O COME, ALL YE FAITHFUL
The Rev’d Phillip Channing Ellsworth, Jr. 
31st December 2017, 1st Sunday after Christmas
Based on John 1. 1 – 14.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” May I speak in the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Christmas continues; it goes on to the Feast of the Epiphany, the 6th of January, on its way to the Feast of the Presentation or ‘Candlemas’, the 2nd of February, when we mark the baby Jesus being presented in the Temple 40 days after he was born. The Christmas / Epiphany cycle commemorates three infancy epiphanies — the first to the poor shepherds, the second to the three Magi, and the third to the elderly, righteous Anna and Simeon. 

Today I want to reflect upon one of three familiar Christmas carols. We could first note that there are three kinds of carols. The first is basically “Baby, it’s cold outside. Let’s warm up by a fire.” (See, ‘Jingle Bells’, ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas’, ‘Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly’). The second is favored by Ricky Bobby of Talledega Nights, “Sweet Baby Jesus” (‘Away in a Manger’, ‘Once in Royal David’s City’). 

There’s a third kind. It limns all sorts of disturbing, incomprehensible, and bizarre ideas, and it’s the incomprehensible stuff I want to reflect upon today. I want to look at a carol that puts into our mouths things that dumbfound and delight us, O Come, All Ye Faithful. (In coming weeks, we’ll look at Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, and We Three Kings of Orient Are.) 

At the second stanza of O Come, All Ye Faithful we plant our feet and belt, “God from God, Light from Light eternal / lo! he abhors not the Virgin’s womb; / only begotten, Son of the Father.” 112 characters, 22 words, and what a mouthful: you’ve never been so happy to sing such densely-packed, mostly fourth-century words. It’s so much a part of Christmas Eve that last year I awoke in a cold sweat from a nightmare where the Midnight Mass was about to start and John, at the console, launched us into something other than O Come, All Ye Faithful! 

What on earth are we singing? This second stanza of Adeste Fideles answers the question, Who is at the heart of this story? It’s God, the King of Angels, but not simply God as such but God from God, God’s life overflowing from eternity into time, God’s life communicating itself so completely that it makes human life unmistakably transformed.

And when we’ve sung ‘God from God’ we go on to use some of the most ancient and powerful images for what that means, ‘Light from Light eternal’. The early Christian writers were taken with images which would allow you to say that God’s life truly flows out from God into the world and yet leaves God undiminished. What is that like? It’s like lighting a candle from a candle, flame lit from flame. There is no less of the first after you’ve lit the fire. God from God, Light from Light, energy that flows out from God and which is no less than God, because God’s very character is to be generous, to give life. 

There is nothing of God that is not generous. The Most High holds nothing back; that is the divine nature. God gives what God is, very God of very God, ‘Begotten, not created’. There is no beginning to this generosity that is the life of God we encounter in Jesus. There was no moment at which it began, no point at which God said, ‘Perhaps I need to get out more.’ From eternity, God bestows and gives, and it is in the generosity of God’s life that the world itself has its being, life, order, and meaning. God’s generosity is so profoundly lifegiving, that one articulate way to respond to it, to John’s magisterial prologue proclaiming it, is with body language, right knee to the floor. He writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” What a thrill also to sing together, O Come, All Ye Faithful. Merry Christmas! In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.