Second Sunday of Christmas. Year C 2nd January 2022
Lectionary Readings: Jeremiah 31 v7-14; Psalm 147 v12-20; Ephesians 1 v3-14;
John 1 v10-18.
‘Rejoice’
The readings this week speak of restoration and healing. God has a plan for our future that will result in lasting peace and harmony between individuals, families, communities and nations. This will pave the way for reconciliation between the kingdom of God and humankind.
God knows us only too well. He acknowledges our need of a saviour, someone who will show us ‘God’s way’ towards a better, more sustainable future, for us, and the planet we call home.
‘The Word was in the world, but no one knew him, though God had made the world with his Word. He came into his own world, but his own nation did not welcome him.’ (John 1 v10,11).
The gospel writer John, was writing with the benefit of hindsight and guided in his writing by the Holy Spirit. John was setting out the enormity of our (humankind’s) mistake, of not recognising Jesus for who he really was.
I say ‘our’ but in the original context, John was referring to the people of Israel, the Jews, God’s chosen people, those who should have recognised their long expected Messiah. But the lack of recognition is still evident today. So it remains ‘our’ mistake, ‘our’ failure to respond to God’s love.
‘Yet some people accepted him and put their faith in him. So he gave them the right to be the children of God. They were not God’s children by nature or because of any human desires. God himself was the one who made them his children.’ (John 1 v12,13).
John was being careful here to ensure that his readers didn’t pick up on any notion of ‘gods’ such as those from Greek or Roman mythology who are said to have had intercourse with humans. (The basis of Caesar’s claim to be ‘divine’.) For John and us, any claim to be the children of God is entirely down to the action of God. As believers, we have been adopted into God’s family on the basis of our faith in Christ.
The writer of ‘Ephesians’ says ‘Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for the spiritual blessings that Christ has brought us from heaven. God was kind and decided that Christ would choose us to be God’s own adopted children. When the time is right, God will do all that he has planned, and Christ will bring together everything in heaven and on earth.’ (Ephesians 1 v3,5,10).
At the time the psalmist was writing, Jerusalem was considered to be ‘God’s dwelling place’. The Psalmist says; ‘Everyone in Jerusalem come and praise the Lord your God!’ (Psalm 147 v12).
As Christians, we acknowledge that ‘the Earth is the Lord’s’ (Psalm 24 v1). We are all inhabitants of a world that God has made for us. It is right that we should ‘Praise the Lord our God’. As the prophet Jeremiah suggests; It is right that ‘our faces should glow because of the blessings that God has given us’. (Jeremiah 31 v12b).
God is Love: let heaven adore him; God is Love: let earth rejoice;
let creation sing before him, and exalt him with one voice.
(Timothy Hughes, Singing the Faith No 103 v1a).
Bible quotations are taken from the Contemporary English Version.