The Annunciation of the blessed Virgin Mary

Transferred from March 25th

For this Feast day of the Annunciation I want us to meditate on two very important things.

The first is the meaning of the Incarnation in light of the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. For, as soon as the Angel Gabriel announced to the blessed Virgin that she was to become the mother of God, the miracle happened. "The Word was made flesh" at the very instant that she accepted her mission with the words, "behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word." The culture of death teaches us that life in the womb is worth nothing, a mere thing to be thrown away. Indeed, the pressure today is to accept birth as the beginning of life, when, in fact, it is simply an early stage in a life that has existed for nine months.

The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats tells of those on the Lord's right hand, to whom the words are spoken: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world...Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. " It also tells of those on his left to whom terrifying words are spoken: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels...Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. "

The Word became flesh, that is, he took into his Divine nature the fullness of human nature. In so doing he sanctified every stage of life, including that of the youngest and most helpless of all people. His brethren include children in the womb, many of whom are murdered every day for the selfish convenience of a wicked generation that does not know God, and that has allowed love to grow cold.

As Christians, we must continue to work for the sanctity of all life, from the moment of conception until death. We must do all we can to protect the children in danger, and to come as well to the rescue of expentent mothers who feel afraid, who feel undue pressure to kill their children before seeing their faces, and think they have no one to whom they can turn. We must be that lifeline to these, so as to save the life, whenever possible, of the one of these, the least of his brethren.

Also, I want us to consider this miracle, the Incarnation, itself. I mentioned before that Mary accepted her mission, a mission that would bring such pain to her, one Friday, that it would be, in the words of Simeon, a sword that would pierce her own soul. Her willingness to accept this mission would be fulfilled thirty three years later by her son, as he would pray in his agony, "not my will, but thine be done." Mary was the only person to share the miracle of the Incarnation with the Lord himself. She also felt more keenly than any other, the pain of his death.

What happened when the Word was made flesh? How did God do this thing? Not by reducing Divinity so that it could fit into a small receptacle. A drop that falls into an ocean is transformed into something grand, into part of an ocean. He did not reduce divinity. Rather, he took human nature into his own divine Person as God the Son. God the Son has taken human nature into His Divine Person, our created nature into uncreated Person. He has taken what is alien to Him, our humanity, as the One who is wholly other from every created nature, to forever transform human nature by making us partakers of the Divine Nature, as is written by the apostle Peter. This person, the Word (the λόγος) is both Uncreated and creature; both Eternal and in time; both omnipresent and local; both King and servant; both Lord and worshiper; both God and man.

This, the Incarnation, is, along with the cross, the expression and revelation of God's love (and, so it is fitting to remember that the Annunciation was originally thought to be the correct date of the first Good Friday, as we have learned). That love is the charity that St. Paul wrote about to the Corinthians, and is poured into our hearts by the Holy Ghost given to us.

__________________________

The following is worth keeping for a devotional to be used in addition to your other regular prayers.

The Angleus

V/. The Angel of the Lord brought tidings unto Mary,
R/. And she conceived by the Holy Ghost.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. (Lk 1:28) Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. (Lk 1:42).
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

V/. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord."
R/. "Be it unto me according to thy Word."

Hail Mary, full of grace...

V/. And the Word was made flesh,
R/. And dwelt among us.

Hail Mary, full of grace...

V/. Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God.
R/. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray: We beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts, that as we have known the Incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ by the message of an angel, so by His Cross and Passion we may be brought unto the glory of His Resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Down to the River

Father and Son in the River Jordan


Bishop with dove and Israeli army escort


JERICHO, West Bank, Jan 18, 2007 (AFP) - Thousands of Orthodox Christians joined in a festive pilgrimage Thursday to the Jordan River site where Jesus is believe to have been baptised.

First a handful of brave souls clambered over a security fence that had been set up to keep them back from the last few, very steep, metres (yards) leading into the river, a few kilometers east of the town of Jericho.

But sections of the fence was eventually broken down by the press of hundreds more in their enthusiasm to reach the slow-moving muddy waters.

They came from much of the Orthodox world, including Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria and as far away as Georgia, as well as Israel and the Palestinian territories, but most of them were Russian.

Dozens of people could be seen earlier, modestly hiding behind sheets held up for them, or simply wrapped in towels, changing out of their clothes and into thin cotton tunics to prepare for a reenactment of their own baptisms.

The event was to mark the Feast of the Epiphany, the time when Jesus began his public ministry by receiving baptism at the hands of John the Baptist.

Western Christians celebrate Epiphany on January 6, which is 12 days after Christmas. The Orthodox, who continue to use the old Julian calendar, mark the date on January 18.

The celebrations, in a carnival-like atmosphere under a warm sun, began at the 5th century monastery of St John the Baptist, which sits on a hill overlooking the river several hundred metres away in what is normally a closed Israeli military zone.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III, was received there by hundreds of faithful and clerics and a marching band of youths, complete with bagpipes.

As he stepped out of his car, he was greeted by another cleric who had been holding a white dove, a symbol of the Holy Spirit, which was released into the air.

After prayers in the monastery church, the dignitaries and pilgrims processed down a winding desert road between mine fields to a pavilion just above the river bank, where were more prayers were sung.

The patriarch then went down to bless the waters of the river itself.

That was the signal for hundreds of people who had been waiting nervously behind police barricades to press forward toward the river, whose steep banks were lined with scrubby trees and rushes.

Israeli soldiers and police did their best to control the crowds, but were eventually rendered useless.

Only a few metres across the narrow river was the Jordanian side, and a number of soldiers had come down to the water to watch.

The scene was a joyous one.

Theona Kakidze had traveled from Tblisi, Georgia with her priest and a group of about 25 pilgrims.

"It is very beautiful," she said. "I can't explain what I am feeling now."

Down by the river, words were unnecessary.

A Russian and his son, who appeared to be about 10 years old, had gone down into the river together. The man embraced the boy and they both disappeared under the water, before surfacing, and repeating the ritual two more times.

