Unfortunately I never got a chance to write down my sermons from the last two months -- for All Saints' and Advent -- but here's the one I delivered at today's monthly service.

Sermon for Epiphany
(Isaiah 60:1-6; Matthew 2:1-12)

Happy birthday, Jesus!
Let’s have a big birthday bash for our Lord!
And look, there’s three Wise Men bringing presents!

Is that what’s going on in today’s Gospel? A birthday party? Or maybe a baby shower? One could be forgiven for thinking so, though one wonders just what a young couple with their first child would do with gold, incense and myrrh. The gold of course could be used to buy some diapers, but incense? Myrrh? How many people even know what myrrh is? And how do we know this baby, of all the babies ever born, is so special?

Fans of Monty Python will of course remember the Life of Brian, where the Wise Men knock on the wrong door and enter Brian’s stall, not Jesus’, and the mother is a bit perturbed by these three strange men barging in on her. She says to the wise men, »Well, what are you doing creeping around a cow shed at two o’clock in the morning? That doesn’t sound very wise to me.« They protest that they must see the babe, that they are astrologers, travelers from the East. She tells them to »Go and praise someone else’s brat«, until they inform her they have presents, so she changes her mind, and is again perturbed when she finds out what the presents are. »Gold. Frankincense. Myrrh.« She asks »What is myrrh, anyway?«, and they tell her it’s a valuable balm, which she thinks is a furry animal that might bite her baby.

Of course, the beauty in this satire is that such a scene is more or less what many people think happened. Mary and Joseph are about to settle down for the night after having dealt with the shepherds showing up unannounced when three kings barge in with oddball presents for a baby. The problem is that the scene is torn from its context and a caricature of it has been fixed in people’s minds, so the deeper meaning is lost. (For one thing, we don’t actually know how many »kings« there were, and they weren’t kings, but Magi, wise men, learned ones.)

The Old Testament reading gives us a hint as to what is really going on. It says, »Arise, shine, your light has come!« and continues with the prophecy »They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the LORD.« This is Isaiah speaking, the prophet of the Israelites writing at a time of great peril and desperation for Israel, when Israel was beset on all sides by invaders and is badly divided amongst itself, wondering when Israel’s bondage and oppression and wars will end. He’s speaking of the Messiah, which means the Anointed One (just as the word »Christ« does), the Messiah being the person who will break those bonds and that will bring light and peace and hope into the darkness of our world.

These things take time. Making peace in this world takes time. Just imagine, Isaiah was writing around 750 years before Christ was born. And indeed the text of a Christmas chant makes the passage of time clear:

In the beginning God created the world.
Billions of years had passed since our Sun and Earth came forth,
millions of years since life arose on this Earth and humanity came into being,
many thousands of years since tribes, peoples and cultures arose,
two thousand and fifteen years since Abraham was born,
one thousand five hundred and ten since Moses led Israel out of Egypt,
one thousand twenty-three since the anointing of King David,
in the hundred-ninety-fourth Olympiad,
in the seven hundred fifty-second year after the foundation of Rome,
in the forty-second year of the reign of Octavian Augustus,
at that time all the Earth was at peace.
It was then that Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the Father,
desired to come into the world and sanctify it by His coming.
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
and nine months after His conception
He was born in Bethlehem in Judea,
made man of the Virgin Mary.
We celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ in our own flesh.

That chant gives us another hint as to what’s going on in the Christmas season. It doesn’t sound much like a birthday party, does it? And it makes us feel pretty small compared to the vast sweep of time. Christmas isn’t about 2,000 years ago; it’s about millions and billions of years ago. And it’s about the years ahead of us, on the long road to the Kingdom of God.

The »presents« the Magi bring offer another hint. Gold is a present that was considered fit only for kings. Frankincense is a special kind of incense, a present only given to a High Priest, to be used in the Temple. And myrrh, that strange substance Brian’s mother couldn’t identify, is indeed a valuable balm – used for healing and was given to those who practiced medicine. So what the Magi were saying wasn’t »here’s a gift certificate for diapers and while we're at it a free pacifier« or even »your baby’s a Capricorn that will be prudent and wise and patient and all that«. They were hailing this baby as being the King of Kings, the High Priest, and the healing Savior who will, with time, heal all the wounds of this world. Those three gifts are a profound symbol of the meaning of Christ’s birth.

