God does not love us because we are lovely or loveable ; His love exists not on account of our character, but on account of His. Our highest experience is responsive not initiative. And it is only because we are loved by Him that we are loveable.

Fulton Sheen Rejoice 1984:9

In this morning’s Gospel we begin to see a change in the character of our celebration of Easter, as it begins to look forward to our celebration of the Lord’s Ascension, when He will return to the glory of Heaven and the bosom of the Father, when he will no longer be visibly present among us as he was before, but is also not absent. Before he goes, he gives his disciples teaching which is clear and simple: ‘I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’

The Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures contain 613 commandments, starting with ‘Be fruitful and multiply’ in Genesis, including the Decalogue, the command to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul, to love our neighbour as ourselves. He has come not to abolish the law but to fulfil it, and love is the fulfilment of the law. As Jesus gives his disciples a new commandment he also enacts it Himself, He shows his love for humanity in dying for us, by bearing the burden of our sins, by going to death upon a Cross for love of us: this is what real love means and looks like in action. In this Christ establishes a pattern for Christians to live their lives by, as Christians, those who bear the name of Christ, we are to live like this too.

This is what following Christ means in practice: living and dying like Christ, together, so that by this all will know that we are his disciples, through love lived out in our lives we proclaim the reality and the truth of our faith. It’s something which we do together, and while it sounds easy in theory it is a bit harder in practice, and it is why we need to stay close to Christ in Word and Sacrament, to pray together, to support and forgive each other, so that we can live a life of love, not saccharin-sweet as the world sees it, but real, sacrificial love, the sort which has the power to transform the world so that it becomes more Christ-like.

These are not idealist pipe-dreams but the reason why we are Christians, we want to see a world transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ, into a place of peace, and joy, and love. Christ gives us this commandment so that we may have life and have it to the full, in and through Him, the source of all life and love. So as we continue to celebrate Christ’s triumph over sin and the world, over death itself, let us be filled with His life and joy, and share His love so that the world may believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now, and forever.

God does not love us because we are lovely or loveable; His love exists not on account of our character, but on account of His. Our highest experience is responsive, not initiative. And it is only because we are loved by Him that we are loveable.

Fulton Sheen Rejoice (1984) 9

There exists a great spiritual thirst both outside the church in the world around us and in the church itself. We are like people in the desert, not just in this period of 40 days but throughout our lives. The modern world is deeply consumerist: shopping centres replace cathedrals and yet we are still thirsty, thirsty for the living water, thirsty that our needs may be satisfied. We all of us realise, deep down, that commercialism cannot save us: that what we buy doesn’t really nourish or satisfy us. There can be no commercial exchange with God; we simply have to receive his gifts. We are not worthy of them are, that’s the point: God satisfies our deepest needs and desires out of love for us, wretched miserable sinners that we are, so that enfolded in his love we might become more lovely. Only if we are watered by God can we truly bear fruit, only if we are born again by water and the spirit in baptism can we have any hope. This is what the season of Lent is for: it is a time to prepare for baptism – to share in our Lord’s death and his new life. We do this as individuals and indeed as an institution, so that the church may be born again, renewed with living water, so that it may be poured out over all the world to satisfy the thirst which commercialism cannot.

In our second reading St Paul writes the church in Corinth to warn them to keep vigilant: the church can never be complacent. For us Lent is to be a time when we learn not to desire evil: we have to turn away from sexual immorality and idolatry. In the last couple of generations the laissez-faire attitude in the world around us has not empowered people, it is not made them happier, it has just given us a world of fornication and adultery, where people worship false gods: Reason, Consumerism, Fulfilment, Money and Power. The ways of the world will always leave humanity empty. It’s why the Gospels show Jesus living a radically different life, a life in all its fullness, which he offers to people: to turn their lives around, losing their lives to find true life in him. He suffers and dies for love of us, to heal us, and restore us, so that we may share in his life of love, nourished by his body and blood, strengthened by his word and sacraments, and to share this free gift of the world around us.

This morning’s gospel acts as a warning to us: that we are in danger if we continue to sin. We are, however, not simply condemned but offered another chance. The gardener gives a fig tree another chance. This is grace: the free gift of God, not something which we have earned, and only through God’s grace can we hope to bear fruit. The gardener, who created man in Paradise, who will offer himself as both priest and victim upon the tree of life, to bleed and die for love of us, this gardener will meet Mary Magdalene by the empty tomb on Easter day, so that we all humanity may share his risen life.

So let us turn away from the ways of the world, its emptiness, its false promises, its sexuality immorality, the ways of emptiness and death, to be nourished by the living water, which satisfies our deepest thirst, which makes us turn our lives around, so that we may live in him, who loves us, who heals us and who restores us. The world may not understand this, it may be scandalised by it, it will laugh at us and mock us, in the same way that it mocked our Lord on the way to Calvary and upon the cross. Let us share in his sufferings, knowing that we are loved by him who died for love of us. Let us live as a witness, to share in his work of drawing all humanity to him: so that all people may come to the living water and finds new life in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory do-minion and power, now and forever

It is easy to find Truth; it is hard to face it, and harder still to follow it.