That was to commemorate the Orthodox batismal rite, which calls for immersion in the name of the Father, then of the Son and then the Holy Spirit.

Less brave souls had made their way down on to the trampled reeds to dip plastic bottles into the river and then pour water over themselves, blessing themselves as they did.

Two generous and enterprising young men were dipping large tin cans into the water by improvised "fishing poles" and filling the bottles of others.

Standing next to them were two Israeli civil defence workers, armed with coils of strong yellow rope in case anyone needed rescuing.

One woman, clad from head to toe in black, had immersed herself in the river and seemed unable to get out. After several attempts with the rope, two strong young men grabbed her hands and dragged her unceremoniously out of the water.

Elsewhere, people could be seen guarding shopping trollies full of litre and a half bottles that they had filled with the water to take home with them to Russia.

Back on the dais, after the final prayers had been chanted, people scrambled forward to dip their bottles into the water of a large copper baptismal font that the patriarch had blessed.

One Greek nun, who couldn't make her way up, handed her bottle to a man above her, and he dipped it into the font, bringing up not more than a few teaspoonsful.

She took the bottle back with a word of thanks in Greek, and they began to chat.

Then, in a moment iconic of the divisions that plague humanity, and Christianity, she asked the man: "Are you Orthodox or (Roman) Catholic?"

He replied that he was Anglican. She began to berate him and said "this is only for the Orthodox. The Catholics have nothing to do with the Orthodox."

But an elderly woman, with whispy white hair and kindly eyes standing next to her smiled with gratitude when the man, his hand still wet from the font, offered it to her and she pressed it against her face.

Albion Land

The Collect - Epiphany

The Prayer

O GOD, which by the leading of a star didst manifest thy only begotten Son to the Gentiles; Mercifully grant, that we, which know thee now by faith, may after this life have the fruition of thy glorious Godhead; through Christ our Lord.

Commentary

This prayer, by the hand of Archbishop Cranmer, is based on an older prayer in the Gregorian Sacramentary and packs a great deal of meaning. The collect remains unchanged in the various editions of the Book of Common Prayer until the 1979 prayer book, which changed the prayer to read:

“O God, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.”

Compare the ECUSA collect to the Ambrosian collect for Epiphany:

“O God, who hast hallowed this day of election by the first-fruits of the Gentiles, and by the star of thy light hast plainly shewed thyself unto us: grant, we beseech thee, that the new and marvellous brightness of the heavens may ever arise in our hearts; who livest and reigneth with thee...”

It is evident that the ECUSA revision strays from the more profound meaning, evidenced by the deletion of the words “fruition” or “first-fruits.” The miraculous star manifests the birth of God’s only begotten Son, the fruit of the Virgin’s womb. The focus is on the Divine Fruit, of which we partake now by faith and “after this live” may enjoy in glory.

Meditation

The 1549 collect places stress at exactly the right point: the star as a visible sign of the appearing of Christ, perfect Sacrament. Those who made gods of the stars, were by a star lead to adore the one Eternal God. The Orthodox prayer for Christmas Day expresses this well:

“Thy Nativity, O Christ our God,
Has shown to the world the light of wisdom.
For by it those who worshipped the stars,
Were taught by a star to adore Thee,
The Sun of Righteousness.
And to know Thee the Orient from on high,
O Lord, Glory to Thee!

In preparing this meditation I had the following dream, unlike my usual dreams, which are narrative. This dream was iconic.

I stood beneath a dark vault of sky and suddenly a huge star shot from the east and shone immediately over the center and I heard a voice say, "I am the Light in the tabernacle." Then the sky changed to the Virgin's pregnant belly where a ball of fire spun and I heard: "I am the Fire that does not consume the Virgin's vault."

Wow! Lord, have mercy on me.

Alice Linsley

FIRST SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS

The Gospel. St. Matt. i. 18-25

I am going to take a bit of a detour today, and I ask you to bear with me. In fact, you should find this quite interesting.

Readers of Touchstone, a Journal of Mere Christianity, will see in the January/ February issue something a bit unusual from me. It is a satire on the Historical Critical Method that is, from all evidence, more relevant than I had imagined when I wrote it. As if “The Jesus Seminar” had not been silly enough, and quite deserving of the contempt of every genuine historian, the public will soon be treated to something sillier still, called “The Jesus Project.” One of its organizers, Robert Funk, has said that one of the subjects will be whether or not Jesus ever really lived, claiming that this is a testable hypothesis. I find this almost gratifying, because my soon to be published satire deals with a future book by a historian who argues that George Washington was not a real man in history, but merely a collection of various legends, each containing possible elements of truth. Another of this “Jesus Project” organizers, R. Joseph Hoffmann, said: “the first Jesus Seminar may have been——for political reasons——too reluctant to follow where the evidence led. When you have pared the sayings of Jesus down to fewer than twenty, one begins to wonder about the survivors.” That's rich indeed. The method for "paring down" was a simple vote among the "scholars" as to which sayings they liked or did not like. If every science were so arbitrary we would have no medicine or technology.

Genuine history cannot work this way, but charlatans can do whatever they like. Some of you may wonder what I make of the constant bombardment on the traditional understanding of Jesus Christ that is always popping up on television. The idea that the Church has hidden the facts in a conspiracy of silence seems to be the only subject that these sensationalists want to discuss. Well, of course. After all, to make money, I mean real money, why write the same old story that true historians, hindered by integrity, have been writing all along? Make up something new and novel, maybe even as a novel, or as a new theory for an allegedly scholarly book that can land the author on television. And once on television, we’re (rather, they’re) in the money. “The Jesus Project” will feature, among other unusually prosperous “scholars” Dr. Elaine Pagels. Allow me to tell you who Elaine Pagels is. She was a student at Harvard Divinity School who took the standard Church History course on ancient Gnostic heresies that has been the fare of Divinity students for ages, in fact that my brother Addison took in the early 1980s when Henry Nouwen was there. She wrote her first book on the subject of those Gnostic heresies, and has since based her entire career on the thesis of the same book. Her claim was that she discovered these ancient writings and that the Church has been hiding them away from the world, due to their fear that the Gnostic writings would be discovered, and prove that there were different versions of Christianity from the start. She made up a few fictional items to elaborate on genuine history in the process, such as making up entire passages from her own mind and attributing them to one of the Church fathers.

The basic problem is that she never discovered anything, except for a way to make money; the texts of the Gnostics have been preserved by the very Church that she accuses of censoring them, because only the Church has had an interest in their historical value. And, like all these sensational things that are alleged to be recent discoveries, such as the Judas Gospel, the Church has known about them all along, and if not for the Church they would have been lost. The simple fact is, the Church always knew about these books, and as early as the Epistles of Saint Paul and Saint John, you see the process of discrimination between the teaching of Christ’s apostles and the so-called different versions of the Gospel. The Church has never hidden these things, neither has the Church been afraid of them. The fact is, just as we know today that The National Enquirer should be distinguished from a serious newspaper, the Church knew better than to take every book by every crank into the Canon of Scripture. The only book ever taken seriously by parts of the Church as one that should be considered to have been Divinely inspired, but that did not make it into the final Canon of the New Testament, is The Shepherd of Hermas. However, it has long been available in the edition “The Apostolic Fathers.” It was never hidden or lost.

Nonetheless, TV is constantly advertising the latest new sensation that is supposed to shock and rock the faith of Christians; but it is always an old story, and quite boring. So, if you want to know whether or not I am worried about these things, I am not. If anything, it is very hard to hide my contempt for conmen, sensation mongers and the obvious commercial interests that they pander to. In fact, hiding my contempt is so hard that I gave up even the idea of doing so, and wrote the satire that I have so shamelessly promoted before you all. It is right for me to address this from the pulpit, because it is a matter of pastoral concern that falls under my responsibility. You ought to know that the real conspiracy is not one of silence by a frightened Church, but rather a very simple commercially motivated one, namely book sales.

You see, this is relevant to what we read in today’s Gospel. Some of you are aware that recent versions of the Bible deviate from the word “virgin” in the book of Isaiah when rendering the verse quoted by Matthew. The Hebrew word, alma, is now rendered “young woman.” This is very interesting, because it was the seventy Rabbis, that is Jewish scholars, who translated almah into the Greek word parthenos - when translating the Septuagint, that is, the Greek Old Testament that Saint Matthew quoted. The Rabbis who translated the scriptures into Greek knew perfectly well that Isaiah meant “virgin." You see, that is the only possible meaning that parthenos can have. It is ancient Jewish Rabbinical authority that stands behind the use of the word “virgin” when quoting Isaiah- which explains why it is a sign. What kind of a sign from God would it be that a young woman gives birth? It happens many times every day.

So it is that I would like now to concentrate on two other Hebrew words. The first is the name Jesus, so named, as Matthew tells us, of the angel. I am sure that we all know that this is pronounced Y’shua in Hebrew. It means salvation. When students are learning Hebrew much is made of the rhyming words from Isaiah 33:22: “Adonai Shophtenu, Adonai Machkakenu, Adonai Malkenu, Hu Y’shieynu.” It means: “The LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; He is our Salvation.” And, if you are thinking that that word “salvation”- in this case Y’shieynu, is a form of the name of our Lord, the name Y’shua or Jesus, you are right. When it says the LORD is our Judge, the picture is not the judge who sits in judgment of us, gavel in hand, deciding our fate. That picture is quite true and right, since “we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” But, this word, shophat ( or shophtenu- our judge) is the same as what we see in the title of the Book of Judges (Sepher Shoph’tim). When the people of Israel were oppressed by their enemies, and turned from their sins, several times the Lord raised up different men to deliver them. The Spirit of the Lord would come upon him, he would blow the trumpet and gather the men of Israel into an army, and defeat their foes. This judge is a savior. He comes not to condemn the world, but to save it. He is called as well the Lawgiver and the King. Whatever the world is saying, whatever so-called “new morality” is in fashion- for those of us old enough to remember the “new morality” when it was new- we Christians still live by the laws of our king. This is how we cooperate with the saving of our own souls, and aid the salvation of others. So, the angel said to Saint Joseph, “thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” The little word “from” is very important. Modern affirming religion preaches that he saves us in our sins- in fact that we have no sins, and just need Him to raise our self-esteem. But, the angel said, “thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.”

The other name is Emmanuel, God with us. This is what the Bible has revealed from the beginning, and I do mean Genesis. God made man in His own image, because it was the Divine will from the start to take human nature into the Godhead, for the Word to be made flesh. The Fall of man into sin turned that grace into a rescue mission from sin and death. Life is not a test; it is a shipwreck, because what we need as the miserable offenders that we are, is not a grade at the end, but rather salvation from sin and death. Our Fall into sin and death made the cross of Christ into a necessary part of the Incarnation story. By the cross of Jesus Christ our sins are condemned and forgiven in one Divine action. The emergency of our Fall into sin and death made the Resurrection of Christ, by which death is conquered and eternal life is granted in place of mortality, into part of the Incarnation history. God with us is our salvation. The Word made flesh is our Judge, He is our Lawgiver, He is our King; and as Judge, Lawgiver and King, He is our Salvation.

The Collect - Christmas I

The Prayer

The ancient collect as found in the Roman Missal and in the Anglican Missal:

Almighty and everlasting God, vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to govern us in all our doings in the way of thy good pleasure: that we, faithfully serving thee in the Name of thy well-beloved Son, may worthily abound in all good works. Who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.

1549 and subsequent Prayer Books

ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us thy only begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin; Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

Commentary

The Medieval pattern was to use several collects, one after the other, a practice still kept in some Missal parishes. Thus both the specific collect for the Sunday and the Christmas collect (as a commemoration) were used. Cranmer, in the interest of simplicity, preferred to use but one Collect, whenever possible. It would appear that, as the Sunday collect seemed a bit overly generic during such a high festival octave, he chose to omit it and use only the Christmas Day Collect. This latter appears to have been his own composition, artfully weaving together the themes of the various Latin collects for the three Masses of Christmas Day.

Meditation

He came down for us, and took our nature upon Him.
He became man that man might be restored to union with God.
We are adopted as sons and brethren, redeemed, restored, forgiven.
May we be given strength to walk in all the good works to which he has called us.

Ed Pacht

A Christmas Sermon

The following was preached by my rector, and impressed me sufficiently that I asked his permission to post it here.

A Sermon by Father Owen Williams, Christmas 2006 at Trinity Anglican Church, Rochester NH.

Have you noticed that over the past two weeks on television, both cable and broadcast channels, there has been an onslaught, a blitz, an overwhelming number of presentations of Jesus stuff. It is as if we said, “we want to put Christ back in Christmas.” and they, who ever they are, said, “We will give you Christ“. So, not only do we have the usual deluge of “Miracle on 34th Street” - It has been played daily the last two weeks and steadily all day today. – and repeats of multiple versions of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” and don’t forget that today starts the 24 hour marathon of “A Christmas Story” where you can hear over a hundred times, “You’ll shoot your eye out!”

Besides this usual fare of light, or should I say fluff, entertainment, we have had a barrage of documentaries about Jesus. “Yes,” they said, “we will give you your Christ. But our version, and we will dress him up in our fashion and make it appear to be fact.” They said, “We will tell you that this could be the real history. We will do our best to stir up doubts on Jesus, the Bible and the teachings of the Church.” And so we have more stories about whether or not Jesus was married, with sage sounding scholars saying why the Church might have kept this truth hidden. Then there are the gospels that were ‘removed from the Bible’ Like the Gospel of Judas. Or the story about how Christmas really began. Christian leaders usurping pagan festivals of the Roman empire in order to trick them into accepting a new religion. If you only knew the truth. That Christmas is a lie – Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th in the year one.

It is correct that Jesus of Nazareth probably wasn’t born in December or in the year one after his birth. And yes, Christians did adopt the date of a pagan feast. The same was done for Easter and All Saints Day. But this is hardly malevolent. If the desire is to make people think that Christianity is one huge ecclesiastical conspiracy the time is ripe. After all everything you see on the internet or cable news is true. And now that we have third generation families who haven’t ever gone to Church they don’t know any better. And if you tell half truths (which are actually falsehoods if you are using them to denigrate and detract), if you tell these pseudo truths often enough, uninformed people will believe the story being told.

But why would anyone do this?

Three reasons – Greed, Jealousy, and Pride.
Three of the Big Seven – The Seven deadly sins.

Greed – because this garbage makes money. It is amazing what people will watch or read and what advertisers or investors will pay to support bad or misleading research. It is sad to know that there is a market for things like “Jesus the Man, did he really exist?” Jesus and his tomb, Jesus and whatever can be imagined..

Jealousy – Christians have something that most others don’t. We have a God who reached out from eternity and came to be with us as one of us. With that act of incarnation – he made it possible to be the recipient of a special grace – to be adopted children and invited to live in God’s household. With that grace comes hope and a Godly peace. With repentant and regenerated souls, we do not have to worry – about anything. ( I know we still worry even with Jesus’ assurance Mt:6:34: “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

The Jealousy is: If a person can’t have that kind of peace, that kind of assurance – they will try to take it away – or if they can’t have it, then no one will. This Begs the question. Why can’t they have this peace, this grace? It is freely offered. “Come all you who travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” In the Gospel of John Jesus answered and said to the Samaritan woman at the well. “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.”

Why would one refuse?

Pride – And not one kind of pride but three:

Intellectual pride – “I don’t have to listen to people from the past, they are all ignorant and superstitious. Besides, I just published my fifth book on the subject so I must know more than all of you.”

Selfish pride – “I will not be told what to do or how to think. If you say I have to believe in this Jesus in order to be saved – well the cost is to high. If I have to repent, admit I was wrong No way! I DO HAVE MY PRIDE.”

The third type of pride is best described as Satanic pride. “If I have to accept Jesus as my Lord and Saviour - well the cost is too high. I am in charge of my own destiny. I will decide if I go to heaven or go to hell or attain a new level in some new age metaphysical reality.”

John Milton put it best In his poem Paradise Lost

“Here we may reign secure; and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.”

This is what Christians are up against. A darkness which is ever trying to cover everything, a darkness that is best at hiding itself. A darkness that feeds on ignorance, falsehoods and doubts. And yet, it is able to succeed in putting out the light.

But tonight we are celebrating light.
Not the light of a star over a stable in Bethlehem.
A light coming from that manger.
A light that can never be overcome by the darkness
- can not be understood by it.
God from God – becoming man – Jesus Christ
– so that we might know the Grace and the Peace of God, both now and ever.

Posted by Ed Pacht on St' Stephen's Day.

Christmas

The generation I belong to was very quick to use the word “peace” and to use symbols of the idea of peace as a greeting, or as a protest, and sometimes even as a reason for hostility and violence. In many ways the people who were young during the Vietnam War were a reflection of an earlier generation that had lived through World War I. Because of its abhorrence of war, that generation came to be typified by the weak image of Neville Chamberlain stepping off the plane after it returned from Munich, waving his paper signed by Hitler, and bragging that their agreement was “peace in our time.” The highest ideals are easily shattered because, by themselves, they are not strong enough to stand against the reality of evil. Chamberlain’s ideals made him weak, and that weakness was the cause of the War that soon enveloped Europe and most of the world, a war that may have been prevented if Churchill had been in charge. Right now Americans debate the right or wrong of a war that, as a smaller part of a bigger war with radical Islamist terrorists, may have been a mistake- or maybe not. But, one thing is certain: as long as mankind lives subject to sin and death, we have no reason to expect the kind of peace that the youth of the 60s, or that Neville Chamberlain, envisioned. For true peace to prevail in the world, we must wait for the Last day when Christ returns in glory and brings His kingdom. And the reason is simple: Mankind is fallen and sinful.

So then, what is the meaning of the song of the angels on that first Christmas? What did they mean by the words “Peace on Earth; Goodwill toward men”? Looking back at World War I, the president of the United States was sure that his League of Nations (which was rejected by his own country) would be the answer to all of the world’s problems of war. He even went as far as to say that he, President Wilson, would succeed where Christ failed- since peace among nations had not been established by the ministry and life of Jesus. That is not only a tragic commentary on the weakness of idealism, but also on the foolishness of bad theology. The answer to President Woodrow Wilson’s pathetic statement is two fold: 1) Christ did not come to establish some political worldly peace among nations, and 2) it is a blasphemy to say that Christ failed at anything. He did establish the peace that was his mission; the angels were right. For the real war that afflicts the human race is the war between man and God.

Remember the story of Noah. So often when Noah is depicted emerging from the Ark, including the movie when he was portrayed by John Huston, we see the rainbow and think of God’s promise not to destroy mankind. But, in fact, the symbol of God hanging up His bow (the rainbow) in the heavens to show that he would not aim His arrows at the world, and the promise not to destroy the human race, did not come as soon as Noah and his family left the Ark. In the story, in Genesis, this comes after Noah offers a sacrifice on an altar. After the animal is slain, and the smell of the burnt offering goes up, God makes this promise that mankind will be spared destruction. And, like everything in the Old Testament, it is meant to be an incomplete picture needing fulfillment, a shadow of the true figure, a type pointing to the reality. The baby, in whose birth we rejoice this day, lying in a manger, is the sacrifice. The shadow of the cross on a hill just outside of Jerusalem falls across the stable in Bethlehem.

“Nails, spear shall pierce Him through
A cross be borne for me for you,
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
The Babe the Son of Mary.”

Only in light of His coming death years later, could the angels speak that night of “peace on earth, goodwill toward men.” They did not say “goodwill among men.” They said “goodwill toward men.” The picture of Noah’s sacrifice bringing a promise of survival for humanity now takes on the beginning of fulfillment. This peace is with God, an end to the warfare caused by sin and death; the goodwill comes from above to undeserving, fallen mankind. On Christmas “the babe, the world’s Redeemer first revealed His sacred face.” We feel joy at seeing this great love whereby God the Son, the creator of all life, one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is revealed in human flesh in great humility as an infant of a poor family, so poor that a manger is his bed. Yet, in the midst of this joy we know that He came to bear the cross. And, by bearing the cross He would be the true sacrifice for the sins of the world, the sacrifice to which Noah’s offering, and the later offerings of the Old Testament priesthood on the altars of the Temple, bore witness as mere types and shadows of the reality. The night in which the angels sang their praise to God and spoke of peace is answered by another night- “the night in which He was betrayed.”

On that night he would establish the Church’s Eucharistic sacrifice that speaks even louder and cleared than the Old Testament types and shadows on blood stained altars; for the Church’s altar, on which nothing is slain, is mystically joined to the cross upon which our Savior died, and therefore joined to “his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world.”

The Peace of which the angels spoke is best understood with words by Saint Paul, in his epistle to the Church at Rome: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God (Romans 5:1,2).” The coming of Christ into the world brought this peace- peace with God; his second coming will establish the fullness of a peace that lasts forever, because there will be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, for the former things are passed away. Of His government and peace will be no end on the throne of David. His government as the eternal King will bring peace because sin and death will be no more. For now, however, we are offered the gift of being reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. Our hope for eternal life is directly bound up in how we respond to this gift, made available to us only by means of His death and resurrection.

So, this simple phrase from the angels’ song speaks volumes- that is, it speaks all of the truth from all of the books of sacred scripture. The mystery of the Incarnation, of the Word made flesh, tells of a love that responds to our greatest need, namely, to have peace with God, to be reconciled with the one who made us and gave us life as the first of His gifts.

The humility of God is a staggering fact that leaps off the pages of the Gospels. For we see the Son, equal with God, deem to be made human for the sake of a race of rebels; to take upon Himself our very nature, to be found in fashion as a man, to take upon Him the form of a servant, to be obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, as spoken of in Saint Paul’s famous passage to the Philippians. This obedience and service would be quite remarkable from someone who is a creature; but the Son is not a creature; He is begotten not made. He is equal with God, eternally one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. What great kindness shown to us, the race of rebels, that we see His sacred face the holy night of His birth. Into the eternity of His Divine Person He took time; into His Godhead eternally begotten not created, He took our created nature; into His omnipotence he took the weakness of a newborn infant; into His omnipresence He took the location of a human body; into His omniscience He took the mind of a man. Into His Divine life as the maker of created life, He took our mortal nature, indeed death itself and so swallowed up mortality in eternal life.

In all of this we see that God does not deal with us as our sins deserve. If we must cast aside our hope in the best idealism that fallen man can muster, it is for a greater hope, a love that exceeds the story of every romance ever written. It is the love of God for the undeserving children of Adam, benevolence extended where wrath is deserved, immortality where death is justly due, the joy of God’s kingdom where Hell was earned. This hope for all who will believe and repent, purchased by our Redeemer’s shed blood, sealed by His resurrection and trampling of death, is peace with God. This is the song of the angels: This is “Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men.”

The Collect - Christ Mass

The Prayers

ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us thy only begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin; Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

O GOD, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the birth of thine only Son Jesus Christ; Grant that as we joyfully receive him for our Redeemer, so we may with sure confidence behold him when he shall come to be our Judge, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world with out end. Amen.

Commentary and Meditation

It is often forgotten that there is a sense in which we are NOT God's children until we become Christians, whether as baptised infants or converted adults. Until we are "born again" (John 3.3-8), that is, re-generated. There is also a sense in which all human beings are children of God, "God's offspring" as St Paul said, citing a heathen writer (Acts 17.28-29). What's the difference?

Well, to put it bluntly, humanity left home and repudiated its Divine Parent, rupturing the relationship. Nothing we have done could ever change the fact that God is our Creator-Father. Nor the fact that not only do we owe our origin to His act but our essential nature to a reflection of His Being. We are and remain "in his image". But the Father-Child relationship is not just about origin or general similarity. To be an ongoing experiential reality it must involve shared life and love. It is this that we abandoned.

Before the Fall, for a short time Man enjoyed the gift of supernatural life and so was enabled to live in a way that would not have been possible on the basis of unaided human nature. You see, we were never meant to "function" properly or fully without this super-added grace. We were designed from the beginning to be more than natural (in the scientific sense). Indeed, we were designed to connect Nature and SuperNature and to constantly relate to God in such a way that our internal relationships between soul and body as well as our relationships with other humans and other creatures were perfectly ordered. At the Fall this gift was thrown away and, in the process, even that aspect of "mere" human nature that reflected divine nature was also damaged and disordered. We both lost the grace and defiled what was left.

This leaves unregenerate human beings, at least if they have actualised their Fallen-ness in actual sin after the age of reason, as "children of wrath" (Eph. 2.3). This rather terrifying phrase confronts us with both God's hatred of evil and its presence within humanity. And the evil of what Christians call "the old man" (Eph. 4.22) is not simply there as an ugly and unfortunate but passive characteristic of Fallen nature; no, it is active, choosing and chosen. Sin is self-reinforcing.

But, thanks be to God, for He has broken in on this cycle of ever-increasing hopelessness with his love. He takes us back into His arms with forgiving mercy and simultaneously restores to us as an inner and active reality the sharing of divine life that we had lost. This is the "adoption and grace" and regeneration and renewal spoken of in the first Collect.

It is also true that we ask for "daily" strengthening of this gift of salvation in the Collect. One reason we need to do this is that while our regeneration has given us a new identity, a new relationship and the beginnings of a new nature, the "old man" has not been annihilated utterly yet. Concupiscence, as it is also called, remains to be fought and conquered. The difference is that as Christians we can fight concupiscence from an inherently victorious vantage point. We stand in Christ, anchored on Calvary, the power of his Death and Resurrection within us. Let us have faith in this renewal, this power, this victory. We are born again. We are "sons in the Son". Let this truth sink into you and quicken your Christmas joy. The Child lives. He is born within.

Fr Matthew Kirby

Not Enemies but Brothers

"Each and every person, even soldiers and political leaders, has the capacity to appreciate love, salvation, and life. But for that to happen, a conversion must take place, a conversion from death to life, from viewing the other as an enemy and a murderer to viewing him as a brother and a giver of life."

A Christmas message from the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Michel Sabbah, calls for renewed efforts to bring an end to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

http://www.lpj.org/newsite2006/patriarch/archives/2006/12/christmas-message-en.html

Calculating Christmas

For those who want a true and better explanation for the date of Christmas than is provided by the errors of "common knowledge," I recommend an article by my friend and fellow Touchstone contributing editor, Dr. William Tighe. This appeared in the December 2003 issue of Touchstone, and has made quite an impression (being mentioned in such places as the book The Da Vinci Hoax by Sandra Miesel and Carl Olson). This thesis is developed by Dr. Tighe in his usually thorough way, rich with documentation. So you think it was because of the date of a pagan festival that was taken over by the Church? Well, read the article and be disabused.

Many Christians think that Christians celebrate Christ’s birth on December 25th because the church fathers appropriated the date of a pagan festival. Almost no one minds, except for a few groups on the fringes of American Evangelicalism, who seem to think that this makes Christmas itself a pagan festival. But it is perhaps interesting to know that the choice of December 25th is the result of attempts among the earliest Christians to figure out the date of Jesus’ birth based on calendrical calculations that had nothing to do with pagan festivals.

Read the whole article, and feel free to comment here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

To all my fellow Americans, whether they are at home or, like me, abroad.

I nearly forgot, as it is "just another day" here in Cyprus, and my mind was occupied with all the horrors of the news in this part of the world -- the biggest sectarian slaughter yet in Iraq since the end of the war, the funeral in Beirut of an assassinated cabinet minister and the Palestinians' first Granny Bomber.

There is so much that we have to be thankful for, and I trust our prayers are with those who are enduring so much suffering.

I also have a personal anecdote to share -- and I can't think of a more appropriate place to do so than on this Anglocatholic blog.

As it happens, I am a descendant of one of those Pilgrims who celebrated the first Thanksgiving in the Plymouth Colony, and my middle name -- Winslow -- is in honor of him, Edward Winslow.

But I think if Edward knew about my churchmanship, the poor fellow would spin in his grave. You see, he was very much a Cromwell man.

Here is a potted biography of Edward Winslow, from mayflowerfamilies.com:

One of the first to step upon the shores of the new land, Edward Winslow was elected governor of Plymouth in 1633. He was called a printer of London and is believed to be the principal author of Mourt's Relation (1622) and the author of Good News From England, A Relation of Things Remarkable in That Plantation (1624), Hypocrisie Unmasked (1646) and New England's Salamander (1647).

He returned to England several times, and in 1624, his first trip, brought back the first cattle of the colony. In 1635 he was jailed in Fleet Prison, London, for seventeen weeks--persecuted for solemnizing marriages as a magistrate. Winslow was the son of Edward and Magdalene (Oliver) Winslow, and the eldest of five sons, all of whom came to Plymouth. His first wife, Elizabeth Barker "dyed in the first winter," and he remarried Susanna White, widow of William White, a fellow Mayflower passenger and who also died in 1621. Of five known children, Josiah ("Josias") and Elizabeth were the only surviving children mentioned in his will.

Edward Winslow was twenty-five years old when he arrived at Plymouth in 1620, and he was thirty-seven when he became governor some twelve years later. One of only two men to alternate as governor with Bradford (the other being Thomas Prence) during the 1630s and 1640s, he was probably the most aristocratic of the Mayflower passengers in upbringing, and certainly in outlook (his correspondence with Bay Governor Winthrop shows a thorough underlying belief that some by birth were intended to govern).

Winslow became the colony's main emissary to England, and he engaged in numerous diplomatic and trade negotiations with the other New England colonies. In 1646 he was chosen by Governor Winthrop and the Bay Colony magistrates to go to England as their representative to defend the Bay General Court from the charges being made to Parliament by William Vassall and Robert Child .

At the time Bradford ended his History, Edward Winslow was still alive in England, and the last words of the History are "So as he [Winslow] hath now bene absente this 4 years, which hath been much to the weakning of this govermente, without whose consente he tooke these imployments [that is, Parliamentarian service] upon him," a double lament.

While in England for the last time, Winslow accepted employment in Oliver Cromwell's government and in December of 1654 was appointed commissioner, along with Admiral William Penn and General Robert Venables, of the ill-fated expedition to the West Indies to capture the island of Hispaniola from the Spanish. After the defeat at Santo Domingo, Edward Winslow died of a fever on the voyage from Hispaniola to Jamaica and was buried at sea. "He fell sick at sea betwixt Domingo and Jamaica and died the eighth day of May, which was about the sixty-first year of his life."

Happy Birthday to us

I was trying to think of something profound to say for this occasion. I looked at various articles in early draft form to try to find one that could be quickly finished and published. Then I thought about writing something not so theological, or something off on a tangent. But for various reasons I have decided against that, for now.

So, I will just say this: I am glad Albion invited me to participate in this weblog and thank him for the opportunity. I'm sorry I have not contributed much lately. I'll try to make what I do contribute substantial and edifying. I hope and pray the 'blog will continue to grow in readers and make a difference ecumenically.

The Continuum is One Year Old

It is already November 12 in some parts of the world, so I can honestly say that it was a year ago today that I created The Continuum, never imagining that it would blossom in the way that it has.

For those of you who have never read the masthead, this is what was on my mind at the time: I envisioned a "place where those who live in the Anglican Continuum, or who are thinking of moving there, might share in robust, if polite, discussion of matters theological and ecclesiological."

Not long after, I began to flesh out that idea by proposing to make The Continuum the preeminent site for news about the continuing movement and for discussion about what it is, where it is and where it should be going.

At about the same time, I approached Fathers Robert Hart of the APCK and Matthew Kirby of the ACC, with whom I was familiar from other blogs, to join me as co-hosts. They very graciously agreed to do so, and have been mainstays ever since -- both of them with their insightful theological commentary, and Fr Hart also with what has now become a most welcome and inspiring weekly feature, his Sunday sermon.

Also at around the same time, I got to know Ed Pacht. A poet and a Reader in the ACA, he was one of the first people to become a regular commenter on the blog. So impressed was I by his enthusiasm and sensitivity, that I asked him to come aboard as my third co-host.

We have come a long way since. I am thrilled to say that earlier this week, the blog passed the 25,000-hit mark. While I am sure that some of the blogs linked in the sidebar probably have about that many every month, I am quite pleased that we have made gone so far in such a short time, and with what is probably still a fairly small target audience.

Moreover, there is a sense of family with others, including Warwickensis and Death Bredon, who were regular contributors and who then went mysteriously silent. I later discovered the reason why. There O Cuniculi! and The Patristic Anglican blogs were born not long after mine.

This closeness has been strengthened by creation of the Continuing Anglican BlogRing by the host of another mainstay of our genre, Continuing Home. (I hope he will forgive me for not mentioning his name, but it has slipped my mind and I couldn't find it on his blog).

It is also strengthened by the generosity with which I think we all share our material and our commentary, and I am particularly mindful of Fr Gordon Anderson, at The Continuing Anglican Churchman, whose blog celebrated its second birthday just a few days ago.

I would like to thank all of you, and those others, who have been kind enough to link us on their blogs, and to thank CaNN, whose famous Web Elves have increasingly seen fit to include us in their incomparable digest of news and commentary.

Looking forward to our second year, I can only say that I am still saddened by the dearth of news about the continuing movement, here and elsewhere. I would hope that this will change, and that we here at The Continuum can be a force in making that happen. To that end, I would be most grateful if regular readers would do whatever they can to see that we are linked on their parish, diocesan and provincial sites.

In the same vein, I would renew the invitation I made to one and all early on: if there is an event you want to see publicised or a topic you think should be written about, either by us or by yourselves, contact me offline and let me know about it.

I am also working with Ed Pacht on an idea to include more spiritual and inspirational material in the blog, and hope eventually to make the site a bit more graphically pleasing and technologically sophisticated. The latter will first require me to become more graphically and technologically savvy, so bear with me.

In closing, let me thank all of you, those whom I have mentioned and those I haven't, for helping me to make this a joyous experience. The Continuum is part of the emerging electronic ministry of sharing the traditional Anglican faith across the world, and I thank God for giving us the opportunity to excercise that ministry.

May the Father's blessing be upon us, the most Holy Spirit our constant guide in all that we do, so that we might glorify God in all things, through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Albion Land

THE FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING

Colossians 1.12-20
St. John 18:33 – 37

In my own experience the very real clash of two kingdoms has been visibly portrayed in a scene very much like something right out of the Gospels, and even more directly from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. Several years ago I was teaching a lesson from the scriptures as part of a regular Friday evening service of prayer in a chapel, part of church just outside of Baltimore. When I had said my bit, and we were closing in prayer, a woman in her thirties who had been coming to church regularly with her parents, began to be tossed around by an invisible power that controlled her. She was levitated a bit off the floor, and looked very much like a marionette on strings being jerked about by a mad puppeteer, twisting and bending in movements that no trained dancer could imitate. She landed on the floor, telling everyone that the Messiah was present, speaking in the Hebrew language that no one there but I could understand. She landed on the floor crying out, finally, "Meshiach! Meshiach!” over and over.

The demon, or unclean spirit, was right about that, because the Messiah was present with us as we were praying before His throne, just as He promised in scripture. I was reminded that the demons, who, as Saint James informs us “believe and tremble,” would often cry out accurate things, such as that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, or, as in the sixteenth chapter of Acts, that the Apostles had come to show the way of salvation. While she was lying on the floor in a state of bondage to an evil bullying spirit, I knew that this thing inside her was panicking, and that the presence of Christ with us that night was the cause of it. I learned later that this woman had for a while departed from the faith and involved herself in occult practices, and that she was now, in this service, praying for the first time in years. This explained why she always looked gloomy and depressed since we had first met her.

I did not know any of this at the time, but I knew what I was dealing with. So did everyone else, because all of those people who had been praying and holding their standard service that was held every Friday night at that church, were huddled next to each other at a safe distance across the chapel. Diane was standing right behind me, as I recall, pregnant with David (now 21). I spoke directly, just as Saint Paul did in the sixteenth chapter of Acts: “I command you, in the Name of Jesus Christ, to come out of her.” I said this a second time, and added the word “now.” The woman looked up at me, suddenly as if awaking, and began to weep. All she knew was that one moment she was praying for the first time in years, and the next moment was lying on the floor looking up at me, with no idea what had happened in between. After several months her parents moved to Florida, and she went with them. From the time of this impromptu exorcism until she moved away, never again was she a depressed or gloomy sight, but rather always vibrant and appearing to be quite joyful, like someone back from the dead.

In today’s Epistle Saint Paul tells us that God “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son: in Whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” The real fight is between the kingdom of God and the usurpation of the Devil; and in this fight there can be no contest in the ultimate sense, because God’s power is unlimited, and even the powers of darkness are merely creatures who cannot withstand Him. But, for us, the battle goes on because we have to deal with those three enemies, the world, the flesh and the Devil. Furthermore, only those who have been translated into the kingdom of Jesus Christ and who appreciate something of what that means, are in the fight at all. “The world,” says Saint John, “lies in the lap of the evil one.” When the term “the world” is used in this very unpleasant way, it is a specific use of that word that is different from what that word normally means, different from such statements as “for God so loved the world…” In that sense it speaks of God’s creation, and especially of the human race made in His image. But, in the sense that our Lord uses it in today’s Gospel: “My Kingdom is not of this world,” it means something else. For that definition we go to the first chapter of the Gospel of John, and see that it says, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.” The world, in that sense, speaks of the fallen condition of man under the dominion of the evil one, also called “the prince of this world.”

So, Saint John tells us, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” (I John 2: 15-17) In that one category, “the world,” we come face to face with the flesh and the Devil. The flesh because we are fallen from grace, as sinners, and the Devil because he dominates the world of sinful humanity. I know this as a theologian, and I believe that no historian could dare to contradict the fact that the world is subject to evil.

The world is not what it should be, because man is not what he should be, but is, rather, fallen and in need of redemption. It has been stated by many religious folk that life is a test. What a horrible lie that is. If it were a test we would all fail. Life, due to the Fall, is not a test but a shipwreck. And, the One Man who saves us from the shipwreck of sin and death is none other than God in the flesh, Jesus Christ the Son of the Everlasting Father. He does not receive His authority from the realm we call the world. “My kingdom is not of this world,” He told Pilate. Earlier, the Lord had said to the people: “Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.” (John 8: 23, 24) Little phrases in scripture mean so much, and very easily we overlook their significance. Jesus spoke of Himself as the One who has come into the world. He alone can say that. We did not come into the world. We were conceived here, and this is our native home. But, the Son of the Everlasting Father is “God of God, Light of Light, very God of Very God, begotten not made.” This world was not the origin of the Word who was made flesh and dwelt among us. Into His eternity He took time, into His divinity He took humanity, into His uncreated Person he took a created nature, a nature alien to His true identity as Wholly Other from every created thing. And the King allowed His rightful subjects to beat Him, humiliate Him, and crucify Him so that the Lion of the tribe of Judah Himself could be for us the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; so that we could be translated out of the power of darkness into the kingdom of God’s dear Son, in whom we redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of our sins.

What does the king give to us so that we can go forth in His name and conquer the power of evil, and deliver captives from the power of sin and death? Not the sword. “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.” If not military might, then what? As said the prophet Zechariah: “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.” (Zech. 4:6) On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit empowered the Church for its ministry in hostile territory, to take ground in the word, to bring the Gospel to every nation under heaven. And, the power of the Holy Spirit is present when we care about the truth. The power of evil is in the lie; it is in deception. The powers of darkness do not care what you believe just so long as you do not believe in the truth of Jesus Christ and His Gospel. The authority of Jesus Christ as the King is found, here and now until he comes again in glory, by proclamation of the truth. “Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.”

No matter what your political persuasion, no matter what turns the tides of history take, the whole structure of the fallen world is the power of deception, of the lie. “Yea, hath God said?” and, “Ye shall not die.” The lesson early on in Genesis is that deception, the lie, was used to bring man into bondage to sin and death. In Genesis chapter three we read: “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” “Good for food…pleasant to the eyes…desired to make one wise.” From this, no doubt, Saint John taught us that which we have heard already, “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.” These three elements of the world that knows not Christ, were the method of the lie, the essentials of deception. And, so it remains to this day. The lie is always drawn from these three things, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. These have brought about every destructive habit of sin by which people ruin their lives, these have brought about all the wars and bloodshed throughout time, and these will taper off into a quiet complacence to lure you into apathy about your own soul and those of the people around you.

Against these essential elements of the lie is the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Word made flesh. Against the lie is the truth that the Son of God has been manifested to destroy the works of the Devil. Against the deception is the truth that Jesus Christ has taken our sins on Himself and nailed them to His cross, that by death he would destroy him who has the power of death, and by His resurrection deliver to us His gift of immortality, making us able by grace to live and reign with Him forever. His kingdom is not of this world, and in Him we are not of this world either, though for the time being we are in the world to occupy until He comes.