serve God." S John Damascene, an 8th century church father said: "There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death."  While Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in Christ Jesus, and may cause grave injuries of a spiritual nature,and indirectly even of a physical nature, it is critical to note that his power is nonetheless very limited. As we shall see again this Sunday in the Gospel, his powers (spiritual and physical) haven't any chance to stand against even a touch from our Lord.

• And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her; and she served them. 
  

S Jerome, the great 3rd Century Church Father put it well:

• "Can you imagine Jesus standing before your bed and you continue sleeping? It is absurd that you would remain in bed in his presence. Where is Jesus? He is already here offering himself to us. 'In the middle, ' he says, 'among you he stands, whom you do not recognize'. 'The kingdom of God is in your midst'. Faith beholds Jesus among us. If we are unable to seize his hand, let us prostrate ourselves at his feet. If we are unable to reach his head, let us wash his feet with our tears. Our repentance is the perfume of the Saviour. See how costly is the compassion of the Saviour. Our sins give off a terrible odor; they are rottenness. Nevertheless, if we repent of our sins, they will be transformed into perfume by the Lord. Therefore, let us ask the Lord to grasp our hand. 'And at once,' he says, 'the fever left her.' Immediately as her hand is grasped, the fever flees." 
  

When Jesus taught, the Gospel says that "he spoke with authority."

• "...they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes."

Jesus spoke the word of God as no one had ever done before. When the Scribes (as many of the teachers of Holy Scripture were called in New Testament times) taught they had to support their statements with quotes from sources greater and more respected than themselves.  Even the prophets of the Old Testament spoke with what we might call delegated authority – “Thus says the Lord.”  With Jesus it was entirely different:  he needed no authorities to back him up. He was authority incarnate –  the Word of God made flesh.  When he spoke, God spoke. When he commanded even the demons obeyed.

S Augustine of Hippo once wrote:

• “...faith is mighty, but without love it profits nothing. The devils confessed Christ, but lacking charity it availed nothing. They said, 'What have we to do with you (Mark 1:24)?'  They confessed a sort of faith, but without love. Hence they were devils.” 

S Augustine is echoing the words of S Paul, when he wrote that faith, without love, profits nothing (1 Corinthians 13). Scripture tells us that true faith works through love (Galatians 5:6) and abounds in hope (Romans 15:13). Our faith is made perfect in love because love orients us to the supreme good which is God himself as well as the good of our neighbor who is created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26,27). Hope anchors our faith in the promises of God and purifies our desires for the things which will last for eternity. That is why the word of Christ has power to set us free from all that would keep us bound in sin, deception, and despair.  That is what our lessons this coming Sunday at S Giles are all about.

This Sunday we will hear our Lord call his first disciples, and he promises that they will be "Fishers of Men."   The disciples are strangely drawn to Jesus, as though compelled by love.  They seemed to find the One they didn't even know they were seeking.   I think it is this same power - the draw of the Lover to the beloved, that ultimately makes the disciples themselves "Fishers of Men."  It isn't about a triumphalism of human power (as it is often interpreted by contemporary critics), it is simply about the irresistible draw of the love of Christ.   It reminds of a great Cowper poem:

Seeking the Beloved
William Cowper

To those who love the Lord I speak; 
Is my Beloved near? 
The Bridegroom of my soul I seek, 
Oh! when will He appear? 

Though once a man of grief and shame, 
Yet now He fills a throne, 
And bears the greatest, sweetest name, 
That earth or heaven have known. 

Grace flies before, and love attends 
His steps wheree'er he goes; 
Though none can see Him but His friends, 
And they were once his foes. 

He speaks; -- obedient to His call 
Our warm affections move: 
Did He but shine alike on all, 
Then all alike would love. 

Then love in every heart would reign, 
And war would cease to roar; 
And cruel and bloodthirsty men 
Would thirst for blood no more. 

Such Jesus is, and such His grace; 
Oh, may He shine on you! 
And tell him, when you see His face, 
I long to see Him, too. 

Jesus turned round, saw them following and said, ‘What do you want?’ They answered, ‘Rabbi,’ – which means Teacher –’where do you live?’ ‘Come and see’ he replied.

John the Baptist - in the humility so characteristic of him, which we witnessed week after week this past Advent - was eager to point beyond himself to the Christ.  When he saw Jesus walking by, he pointed him out to his own followers and famously said: "Behold, the lamb of God."  He did not hesitate to direct his disciples to the Lord Jesus.  When two of John’s disciples began to seek Jesus out, Jesus took the initiative to invite them into his company. He didn't wait for them to get his attention. Instead he met them halfway. 