Fulton Sheen Lift up your Heart, New York 1942: 106

Speaking the truth to power, speaking the uncomfortable word is a main aspect of the prophetic vocation, it is recognisable in Our Lord’s earthly ministry and throughout the history of the church. It is dangerous, and it can be costly but it is something which must be done.

 When we look at salvation history we cannot ignore Abraham, he believes in the Lord, and is reckoned as righteous: he trusts God and his relationship is sealed with a covenant, one which makes the Land of Israel the Promised Land to his descendants. There is a covenant, there is sacrifice, and this points to the cross, where God cuts a covenant with us in his Son’s death upon the Cross, the final demonstration of God’s love, which assures us of our heavenly homeland, Just as Abraham went from deep sleep and terrifying darkness to life in relationship with God, so we in the church have moved the darkness of sin and the terror of hell to new life in Christ.

 Our citizenship is in heaven, as St Paul writes to the Philippians. Heaven is our true and eternal home, where we can be with God forever. And as Christians we try to live lives which imitate the saints, one of the ways we learn is by copying, we’ve seen it, we’ve done it ourselves: it is normal and natural: we follow the example of others, which is why the choice of whom we should imitate matters. Paul writes this letter from prison, he’s seen people being tortured, and his belief in Christ will lead to his death, and yet he is happy, concerned for others more than himself, a wonderful example for us to follow. We don’t want to be like the enemies of Christ, people opposed to who and what Christ is and what he does. The world around us tends to show its enmity towards Christ more by indifference than persecution, we are ignored or patronised, but we can stand against this, together, in Christ, confident in the God who loves us. 

 In the Gospel we see Herod, a ruler who has killed John the Baptist for speaking against him, for standing up for morality which comes from God, turning his gaze towards Jesus. In the face of the threat of persecution Jesus stands up for who and what he is, and what he is doing, he is not intimidated as he has a job to do which speaks of God’s healing love, making the Kingdom of God a reality in people’s lives. Jesus sees Herod for what he is, a nothing and a nobody, a tyrant, interested in the spectacular He speaks a word over Jerusalem as a place which kills prophets, and in this he is looking towards his own death – he has to go away, so that he can come back. He prophesies that he will not return until people say ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’ he anticipates his entry on Palm Sunday. It makes it all the more amazing that Jesus can face the future in such a calm way, proclaiming the Love of God, and it should inspire us as we walk the journey of faith. In this our Lenten journey towards the Cross, and beyond, we travel with Christ, nourished by word and sacrament, knowing that to follow Christ is to share in His Passion, to take up our cross and follow Him, who is the Way, the Truth , and the Life. It involves standing up for truth, at the risk of persecution and death, and it is something which we do gladly because we can trust in a God who loves us, who heals us, who has made a covenant with us in the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. We can have confidence that God loves us, and will never leave us, he is with us no matter what may come our way. It is a great comfort that we can travel on our pilgrimage of faith with one who will not leave us, or fail us, who knows our pain, who suffers and dies for love of us. So let us travel with Christ through Lent, through Life, knowing that we are living out our faith, and let us share that with others that the may believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory dominion and power, now and forever.

O dearly beloved, let us therefore thank God the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. By means of the great love with which he loved us, he had mercy on us; and since we had died in sin, he gave us life back in Christ, so that in him we would be a new creation and a new work of his hands. Let us strip off the old man and his ways of action; and, given that  we have been admitted to participate I’m the family of Christ, let us renounce the the works of the flesh. Become aware, O Christian, of your dignity; and, having been made a participant in the divine nature, do not return to your prior baseness through behaviour unworthy of your family. Remember who your head is, and of whose body you are a member. Recall that you were stripped away from the power of the shadows and carried into the light of the Kingdom of God. The Sacrament of Baptism has made you a temple of the Holy Spirit: do not cause such a great guest to flee because e of your poor conduct; do not put yourself again into the slavery of the devil, for the price by which you were ransomed is the blood of Christ. he ransomed you out of mercy, but he will judge you in the truth of he who reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.

Leo  Sermons 21:3

When St Antony was praying in his cell, a voice spoke to him, saying ‘Antony, you have not yet come to the measure of the tanner who is in Alexandria.’ When he heard this, the old man arose and took his stick and hurried to the city. When he had found the tanner …. he said to him, ‘Tell me about your work, for today I have left the desert and come here to see you.’

He replied, ‘I am not aware that I have done anything good. When I get up in the morning, before I sit down to work, I say that the whole of the city, small and great, will go into the Kingdom of God because of their good deeds while I will go into eternal punishment because of my evil deeds. Every evening I repeat the same words and believe them in my heart.’

When St Antony heard this he said, ‘My son, you sit in your own house and work well, and you have the peace of the Kingdom of God; but I spend all my time in solitude with no distractions, and I have not come near to the measure of such words.’

It is a very human failure, for far too often we make things far too complicated when all we need to do is to keep things simple. In the story from the Desert Fathers, which we have just heard, St Antony, the founder of monasticism, a great and a holy man, is put to shame by a man who spends his days treating animal skins. The key to it all is the tanner’s humility, his complete absence of pride, and his complete and utter trust in God – his reliance upon him alone.