So where was Christ born? Well, in the literal sense He was born in Bethlehem in a manger, but as the Logos, the Son in the Trinity, he of course was never »born« like you and me; He always existed, even before Time itself. Christmas 2,000 years ago was just the point where He entered our world. And Christmas today is thus not an anniversary or a birthday; It’s a rebirth, a birth in ourselves, in our hearts, so that step by step, generation for generation, we fulfill the promise of peace Christ brings us. That’s the real present this Christmas. Amen.

The following conversation ensued this evening after I got back from our monthly English service. BoE and the kids didn't go this time because BoE was feeling under the weather.

BoE
So how was the service?

ETHELRED
Oh, it went well enough.

BoE
And what was your sermon about?

ETHELRED
More or less about why we celebrate Advent and Christmas, and being awake--

BoE
Oh, well, whatever you said, I'm sure it was wrong.

ETHELRED
Er...

BoE
Obviously people started celebrating Christmas so they could have a White Christmas.

ETHELRED
[wondering where this is leading]

BoE
...and obviously it's the best time of year to go shopping for presents. So what are you giving me?

ETHELRED
A lump of coal.

BoE
Oooooh, you mean the tiny compressed kind you wear on your finger?

ETHELRED
No, you have to compress it yourself.

BoE
Well, you could always put it between your cheeks for that, then.

---

You see what I put up with? Mutiny in the ranks! Insubordination! Insurrection! MATRIMONY!

You see, even one of /.'s premiere trolls "gets it".

A couple of people wrote something 'round these parts that is irritating if only because it demonstrates a major lack of knowledge about the origins of the Christmas holiday.

It is currently in vogue -- and has been for some years -- to try and dilute the religious meaning of Christmas by attacking its origins, quite often with outright falsehoods or by jumping to the wrong conclusions. The favorite story is that Christmas was somehow copied or stolen from pagans, and is therefore not even a Christian holiday itself. Evidence provided usually revolves around placing "Jesus' birthday" at the winter solstice, which so happens to have been a favorite time for holidays among European pagans.

Coincidences, however, are not evidences.

If you actually read the Bible (I know, I know, a tall thing to ask) but in particular read what the early Church thought about the symbolism behind Christmas, you would see what it really is intended to represent. The sort of symbolism I am referring to died out among most Protestants, and even among many Catholics, but was kept alive by the Orthodox.

If you remember that Jesus always was represented by light -- Jesus is in a literal sense The Enlightened One -- then things start to fall into place very quickly once you read parts of the New Testament, in particular the interaction between Jesus and John the Baptist, but also in other scenes such as the Transfiguration (see Matthew 17:1-9), where Jesus is shown to radiate light when His true nature is revealed.

Indeed, that is the origin of the symbolism of the halo (or nimbus) in iconography. Most people today think of a ring around the head -- da Vinci incorrectly thought halos in religious icons were supposed to be rings and, to show off his artistic technique, deliberately made them disc- or ringlike, softly fading into the background. But that's not what they were intended to represent. They represent the glow of light radiating out from within the person pictured, like that of a candle. Early saints were often described as literally radiating out light, their faces obscured by the brilliance of it. They, like Jesus, were enlightened from within.

In John 3:30, John the Baptist says of Jesus, "He must increase while I decrease" -- the two are representing themselves as heavenly bodies of light, with John the Baptist's light waning and the light of Jesus waxing, like phases of the moon.

The Celts also represented God and Jesus with the famous Celtic cross -- a cross with a ring around it -- which was a deliberate combination of ancient sun symbols with the Cross. Jesus is not just the Son, but the Sun: the brilliant light of enlightenment, "a light to enlighten the Gentiles", as it says in Luke 2:32.