This is the account we hear in our Gospel this coming Sunday - our first "Ordinary" Sunday in quite some time!  When John's followers approach Jesus, he confronts them with a most dramatic existential question: “What are you looking for?”  Or as some translations have it, "What do you want?"  What were they looking for in Jesus and what were they aiming to get out of life? Jesus asks each of us the same question:  "What do you want?"   Even at this first moment of our Lord's eruption from obscurity into the whole drama of his Epiphany to the Nations, he is revealed as just what the prophet so obscurely called him: "The desire of the Nations."   The desire, in fact, of every human soul.   It reminds me of a bit from Thomas Traherne, in his Centuries:

• "Though it be a maxim in the schools that there is no Love of a thing unknown, yet I have found that things unknown have a secret influence on the soul, and like the centre of the earth unseen violently attract it. We love we know not what, and therefore everything allures us. As iron at a distance is drawn by the loadstone, there being some invisible communications between them, so is there in us a world of Love to somewhat, though we know not what in the world that should be. There are invisible ways of conveyance by which some great thing doth touch our souls, and by which we tend to it. Do you not feel yourself drawn by the expectation and desire of some Great Thing?"
  

Jesus invites each of us to "come and see" for ourselves that his word is true and everlasting. "Come and see" is God's invitation for fellowship and communion with the One who made us in love for love.  S Augustine of Hippo tells us something very important about God and how he relates to us: 

• “If you hadn’t been called by God, what could you have done to turn back?  Didn’t the very One who called you when you were opposed to Him make it possible for you to turn back?  It is God who initiates and who draws us to himself.  Without his grace, mercy, and help we could not find him."
  

The Journey of the Magi

by T.S. Eliot

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Mary's name "Mother of God" was used quite early in the life of the Church - but it was often the source of confusion and bitter dispute.  The greek nomenclenture as actually Theotokos, and that name is still the favorite title of Mary for Christians within the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic Churches. Its literal English translations include God-bearer and the one who gives birth to God.  Roman Catholics and Anglicans use the title Mother of God more often than Theotokos. 

The interesting thing about this particular title of Mary is that it has much more to do with Jesus than it does Mary!  There were those who argued that Mary should not be called "Mother of God" because she was really only the mother of his humanity, not his divinity.  But this created a serious theological problem: was Jesus one "person" with two "natures" (human and divine), or was he actually two seperate persons?  The Church Fathers unanimously agreed that that Jesus was one "person", and to say otherwise would be a grave error.  It was the Council of Ephesus (one of the councils of the Undivided Church that the Church of England has decreed "authoritative") that finally decreed in 431 that Mary is Theotokos because her son Jesus is one person who is both God and man, divine and human.

This is the actually statement made by the Fathers at Ephesus in AD 431:

"We confess, then, our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, perfect God and perfect man, of a rational soul and a body, begotten before all ages from the Father in his Godhead, the same in the last days, for us and for our salvation, born of Mary the Virgin according to his humanity, one and the same consubstantial with the Father in Godhead and consubstantial with us in humanity, for a union of two natures took place. Therefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this understanding of the unconfused union, we confess the holy Virgin to be the Mother of God because God the Word took flesh and became man and from his very conception united to himself the temple he took from her"

The twenty-fifth day of December.
In the five thousand one hundred and ninety-ninth year of the creation of the world
from the time when God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth;
the two thousand nine hundred and fifty-seventh year after the flood;
the two thousand and fifteenth year from the birth of Abraham;
the one thousand five hundred and tenth year from Moses 
and the going forth of the people of Israel from Egypt;
the one thousand and thirty-second year from David's being anointed king;
in the sixty-fifth week according to the prophecy of Daniel;
in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad;
the seven hundred and fifty-second year from the foundation of the city of Rome;
the forty second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus;
the whole world being at peace,
in the sixth age of the world,
Jesus Christ the eternal God and Son of the eternal Father,
desiring to sanctify the world by his most merciful coming,
being conceived by the Holy Spirit,
and nine months having passed since his conception,
was born in Bethlehem of Judea of the Virgin Mary,
being made flesh.
The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh.

This Sunday at S Giles, in our last Sunday Gospel before Christmas, we will hear of the visitation of the Angel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary.   There are few better reflections on this momentous event than one by St Leo the Great.  The excerpt which follows is from a letter he wrote (Epist. 28 ad Flavianum, 3-4: PL 54, 763-767).  Not surprisingly, this same passage is used in the Office of Readings for the Solemnity of the Annunciation.

