The Church of St. Paul & Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
December 29, 2019
Year A: The First
Sunday after Christmas
Isaiah 61:10-62:3
Psalm 147:13-21
Galatians 3:23-25;
4:4-7
John 1:1-18
We Celebrate Christmas Because of Easter
Merry
Christmas!
By
now much of the world has moved on from Christmas: gifts have been unwrapped
and many of them will be soon forgotten; radio stations have returned to their
regular music; and I’m sure there are already some trees lying abandoned and
forlorn on the sidewalk, ready to be picked up and tossed into garbage trucks.
The
world has moved on to the next thing (New Year’s Eve, I guess).
But,
here in church, Christmas only got started on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
Christmas
continues here today and will continue over the next week.
Having
said that, it is true that even here in church the most intense and most
festive time is drawing to a close.
And,
I’ve already begun evaluating our Christmas celebrations and soon the staff and
I will meet to talk about what worked well and what may need to be changed for
next year.
I’ll
say that this year’s pageant went very well – the kids did a great job – thanks
to the direction of some very patient adults. And, as always, Gail did a fine
job producing so much wonderful music at all of our services.
Attendance
was a little higher at the pageant service and on Christmas morning, but there
were many fewer people at this year’s “Midnight Mass” service on Christmas Eve.
As
usual, there are probably lots of reasons why fewer people were able to join
us: some people were out of town; some people were sick; some people were just
worn out from all the holiday preparations.
But,
I have to believe that this year some people stayed away because of the nearly
daily shootings that have been plaguing Jersey City in recent weeks.
We
all remember the horrific violence and bloodshed on Martin Luther King Drive a
couple of weeks ago but there have also been lots of other shootings in that
same neighborhood and also around our Triangle Park Community Center and even right
here in the neighborhood around our church – there was a shooting on Christmas
Eve at Montgomery and Bergen, and the other day there was a shooting at the gas
station on Duncan and West Side.
I
don’t pretend to know what’s going on, lots of people speculate that it’s gang
violence, but it’s frightening to have shots ringing out in our neighborhood,
at places so familiar to us, and I can certainly understand if some people may
have decided it was wiser just to stay home behind locked doors, safe and
secure.
I’ve
heard some people say that things didn’t use to be this way – and I’m now old
enough to have those thoughts myself.
But,
although today the widespread access to military-style weapons adds additional
terror, and some among us do seem to settle scores with bullets rather than the
fists that were used in the past, the truth is that we humans have always been
prone to violence – the violence of abuse within families, the violence of
criminals, and also also the violence on the national and international level
as tyrants crush dissent and empires are always hungry to gobble up more land
and more wealth.
There
are long shadows in our sinful world.
Jesus
was born into our sinful world and long shadows will follow him his whole life.
Just
yesterday, on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, we remembered that King Herod
feeling threatened by the newborn king of the Jews, tried to kill Jesus in his
infancy, forcing Joseph and Mary and Jesus to become refugees, fleeing into
Egypt.
And,
of course, eventually religious leaders and Pontius Pilate finished the job –
or thought they had finished the job
– by nailing Jesus to the cross, a particularly cruel form of state-sponsored
violence.
And
then a few decades later, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem itself, including the
Temple. The Jewish people, including the Jews who followed Jesus as messiah,
wondered if the end of the world had come.
And
yet, writing after all of this horror, the author of today’s gospel lesson
(from the opening of John) insists that “the light shines in the
darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
Although
we’re in the middle of celebrating Christmas, what we Christians should always
celebrating is Easter – God raises Jesus, revealing that love is stronger than
hate, life is stronger than death, and that violence, no matter how terrifying
and destructive, does not get the final word.
We
celebrate Christmas because of Easter: “the light shines in the darkness, and
the darkness did not overcome it.”
And
it’s because of Easter that we can shine the light of Christ out into our
shadowy world.
But,
in these uncertain times, I confess that I don’t always know how best to do
that.
I
recently heard that someone asked after the recent outbursts of violence,
“Where’s Fr. Tom?”
Well,
I’m right here trying to figure it out like everybody else.
I
don’t always know how best to shine the light of Christ but I know that staying
home behind locked doors is not the way.
So,
as we begin another year together I’m praying for guidance.
Maybe
it’s time for me to finally work up the courage to walk up and talk to the
young guys hanging around Triangle Park probably dealing drugs, time to make
myself vulnerable, to allow them to get to know me, to build up trust, and
together find a better way than settling scores by shooting at each other.
Maybe
it’s time for us to get back out on the streets, praying at places of violence,
casting out the demons of rage, hate, and fear by sprinkling Holy Water on our
cracked and glass-strewn sidewalks.
Maybe
it’s time for us to really commit to Jersey City Together and work closely with
people of goodwill from all across our city.
Whatever
the way forward, I refuse to give in to fear and I hope you won’t either.
The
shadows may be long, but light of Christ shines in the darkness, and the
darkness did not, can not, will not, overcome it.
We
celebrate Christmas because of Easter.
Amen.
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