If you ever attend a vesper service (which in the Episcopal Church's liturgy begins with the greeting "Light and peace in Jesus Christ our Lord" and is often celebrated only with candlelight), the ancient canticle Phos hilaron makes the connection quite directly:

O gracious Light,
pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven,
O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed!
Now as we come to the setting of the sun,
and our eyes behold the vesper light,
we sing your praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
You are worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,
O Son of God, O Giver of life,
and to be glorified through all the worlds.

So if Jesus is represented as a light in darkness, when does it make sense to celebrate His arrival on this Earth? What time of year would you choose? Obviously, the darkest, most despairing time of year, when the days are shortest and the Sun barely comes into view in northern climes. When all is dark, hope appears in the form of the "light of the world".

The liturgy of the traditional Christmas holiday made it abundantly clear. There are actually three church services to celebrate Christmas: the Vigil, beginning in the deep dark of night; then in the early hours of Christmas Day, at the rising of the sun, the celebration of His arrival; and then the main service later in the day, when the Eucharist is celebrated, commemorating His sacrifice -- the whole point of His existence in our world.

And of course there is the Advent wreath, which makes the coming of the "light of the world" spiritually present, by lighting a candle each week of Advent.

Thus the early Christians didn't care about the literal "birthday" of Jesus, because they weren't interested in Jesus the man. They were interested in the Christ, the Son of God, the Logos who existed before time and became man in the form of Jesus. Jesus didn't have a "birthday" like we do, because Jesus, as God, is eternal. The early Christians thus wanted to best reflect what they saw in the New Testament and represent it with the Christmas holiday in the best way they knew.

The other thing that people tend to forget is that Christmas, while important to us Christians, isn't even really the most important holiday. Like I said, in Christian trinitarian theology, Christ always existed and always will exist, so it makes little sense to celebrate a "birthday", and anyway Christ's "birth" isn't the event that is of great importance to us. It was His death and resurrection that matters so much more -- so Easter, in particular the entire Easter octave, is of far greater importance.

The question of course still arises: What is it you are celebrating this Christmas? If you aren't a Christian, it doesn't make sense to celebrate "Christmas" at all, not even if you want to try and play up supposed pagan ties. Perhaps you can celebrate Yule, or the solstice, or Chanukah or Diwali or Kwanzaa or whatever other holiday suits your beliefs and fancy. But why celebrate Christmas when you're not Christian -- and then try to appropriate it from those of us who do treasure its real meaning?

If you want to celebrate something this winter, may I suggest Festivus. :-P

Either way, no matter what you do, I wish you a very merry Christmas and holiday season. Even if you celebrate something other than Christmas.

My grandfather gave my brother and myself a US Savings Bond (Series E for what it's worth) for Christmas each year that he could. Unfortunately he became ill not long after I was born and died about a year later, so I only got one $25 bond, issued in 1971 (meanwhile my brother got seven of 'em).

Needless to say, I don't remember my grandfather much -- oddly I do remember bits of his house (my dad's childhood home, in Alexandria, VA), but nothing of him personally.

I knew I had one bond -- I'd seen it at one point as a kid when my parents were going through their safe-deposit box at the bank -- but had totally forgotten about it. When my parents came to visit this Christmas, they brought it along (no idea why, really) and gave it to me. So now I've had it sitting in its envelope on my desk since Christmas last year.

I finally decided to see what it's worth for the hell of it. Turns out it's worth $126.66 and stopped accruing interest in 2001.

Since it's stopped accruing interest, the financially smart thing to do would be to cash it in (though unfortunately as shitty as the dollar is these days, $126.66 amounts to EUR 96.61, not to mention exchange fees and whatnot, so maybe it isn't so smart to do it now anyway).

But oddly I am reluctant to cash it in anyway. Here is the one Christmas present I ever got from my grandfather.

So I put it back in its envelope and set it aside.

Strange how a mere piece of paper can suddenly take on a meaning totally different -- and arguably greater -- from that which was originally intended.