In this morning’s Gospel we see Our Lord going into the desert for forty days. He goes to be alone with God, to pray and to fast, to prepare himself for the public ministry of the Proclamation of the Good News, the Gospel.

As he comes out of this he is tempted by the devil: he faces temptation just like every human being, but unlike us, he resists. The devil tempts him to turn stones into bread. It is understandable – he is hungry, but it is a temptation to be relevant, which the church seems to have given into completely: unless we what we are and what we do and say is relevant to people, they will ignore us. 

There is the temptation to have power, symbolised by worshipping the devil. It leads to the misuse of power. The church stands condemned for the mistakes of the past, but in recognising this there is the possibility of a more humble church in the future – reliant upon God and not on the exercise of power.

There is the temptation to put God to the test – to be spectacular and self-seeking. Whenever we say ‘look at me’ we’re not saying ‘look at God’.

Jesus resists these temptations because he is humble, because he has faith, and because he trusts in God. It certainly isn’t easy, but it is possible. It’s far easier when we do this together, as a community, which is why Lent matters for all of us. It’s a chance to become more obedient, and through that obedience to discover true freedom in God. It’s an obedience which is made manifest on the Cross – in laying down his life Jesus can give new life to the whole world. He isn’t spectacular – he dies like a common criminal. He has no power, he does not try to be relevant, he is loving and obedient and that is good enough.

It was enough for him, and it should be for us. As Christians we have Scripture and the teaching of the Church, filled with his Spirit, to guide us. We can use this time of prayer and fasting to deepen our faith, our trust, our understanding, and our obedience, to become more like Jesus, fed by his word and sacraments – to become more humble, more loving, living lives of service of God and each other, so that the world may believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory dominion and power, now and forever

The sum of all is that God the Lord of all, out of fervent love for his creation, handed over his own Son to death on the cross. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son for its sake.’ This was not because he could not have saved us in another way, but so that he might thereby the better indicate to us his surpassing love, so that, by the death of his only-begotten Son, he might bring us close to himself. Yes if he had anything more precious he would have given it to us so that our race might thereby be recovered. Because of his great love, he did not want to use compulsion on our freedom, although he would have been able to do so; but instead he chose that we should drawn near to him freely, by our own mind’s love.

St Isaac of Nineveh

Today the church celebrates Sexagesima, in recognition that we are about 60 days from Easter, it’s part of a countdown to Lent, a pre-Lent, which gets us in the mood for a season of fasting and penitence. I suspect that it has over the years raised a smile or a smirk from the first three letters of its name, derived for the Latin word for sixty rather than anything else. Though if you were someone who forms their opinion of the Church through the media you would be forgiven for thinking that it was the only thing that Christians think, talk or argue about. It has become a defining characteristic of how we are viewed by the world around us, and Christians can quite easily begin to believe that it is our sole ethical concern these days.

You may be glad to hear that I have no intention of launching into a diatribe against sexual immorality this evening, as it would be neither useful nor edifying. Instead, as we prepare to celebrate the feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple this week  It is a feast which sees both Simeon and Anna recognising who and what Christ is, and what he has done and will do, it looks back to Christmas and the wonder of the Incarnation, to the fact that God became human so that humanity might become divine, and looks forward to how this is achieved, once and for all by Christ’s sacrifice of himself upon the Cross. They recognise it and they proclaim it, to anyone who will listen, which reminds us that as Christians we to are to rejoice in these facts and to proclaim them to a world hungry for meaning, which longs for the transcendent, and for an alternative to the gratification of self, and material capitalist culture.

We need to proclaim by word and deed the saving love of God in Christ, through lives lived in ever closer union with him, or to quote the prophet Micah from this evening’s first lesson: ‘and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?’ (Micah 6:8) To walk humbly is to know one’s need of God, of his forgiveness, his love, his mercy, and his grace, to ask him to heal our wounds, and forgive our sins. Humility is being close to the ground, from which we were created, not to see ourselves as other than we are, it is to know that we are wretched miserable sinners, whom God loves so much that he was born among us, and he lived and died and rose again for us, not because we are worthy, but so that through Him we might become so, through the transforming power of God’s love.

January is amongst other things a time for self-improvement, people diet and take up exercise, so when I hear the phrase  ‘your body is a temple’ I begin to shudder, perhaps because I’m overweight and unfit, and such phrases sound like the self-righteous and judgemental attitudes of fitness-obsessed, vegetarian teetotallers. Yet when Paul is talking to the church in Corinth he is not concerned with such matters, but rather that Christians, who make up the church, are people who have been baptised, so we have received the Holy Spirit, the indelible character of the sacrament of baptism. We are imbued with the virtues of faith, hope, and love, which we live out in the life of faith. We were bought at a price, namely the shedding of Christ’s blood on the Cross, and as the hymn puts it there is power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of the Lamb. It washes our souls clean, so that we can glorify God in our bodies by living lives of Christian virtue.

We will fail in our attempts to do this, but that’s where God’s love and forgiveness come in: it allows us to keep trying. We are never written off, providing that we do not despair of God’s amazing capacity to love, heal, and restore us. The world around us is not so kind, it is judgemental, it pays lip service to freedom, as the freedom to do whatever we please, reducing freedom to a physical rather than a moral power, whereas Christians are called to live in a servitude which is perfect freedom, God loves us and wills us to love him freely, and to live lives which glorify him, so that we can say with the Apostle Paul ‘it is no longer I who live, but Christ living in me’ (Gal 2:20)  We do this by walking humbly, by knowing our need of God, and relying upon him, and in his strength, a people forgiven and forgiving, who can truly offer this world an alternative to the ways of selfishness and sin, which we proclaim by lives lived in and through Christ, nourished by his word and sacraments, close to him in prayer, so let us do this together so that the world may believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion and power, now and to the ages of ages.

The sum of all is that God the Lord of all, out of fervent love for his creation, handed over his own Son to death on the cross. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son for its sake.’ This was not because he could not have saved us in another way, but so that he might thereby the better indicate to us his surpassing love, so that, by the death of his only-begotten Son, he might bring us close to himself. Yes if he had anything more precious he would have given it to us so that our race might thereby be recovered. Because of his great love, he did not want to use compulsion on our freedom, although he would have been able to do so; but instead he chose that we should drawn near to him freely, by our own mind’s love.

St Isaac of Nineveh

Love along with forgiveness are at the heart of our faith, and they characterise our relationships both with each other and with God. The revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ is the showing of God’s love, from the Annunciation, through the Incarnation, to His Death and Resurrection, there is not a moment which does not speak powerfully of love and forgiveness. Where Christ leads we should follow, he is the author and perfector of our faith. St Paul can speak to the Christians in Corinth of the centrality of love in the life of Christians. It shows how we are to live, to live in love, together. Christ shows us the cost and reality of self-giving love in His Death and Resurrection. This is the love we have to live in our lives: difficult, costly, and wonderful.

As the Church prepares to celebrate the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, also known as the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary and commonly called Candlemas, it is fair to say that nowadays we are not quite so used to ideas of ritual purity inherent in the Thanksgiving for a Woman after Childbirth, which used to be described as the Churching of Women. It feels strange and alien. The Holy Family go to the Temple to give thanks to God and to comply with the Law: they demonstrate obedience, they listen to what God says and do it – as such they are a model for all Christian families to follow.

When they go to the Temple the Holy Family encounter Simeon, a man of faith and holiness, devoted to God, and looking for the consolation of Israel, he knows that he will not die until he sees the Messiah, the Lord’s Anointed, and the Saviour of the World. As he takes the child Jesus in his arms he prays ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace : according to thy word. For mine eyes have seen : thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared : before the face of all people; To be a light to lighten the Gentiles : and to be the glory of thy people Israel.’ The promise made to him by, revealed through His Holy Spirit has been fulfilled in the six-week-old infant in his arms. As Christ was made manifest to the Gentiles at Epiphany, so now His saving message is proclaimed, so that the world may know that its salvation has come in the person of Jesus Christ. Simeon speaks to Our Lord’s Mother of her Son’s future, and the pain she will endure. Before he dies Simeon is looking to the Cross, the means by which our salvation is wrought, the Cross at which Mary will stand to see humanity freed from its sin through the love and mercy of God, through grace, the free gift of God in Christ. So as Candlemas concludes our Celebration of Christmas, of the mystery of the Incarnation, so to it points to that which gives it its true meaning: the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That is why we are here this morning, to be fed by Christ, to be fed with Christ, truly present in His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity – God whom we can touch and taste. A God who shares His Divine Life with us, so that we can be transformed by Him, built up as living stones as a temple to His Glory, given a foretaste of Heaven here on Earth. This is our soul’s true food, the bread for the journey of faith, a re-presentation of the sacrifice which sets us free to live for Him, to live with Him, through Him and in Him.

The significance of what is happening is not just recognised by Simeon, but also by Anna, a holy woman, a woman of prayer, a woman who is close to God – she to recognises what God is doing in Christ, and she proclaims it, so that God’s redemption of His people may be known. Let us be like her, and let all of our lives, everything which we say, or think, or do, proclaim the saving truth of God’s love to the world. Let us burn, with that same love in our lives, in all that we say, and think, or do, so that the world may believe and give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.

Every person is a precious mystery. An individual cannot be weighed by public opinion; he cannot be measured by his conditionings; he belongs to no-one but himself, and no creature in all the world can penetrate his mystery except the God who made him. The dignity of every person is beyond our reckoning.

Fulton J. Sheen Lift Up Your Heart

January is a time for many things: finding love, losing it, taking up a regime of exercise, of dieting, for turning away from the excess of Christmas, reacting against the short days, the wet and the cold. So at one level, when we hear in this morning’s Old Testament reading ‘Eat the fat and drink the sweet wine’ we could be quite concerned. But we are also told to ‘send portions to anyone who has nothing ready’ – to feast then in the Kingdom of God involves everyone eating. In a world where we produce more than enough food for all to eat and not go hungry, it is good that there is a campaign to put an end to Global Hunger, as this is what the Kingdom of God looks like in action, faith is not some private matter, but affects who and what we are, what we do, how we live our lives.

In St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians we see what it means to be the Church, the Body of Christ, through our common baptism. We may be different, but we all need one another, unity does not mean uniformity, after all. We are dependent on one another, in the church which is a place of unity in, through and with Christ. Looking back on this two thousand years later we can see the wounds which mar the Body of Christ  in our sin and division and also how they can be healed: in Christ, through Christ, through His saving death upon the Cross.

In the Gospels recently we have seen Our Lord baptised to sanctify the waters of baptism for the salvation of the human race, and as an act of loving obedience to the Father to show the world how to turn away from sin and how to be reconciled with God; we have seen the Kingdom of God come among us in the Wedding at Cana. It is a place of joy, which we cannot understand, just like the steward in the wedding feast  – the best wine has been kept for now, the new wine of the Kingdom, better than we have ever tasted, beyond our expectations and our efforts. We have seen in Our Lady’s word to the servants, ‘Do whatever He tells you’ that obedience is the key to new life in Christ, that same obedience which His mother recommends and shows, which Jesus Christ shows us, so that we might follow His example.

In this morning’s Gospel we Jesus back on home turf ‘full of the power of the Spirit’ teaching people, showing them the way, and being glorified by them – as they give to God what is due. When he comes to his home town and is given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, he proclaims ‘good news to the poor’ ‘liberty to captives’ ‘new sight to the blind’ ‘freedom for the oppressed’ and ‘the year of the Lord’s favour’. He, the Word made Flesh is the fulfilment of the Word, of prophesy.

As He will say in the Sermon on the Mount ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God’. The good news of the Gospel is for those who know their need of God, their spiritual poverty. Those who are slaves to sin can find true freedom in Christ; it allows us to see the world with new eyes, where everyone is our brother and sister, where we can be one in Christ.

‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’ we, here, today, have heard this among us, we have come to be fed with Word and Sacrament, to be fed by Christ, with Christ, to have new life in Him, and to share that new life with others, a new life and a freedom which the world cannot give. So let us be fed to have new life in him, to live that life and share it with others, for the joy of the Lord is our strength. It is our vocation as Christians to be filled with that joy and to share it with others

As Christians we are to live lives of joy and love in Christ, and through him, rejoicing in our new life in baptism, in the saving sacrifice of the Cross, in the hope of the Empty Tomb, in our unity in the Body of Christ, so that all creation may resound with the praise of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.

In the marriage act, love is triune: wife gives self to husband and husband to self and out of that mutual self-giving is  born the ecstasy of love. The spirit too must have its ecstasy. What the union of husband and wife is in the order of the flesh, the union of the human and the Risen Christ is in Holy Communion

Fulton J. Sheen Those Mysterious Priests, 1974: 157

The Prophet Isaiah in this morning’s first reading looks forward to a a messianic future, a future which finds its fulfilment in the person of Jesus Christ. He uses the language of a wedding, between a man and a woman to express the joy between God and his people, Israel, and by extension, with the church, a new Israel and the fulfilment of prophesy. Though we live in a highly sexualised culture we can still find this imagery strange, and yet it speaks of deep love and joy: the kind which holds nothing back, the complete union, shown to us above all in the passion and death of Our Saviour Jesus Christ. As husband and wife are united in one flesh, we have come so that we may be fed, be fed by Christ, be fed with Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit God is active in our lives, transforming us, by his grace, so that our human nature may be transformed, into His Divine nature.

If we were to listen to the many voices around us which criticise Christianity, we would think that we were of all people the most pitiable, ours is either a weak death-cult of a failed Jewish magician and wonderworker, or a strange oppressive force which actively works against human flourishing and actualisation.

Nothing could be further from the truth, as our vocation as Christians is JOY. The one whom we worship liked nothing better than to hang around at parties with social undesirables, and was accused of being a drunkard. Most of us have outside our houses one or two wheelie bins, which hold about 30 gallons, or 150 litres, or 200 bottles of wine. Multiply that by 6 and you’re looking at 1,200 bottles of wine, a hundred cases, and this after the wine ran out, what we’re dealing with in the wedding at Cana must have been some party, and it is only a foreshadowing of the joy of the Kingdom, it points to something greater than itself.

Our starting point as Christians is Mary’s advice to the servants: Do whatever He tells you. Our life is rooted in obedience: we listen to God and we obey, for our own good, and the good of the Kingdom, so that we are not conformed to the world and its ways, but rather to the will of God, so that we can truly enter into the joy of the Lord, in humble obedience, fed by Him, and fed with Him, who died for love of us in obedience to the will of the Father.

The world around us struggles somewhat with extravagance, and rightly so: when we see Arabian oil magnates riding around in gold-plated supercars we are right to be concerned, yet in the Gospel we see something strange. The steward had a point: you serve the best wine first, while people are sober and can appreciate it, but the Kingdom of God turns human values on their head – the joyous new wine of the Kingdom is finer than any human wine and is lavished upon undeserving humanity, so that it might transform us, so that we might come to share in the glory of God, and his very nature. Thus, at the Epiphany we celebrate three feasts: Our Lord’s manifestation to the Gentiles, the proclamation of the Messiah to the whole world, his baptism, to show us the way to the Father, a sign of love and obedience, and the Wedding Feast at Cana, as a sign of the superabundance of God’s love, shown to us here today in the Eucharist where we drink the wine of the Kingdom the Blood of Christ so that we may be transformed by the power and the grace of God, so that we may share his Divine life, and encourage others to enter into the joy of the Lord.

Though time is too precious to waste, it must never be thought that what was lost is irretrievable. Once the Divine is introduced, then comes the opportunity to make up for losses. God is the God of the second chance …. Being ‘born again’ means that all that went before is not held against us.

Fulton J. Sheen Peace of Soul

The Baptism of Our Lord in the River Jordan by John the Baptist, which we celebrate today, can leave us asking a question: if we are baptised to be born again by water and the Spirit, for our sins to be washed away, and to become part of the Body of Christ, the Church, why is Our Lord, who is without sin, being baptised. He does not need to be, but in being baptised shows us that God is not constrained by necessity. Christ does not need to be baptised, as we do, but does so to fulfil all righteousness and to sanctify the waters of baptism for those whom he would redeem., to show us the way to new life in him.

In Christ’s Baptism we see a God who walks with us, who is not a cold, remote figure; but who, for love of us, comes among us, and is one with us, and who shows us the way to his Father. Christ’s Baptism is an act of obedience to God the Father, an act of humility and of healing and restoration – the work of God in Christ, done for our sake, and the sake of all humanity. What began at the Annunciation, and was brought about at the Incarnation, and made manifest to the whole world at the Epiphany, is deepened: the world is invited to share in the saving love of God through baptism.

At the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus shows humanity the way to the Father, through himself. The world sees the generous love of God, which heals and restores us, from the darkness of the dungeon of sin and evil, to the light and life of the Kingdom of God. As our baptism is a sharing in the death and resurrection of Jesus, so his baptism points to the Cross, where streams of blood and water flow to cleanse and heal the world. We see the love of the Father, the power of the Spirit, and the obedience of Son, and all for us, who are so weak and foolish, and who need God’s love and healing, and forgiveness.

We need this, the whole world needs it, but is too proud to turn to a God of love, for fear of judgement, knowing that they deserve to be cut off forever, and yet it is exactly such people, such lost sheep that Our Lord comes to seek, whom he enfolds in his loving arms on the Cross, whom he washes in the waters of baptism, so that all may be a part of him, regardless of whom or what they are, and what they have done. Salvation is the free gift of God and open to all who turn to him.

In our suspicious modern world that gift is spurned and mocked, by those who feel that they can no longer trust the church, or denounce it is as hypocritical, an oppressor of one group or another. To which we can only reply with open doors, open arms, and open hearts – the church may be full of sinners and hypocrites and there’s always room for a few more! God in Christ is nothing if not generous, and so the Church, his body is called to the same generosity of spirit. With the open invitation comes a call to repentance, to a fundamental change of mind, which sees us turn away from sin to God.

Here is where I suspect it gets difficult for humanity, we know that sin is wrong, but we enjoy it, we can soothe our conscience with the fiction that something is not a sin: that it doesn’t hurt or harm us, we can even twist the Gospel to our own ends. But these will not do, because in them we say that we know better than God – the sin of pride, that primal sin which separates humanity from God. This was the problem Christ comes to fix, to heal and restore our nature, through his grace, to feed us with Word and Sacrament that we might share in the life and love of God.

We need to take to heart the words of advice written by St Paul to Titus and the Church in Crete: given that ‘the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people’ (Titus 2:11) the Church has to respond to that grace, that free gift of a loving God, by living in a certain way, the Church is there to train us to renounce, to turn our back on ‘ungodliness and worldly passions’ – using our lives and our bodies which fall short of what is expected of us. Notice the word ‘train’: it’s a process, very few people indeed can run a marathon without training; we need help and practice to turn our lives around together, as a community of faith. It takes time, and hard work and love, but it is something which we can do together – people will fail, but can be picked up, and helped to continue, that’s what healing and repentance are all about. It’s about saying ‘we can be better, we can do better together’ if we truly let the love of God into our hearts and turn away from the past and look forward to a future of hope and glory in Christ. So then, let us live out our faith and our baptism together, turning from sin to new life in Christ, and encourage others so to do, so that all creation may resound with the praise of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.

If there be not God, there is no miracle. If there be no miracle, there is no God, and this is the miracle of Christ crucified. They say, ‘You teach men the miracle of the Mass.’ We teach the miracle of Christ that He was born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Ghost for us men and our salvation. We teach the miracle that Christ died on Calvary for all men. For whom did Christ die? Christ died for sinners, and that is the miracle of Calvary. We teach the miracle of the Resurrection, that when Christ all shall rise again in His glorious Resurrection. We teach the miracle of the Ascension, that He who went up into Heaven shall so come again as we have seen Him go up. Our whole faith is miracle from the beginning to the end. It is all miracle. It is the miracle of God. And the greatest of all miracles to me is this: that I can say ‘He loved me and died for me.’ You cannot get any greater miracle than that. And so, dear brethren, death is swallowed up in victory, the sadness is swallowed up in the the gladness of God, and the agony in the peace of God, and the misery in the happiness of God. The redemption of Christ is infinite.

Father Stanton’s Last Sermons in S. Alban’s, Holborn, ed E.F. Russell, London, 1916, p. 295

Never you be ashamed of the Blood of Christ. I know it is not the popular religion of the day. They will call it mediævalism, but you know as well as possible that the whole Bible from cover to cover is incarminated, reddened with the Blood of Christ.

Never you be ashamed of the Blood of Christ. You are Blood-bought Christians. It is the song of the redeemed, of the saints, and of all Christians on earth—redeemed by His Blood. You never be ashamed of it. The uniform we Christians wear is scarlet. If you are ashamed of the uniform, for goodness’ sake, man, leave the service. Oh! never be ashamed of Christ! That is the song of the redeemed: ‘To Him be glory and praise for ever, Amen.’

And the second thing is this: Let us all remember that our religion is the religion of a personal Saviour. It is not a system of ethics, it is not a scheme of philosophy, it is not a conclusion of science, but it is personal love to a personal living Saviour—that is our religion! Why, when you can hear the voice of Christ off the altar to-day at Mass, ‘DO this in remembrance of Me.’ ‘You’ and ‘Me.’ He ‘Christ’—“me”—remembrance’—‘Don’t forget Me here at the Altar’ our Lord says to you—‘I will never forget you—don’t you ever forget Me.’ ‘Do this in remembrance of Me.’ It is a personal religion, by which we can say, ‘He loved me, and gave Himself for me’—‘The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.’ And then, in all your experiences, however deep they may be, when you enter into the shadow of death, and go through the agony of the dissolution of your body—you can say: ‘He loved me, and gave Himself for me.’ He loved me and washed me from my sins His Blood, to Him be glory and dominion and praise henceforth for ever, Amen.

Father Stanton’s Last Sermons in S. Alban’s, Holborn, ed E.F. Russell, London, 1916, pp. 312-3

We live in a world which is obsessed by time. The pace of modern life is quite different to that of a generation or two ago. Despite the advent of labour-saving devices and technology we seem if anything busier than ever as other things come along to fill our time – we can feel pressured, worried, and anxious. This isn’t good; we can’t help feeling that this isn’t how it is supposed to be. Thankfully God doesn’t work like this. The people of Israel have been waiting for a Messiah, for a Saviour to be born, who will save Israel from their sins, but it isn’t a case of birth on demand. As St Paul writes to the church in Ephesus ‘In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory..’ God’s time is not our time, and the Incarnation happens not at a convenient time, but in the fullness of time – after the message has been proclaimed by the prophets, who prepare the way for the Saviour; after Mary has said ‘yes’ to God, a ‘yes’ which can undo the ‘no’ of Adam and Eve.

This is why, at the start of his Gospel, St John, the beloved disciple, can begin right at the start of salvation history, indeed with Creation itself: his opening words ‘In the beginning’ point us straight back to the opening words of Genesis, in Hebrew Beresith ‘In the beginning’. This is where it all starts, where everything that is starts,  and the Word through which God speaks creation into existence, this creative power of God is what will take human flesh and be born of the Virgin Mary. The enormity of this situation should not be lost on us, we cannot think about it too much, the helpless infant born in a stable is God, who created all that is, or has been, or will be, and who comes among us weak, helpless and vulnerable, dependent upon the love and support of father and mother for everything. Christ shares our human existence from birth to death, so that we may know that ours is a God who comes among us, who comes alongside us, who is not remote, but involved, a God of love.

St John take us back to the beginning so that we can see what we are dealing with, and how it fits into the bigger picture. What we are celebrating at Christmas is something which extends through time, both in its nature and its effects. It is why we as Christians make such a big deal of Christmas – it isn’t just something nice to do in the middle of winter, but along with Our Lord’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection , the most wonderful and important moment of history, which affects us here and now. What was made known to the shepherds we now proclaim to the world, what symbolically is shown in the Solemn Feast of the Epiphany, which we prepare to celebrate, where the Wise Men point to the manifestation of Christ’s Divinity to the whole world – the recognition of God’s saving love .

‘And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.’ The reality of the Incarnation, of God with us, Emmanuel, that God lives with us, sharing our human life, shows us the glory of God, that from which Moses hid his face in the Exodus is now made plain, and displayed for all to see, a proclamation of the glory, the love, and the goodness of God, shown in our adoption as children of God, given an inheritance – eternal life and a relationship with God – a humanity restored and healed. This is the light which shines in the darkness of our world, which it cannot overcome. John the Baptist testifies to this, the Wise Men kneel in adoration before Him, bringing gold for a King, Incense for the worship of God, and myrrh which points to His Death on the Cross for our salvation. Their gifts show that they understand and value who and what Christ is, and what He does.

Are we to be like the world, which though it was created through Him does not know him? Or like his own people, who did not accept Him? Or do we receive Him, and believe in His Name, which is above every name? Do we accept the invitation to become children of God, and do we respond to it? Do we accept the challenge to live as the family of God, loving and forgiving, as those who are loved and forgiven by God, so that our lives, yours and mine, proclaim the glory and truth of God, and the message of salvation for all the world to hear? If we accept our inheritance, the fact that there is now a familial relationship between us and God, we need to understand that with that relationship comes duty and responsibility.

And yet we do not see this as something imposed upon us, but rather as the truth which sets us free: a relationship with a God whose service is perfect freedom. So let us walk in His light, dwell in His love, and know the fullness of His joy, let us be glad that as a pledge of His love He gives Himself, under the outward forms of bread and wine, to feed us with His Body and His Blood, a sign that His promise is true, that we can have a foretaste of Heaven, food for our journey of faith here on earth, so that we may know his love, and touch it and taste it, so that we can be strengthen to live that faith and to proclaim it by word and deed, so that all the world may enter into His joy, and live His life.

Whoever loves another does so according to his own attributes and properties. Therefore since the Lord the Bridegroom is within you and is all powerful, he gives you power and loves you with the same.

Since he is wise he loves you with wisdom

Since he is good he loves you with goodness

Since he is holy he loves you with holiness

Since he is just he loves you with justice

Since he is merciful he loves you with mercy

Since he is compassionate and understanding he loves you with gentleness and sweetness

He loves you with the greatest humility and the deepest respect, making himself your equal and making you his equal. He joyfully reveals his face to you saying to you, ‘I am yours, completely yours. And my happiness is to be who I am so that I may give myself to you and be all yours.’

It is easy to find the truth; it is hard to face it, and harder still to follow it …. The only people who ever arrive at a knowledge of God are those who, when the door is opened, accept that truth and shoulder the responsibilities it brings. It requires more courage than brains to learn to know God: God is the most obvious fact of human experience, accepting him is one of the most arduous

Fulton J. Sheen Lift up your Heart

In the Gospel John the Baptist has been preaching a baptism of repentance, a turning away from sin towards the arms of a loving God. He has been stark and uncompromising and the people to whom he has been preaching find themselves in an awkward situation. Some 2000 years later we find ourselves asking very much the same question, ‘What then shall we do?’ The world, the state, the church all seem to be in a mess. The peace which the Messiah came to bring it seems as elusive as ever, whereas the human capacity to create misery in the most dreadful ways makes us realise that we still have some considerable distance to travel. One possible answer is the need for repentance: to change our hearts and minds and to follow Christ.
Our readings this morning speak of the kingdom of God, the God who is in our midst, a mighty one who will save us; he will rejoice over us with gladness; he will quieten us by his love. In all our sadness and sin, we look forward to our yearly remembrance of our Lord’s incarnation. We prepare our hearts, our minds, and our lives, to go to Bethlehem, to see God come into the world naked, vulnerable, and homeless. We prepare to meet him as he will come again, as our saviour and our judge, daunting though this may be, in the knowledge and trust that he saves us, that by his wounds on the cross we are healed.
We are to rejoice, strange though it might seem, just like the people of Israel in captivity, since the Lord God is our strength and our song and has become our salvation. We draw living water, the water of baptism, which saves us. In the midst of our sorrow we are to place all I hope and trust in God who loves us, and who saves us.
We are to rejoice, because as S. Paul reminds the Galatians joy is a fruit of the spirit. As the people who have received the spirit in the sacrament of baptism, of confirmation, or indeed of holy order, our joy in the Lord should set our hearts on fire, with love for him and each other; we shouldn’t worry about anything, but instead we should trust in God: the God whose peace surpasses all understanding.
We are to share this joy with others, to share the good news of Jesus Christ to all people, and not just in our words but our deeds. If we share what we have, if we are generous, if we work for justice and are clothed with humility, showing our joy in mutual love, God’s kingdom will be advanced. We, here, now, know that Jesus will come and will judge us by the standard of love which he set for us to follow. Let us trust God and share that trust in prayer, that his will may be done, and that he may quieten us with his love.
The world around us is full of pain and anguish, and the only way for it to be healed is in Christ, who was bruised for our transgressions and wounded for our iniquities. He still bears those wounds as the wounds of love. As he flung out his arms on the cross, so he longs to embrace the world and fill it with his peace and love. He will not force us; he is no tyrant in the sky. It is the world which must turn to him in love and in trust, and turn away from sin. Our task is always only all things to be joyful in the Lord, and to live out our faith to help the world turn to him.
It isn’t an easy thing to do, and after 2000 years of trying we may seem as far away as when John proclaimed the coming of God’s kingdom
We can just give up, or we can try, and keep trying, no matter how many times we fail, secure in the knowledge that God loves us and forgives us, and that we are to do the same to each other. That in this and all things we may give glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, to whom be ascribed as is most right and just, all might, majesty, glory, dominion, and power, now and forever.