In Mary's womb, God becomes Man, by St Leo the Great

Lowliness is assumed by majesty, weakness by power, mortality by eternity. To pay the debt of our sinful state, a nature that was incapable of suffering was joined to one that could suffer. Thus, in keeping with the healing that we needed, one and the same mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, was able to die in one nature, and unable to die in the other.

He who is true God was therefore born in the complete and perfect nature of a true man, whole in his own nature, whole in ours. By our nature we mean what the Creator had fashioned in us from the beginning, and took to himself in order to restore it.

For in the Savior there was no trace of what the deceiver introduced and man, being misled, allowed to enter. It does not follow that because he submitted to sharing in our human weakness he therefore shared in our sins.

He took the nature of a servant without stain of sin, enlarging our humanity without diminishing his divinity. He emptied himself; though invisible he made himself visible, though Creator and Lord of all things he chose to be one of us mortal men. Yet this was the condescension of compassion, not the loss of omnipotence. So he who in the nature of God had created man, became in the nature of a servant, man himself.

Thus the Son of God enters this lowly world. He comes down from the throne of heaven, yet does not separate himself from the Father’s glory. He is born in a new condition, by a new birth.

He was born in a new condition, for, invisible in his own nature, he became visible in ours. Beyond our grasp, he chose to come within our grasp. Existing before time began, he began to exist at a moment in time. Lord of the universe, he hid his infinite glory and took the nature of a servant. Incapable of suffering as God, he did not refuse to be a man, capable of suffering. Immortal, he chose to be subject to the laws of death.

He who is true God is also true man. There is no falsehood in this unity as long as the lowliness of man and the pre-eminence of God coexist in mutual relationship.

As God does not change by his condescension, so man is not swallowed up by being exalted. Each nature exercises its own activity, in communion with the other. The Word does what is proper to the Word, the flesh fulfils what is proper to the flesh.

One nature is resplendent with miracles, the other falls victim to injuries. As the Word does not lose equality with the Father’s glory, so the flesh does not leave behind the nature of our race.

One and the same person - this must be said over and over again - is truly the Son of God and truly the son of man. He is God in virtue of the fact that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He is man in virtue of the fact that the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.

Once again this coming Sunday we have a Gospel lesson in which S John the Baptist plays a significant part.  I thought I'd rework some of the thoughts from last Sunday's homily, especially for those who weren't able to make it to mass.

It is critical to note, in the description of the ministry of St. John the Baptist - and we hear this more clearly this Sunday even than last - that he was called to prepare the wilderness for the message of Christ; he was not not called to prepare the message of Christ for the Wilderness.  He was called to prepare the wilderness. 

It is one of the uncomfortable messages of Advent, that the Mystery of Christ is timeless and unchanging - it is the wilderness of the world, and the wilderness of our hearts that must be prepared for it - not it for us.

Too often we think our task (or even our right) as Christians, and as the Church, is to prepare the message of Christ so that it can be better accepted by ourselves, and by the wilderness of the world around us. We like to soften the edges so that its demands, its claims and its inevitable implications for our lives will be more tolerable.  But I’m convinced that to think of things in this way is a grave mistake - not just because its wrong, but because thinking about the Mystery of the revelation of the Truth of Christ in this way actually moves us away from under its power to convert us, to change us, to save us, and to us bring to life.  

There are those (and there always have been those, in virtually every generation) who would persuade us that the old forms of Christian belief and life are antiquated and irrelevant: we must keep up with the times. There are those who claim that a new spirit is abroad, and that we must move with it.  But over each generation also hangs the words of St John the Apostle: "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they be of God: because many false prophets have gone out into the world." 

I said earlier that the timelessness and unchangingness of the Mystery of Christ is a reason for discomfort.  It is, and there’s no getting around that fact.  But thats only because of our blindness, our stubborness and our fundamental misunderstanding of ourselves.  The truth is, the timelessness and the unchangableness of the Mystery of Christ is actually the source and reason for our joy at Christmas.

We rejoice in Christmas, because it shows us that amid all the confusions and uncertainties of our lives, amid all the fancies and fads of this world's gyrations, there is the fact of God's coming. There is the revelation of the mystery of God with us. This is the mystery of which we are ministers and stewards; servants of a returning Master, "Who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts."