From the Lectionary for 18 January 2026 (Epiphany 2A)

John 1:29-34 (NRSV Updated Edition)

The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Chosen One[a].”

[a] Other ancient authorities read “the Son of God”

~

"'Lamb of God' is a sacrificial term but when applied to Jesus its sacrificial meaning is radically changed. No longer does it mean that the lamb bears the death God inflicts on sinners as punishment, instead of us sinners who actually deserve it. It is not sacrifice as substitution, him instead of me, but sacrifice as self-giving, all I have and am for you, O God. Sacrifice as utter self-giving, that is the true meaning of sacrifice as defined by Jesus through his death.

"And the notion of 'sin bearing' then has the force not of bearing a load of divine anger but rather of suffering the sharp points of our human violence against each other and thus against the God in whose image we are [...] [O]n the Cross the Lamb of God absorbs into himself all the force of our rivalry and hatred, all our mutual cruelty and contempt. That ability to “draw all men unto myself,” (John 12:32: “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out; and I when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself”), means not that he draws them as saints but as sinners, as violent competitors, who in the Cross may see what wrath they inflict on God and what love God renders in return.

"So this Lamb of God is not the sacrifice we bring to God but the sacrifice God brings to us! This is God's Lamb offered to us not our Lamb offered to God, instead of us. This is the sign and the substance of the fact that God gives and gives, to us who take and take, from him and from each other. This is a new covenant, that is a new way of being together, as givers, as imitators of the generous God whom Jesus described in his parabolic teaching and acted out dramatically in his life."

- Robert Hamerton-Kelly, from a sermon on January 20, 2008 (source no longer available online)

~

"Let's look at this little phrase, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Please notice one thing which seems to me is very important and which time and time again people misquote. People say “Here's the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Umm no, it says the *sin* of the world. It seems to be referring not so much to a collection of bad things as to the whole sphere of [...] a failing creation, that which other parts of the Hebrew scriptures refer to as vanity, the sense of everything grinding down. And indeed the whole purpose of the great Atonement Feast was to bring creation back to its fullness again, precisely taking away the vanity, the failed-ness, the pointing-towards-nothing of things.

"[John the Baptist is] talking, not about someone who's come here to pay a price for things, to tick off, but someone who's come to actually create what I would call an anthropological revolution, the possibility of the New Creation in which everything is able to flow back upwards towards God rather than being ground down into pointlessness, senselessness, going-nowhere-ness, not-being, creation somehow having not having lived up to the value of the glory of God which is what it was made to reflect.

"Anyway, an extremely rich phrase, “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” And it does seem to be referring to the Atonement Lamb, because the Passover Lamb was not sin-related. The part of the Passover Lamb was to redeem the sons, the firstborns of Israel. [...] In John's gospel the Atonement Lamb and the Passover Lamb are brought together, but here it's very much the Atonement Lamb that's being mentioned.

[...]

"And then he ends, “And I myself have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.” John's witness was what John was all about, preparing and being able to say, “This is the one, this is God's son.” The Son, the one who is going to perform the sacrifice not only with the water but the water and the blood - that's a phrase which we'll get later in John's gospel. In other words, here was the one who was going to do the two things: fulfill Exodus and the atonement, the water and the blood, the baptism and the sacrifice. Only the Son, the Davidic heir, the great High Priest, the One who is going to be able to renew creation from within, only he was to be able to do that."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Second Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023 A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G9xgCLsPDo)

[For further analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/epiphany2a/]

From the Lectionary for 11 January 2026 (Epiphany 1A - Baptism of Jesus)

Isaiah 42:1 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
    my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
    he will bring forth justice to the nations.

Matthew 3:13-17 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

~

"As he was baptized, the heavens opened, the Spirit descended, and a voice from heaven said: “This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.”

"This proclamation refers to two key verses in the Hebrew Bible that tell us what baptism is all about. In Psalm 2, the king, the Messiah is singled out from the raging nations that are rising up against the Lord and his anointed. The inundation of baptism draws Jesus out of the inundation of the nations raging against one another. In Jesus, we too are drawn out of this inundation and so freed from raging against everybody else.

"But we are not freed from being the target of raging nations when they unite against the one who has been freed from their wrath. These baptismal words spoken to Jesus also refer to Isaiah 42:1, the first line of the first song of the Servant of Yahweh. Throughout these songs, the Servant has been called out of a violent society to become instead the victim of that society's violence.

"Unlike the Psalmist who threatens the raging nations with a rod of iron, (Ps. 2:9) the Servant does not retaliate in any way against the violence inflicted on him. In baptism, we too are overwhelmed by the Servant's suffering, but then we are also overwhelmed by God's vindication of the Servant."

- Andrew Marr, Moving and Resting in God's Desire, pp. 189-90

~

"Now “all righteousness” means the whole of the prophets and the law. Remember in Matthew it's “the prophets and the law,” rather than “the law and the prophets” - Matthew understands that the law itself is prophetic, it's pointing towards a prophetic fulfillment, which is why Jesus is the prophetic fulfillment. And so here, “all righteousness” - that of the law and that of the prophets.

"And the fulfilling all righteousness is going to include Jesus occupying the space, the place, of death. Why? Because only thus can the Holy Spirit be given. Remember that in the Torah, the whole point of the Holy Place in the Temple is that it is kept from death, nothing to do with death can ever be in it. God is, as it were, allergic to death - quite rightly, God is the Ever-living One, the Almighty One. But the notion of God's deathlessness is seen as something that it needs protecting against by us, it's in rivalry with our lives. But Jesus has come here so as to occupy the place of death, as the opposite, [...] which is what's going to enable the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Life, to be given to us, so that we can begin to live as if death were not.

"And that is how, thanks to Jesus fulfilling the law, by going through even what the law prescribes - the death - that he is going to be able to fulfill all righteousness. So [...] what Jesus is going to do [...] is to actually perform the definitive final sacrifice, whereby God as Son comes in and offers himself a sacrifice to us, occupying the space of death so that we may be set free from it forever. [...]

"[W]hen Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water - and the word “coming up” is the standard word referring to ordination of priests at the time, and the understanding is that once you had been baptized or washed as a priest you had been through death so now you were able to stand in the Holy Place, and the Holy Place was understood to be the place of abundant life, God's effervescent life [...] - but here, the “coming up” is the coming up of the great High Priest - “Suddenly the heavens were opened to him,” meaning exactly that. As he was ordained he was automatically in the Holy Place, the Holy Place was opened to him. In other words, it had started to come about on Earth, that which had been before the foundation of the world was now being made available on Earth.

"“And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.” So, in the New Testament we move gradually backwards to the beginning of Creation, not only all the prophetic uses of water, but now back to Noah who, when the whole world was being destroyed by God's wrath in Genesis, sent out the bird. The first time it came back, the second time it didn't come back because it had settled. So here the Spirit of God settling on him like a bird.

"But even more than that, the Spirit of God  - he doesn't say the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of God like a dove was the spirit that hovered over the waters [at] the beginning of Genesis [...] this is the bird, the Spirit, that hovered over the waters before Creation which is alighting on him. In other words, at last the Creator has come amongst us as human and is going to fulfill Creation in going to his death as great High Priest, so as to open up for us the possibility of entering into the fullness of creation. All of that is foreseen here.

"And the voice from Heaven says, “This is my Son, the Beloved.” [...] In other words, this was done for other people to hear. Jesus is doing something deliberately for us, to make clear the sense of what he's going to do. [...] It's also a reference to [...] God's way of referring to Isaac as Abraham's beloved son, because the same word which is translated as “only begotten” in Hebrew is often translated [also] as beloved. So here is God's promise that God will fulfill: God will provide the sacrifice. God is not going to sacrifice - that's something we do - but God's going to provide so as to undo our sacrificial world from within by undoing death.

"“With whom I am well pleased.” In other words, this is part of [...] not only looking at things and seeing that it's good, but being well pleased. This is the fullness of humanity coming into being, to open up Creation and the Kingdom of Heaven for us.

"So we get this wonderful rich scene in St. Matthew's gospel of the Creator coming in as human to occupy death and open up creation, something that John the Baptist had understood was more powerful than he, but not in a comparative sense - something way beyond what he could have imagined. And something entirely without vengeance or violence, which is going to be for so many people the great stumbling block."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for the Baptism of the Lord, Year A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JRCb70Nrwg)

~

"The crucial center of God's justice is the nonviolent power of love. It is the power which saves humankind and creation from human violence. Until everything is centered on the nonviolence of God, our messaging of the Gospel of New Creation will fall short of the mark of faithfulness to God. Jesus the Messiah is the one who can bring us into that full and true faithfulness.

"Being baptized into the historical events of the death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, is having one's humanity made new in identity with the project of New Creation that these events launch. Circling back: at the center of faithfulness to this project is faith in the nonviolent God and the divine nonviolent power of love."

- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from "Opening Comments: Preaching the Gospel of New Creation" on the lectionary page for Epiphany 1A (link in 1st comment below)

[Source of Andrew Marr and Paul Nuechterlein quotes, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/epiphany1a/]

From the Lectionary for 4 January 2026 (Christmas 2ABC)

John 1:1-18 (NRSV)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.

~

"It is difficult to capture the linguistic connotations of the term ‘logos’ in John 1. Scholars have long debated its background [...] It is a term used in Greek philosophy to refer to ‘the structuring principle of reality.’

[...]

"As the ‘structuring principle of reality’ it is more than ‘speech’, more than ‘power’, more than ‘thought’, more than ‘act’. It is all of the above and more. Friedrich Nietzsche, that great critic of Christianity proposed that the ‘Logos’ is ‘Nonsense’. I want to suggest that this is an insight worth pursuing. For what happens to this Logos is two fold nonsense: this Logos is rejected (1:11) and ‘becomes flesh’.

"Why is this logos rejected? Heraclitus, the pre-Socratic philosopher had identified that which structured reality as ‘polemos’ (violence or war). This is an insight about the way we humans structure reality long before [Rene] Girard discovered the power of violence to shape the way we do this thing called humanity, culture, history and religion. Violence is that which structures our reality!

"The nonviolent Logos, Jesus Christ, the Logos who structures reality in forgiveness will never make sense to a reality structured on violence. This is why so many people, especially Christians, cannot make sense of a nonviolent Jesus or a nonviolent God. We have made God into our own image, rivalrous, violent and retributive. A God who freely forgives apart from sacrifice, apart from blood, is a god who does not fit into this world's (kosmos) way of thinking, therefore this kind of a God is sheer nonsense."

- Michael Hardin (from FB post)

~

"[T]he notion that [creation is] something good is because the One who is bringing it into being allows hints to those of us who are on the inside of what the Creator is really all about, the creation created through wisdom [...] [T]he principle of wisdom is precisely that it's making a live creation, holding it all together in such a way that it shows off of itself the glory of God. It gives off, points up to, gives away the glory of God. If you like, that creation, the wisdom, comes into our midst to open our eyes, to make it possible to be on the inside and actually see something clearly for what it is.

"And in the back of this, [...] part of the deep sense of this is that everything that is, there's a rationale to it, there's a logic to it. Reality is not simply a chaotic and random series of events and things. This is what the creation means, that there is a there's a rationale, an inner structure of reality which, when it's brought alive and we're unable to share with it, opens us up to what's going on, the possibility of us being participants and insiders in this, in creation. The world creation means God's rational dynamic product which is functional, which is for something, and inside which we are and can grow.

"So when we [...] get to St John's Gospel, we have these extraordinary phrases: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” So for “Word” - an act of communication - understand the logical structure, the structure of reality. That's what is coming into the world, the logical structural reality is actually going to enter into creation, to open us up actually to be able to come to life, to become fully alive in creation, to become sons and daughters of God.

"So this baby who is born is not just a baby, he's the beginning of the manifestation in our midst of the dynamic structuring reality of everything that is. If you like, the plan, the form of communication, all of that is being made alive so that it speaks to us and so that if we accept it we can be included in it, so that we can actually become Children of God. [...] We actually get to be the heirs of creation, creation fully alive its entire dynamic, fully revealed. We get to be participants in it.

"In other words - this is something which is less fashionable than it should be in Christian circles - is that Jesus is actually bringing about the reality of what is. That's part of what this birth is, it's the beginning of it becoming available and clear to us, the reality of what is. And as John says, the reality turns out to be  something much, much better than had been hoped for.

[...]

"What's being brought out is how the one came in, making it possible for people to receive him and therefore to become children of God, which meant that he became available as a sacrifice of forgiveness. Those who were able to receive this actually found that forgiveness turns out to be the structuring dynamic. There's not as it were a law and then something to be forgiven. There is the structuring dynamic of everything that is, that is in fact opened out by forgiveness. It is this that we're invited to participate in.

"[The author of the 4th Gospel] is saying here that this is the one that's coming in, this is the one that John the Baptist pointed to. What we're seeing here is not merely a baby, it's the baby who is going to grow into a man, we are going to be able to see him and he is going to become the way, the structuring principle of reality opens us up to it and to being participants in it. This is the greatest thing that could possibly ever have happened [...]

"[The author says], ‘No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.’ This was the Lord, understood to be the begotten, not created, Son of God, who had come into our midst, thanks to the Virgin who became the Holy Place. That was how the ‘shekinah’, the Most High, tabernacled in our midst. And this is how the whole fullness of God became revealed to us, shown to us, but not, if you like, simply something for us to see, but for us to become participants in the making finally alive and full of creation.

"So this is if you like the richness of the Christmas story, the fullness of the invitation that's going on here, and the source of endless joy and the opening up of our imaginations."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for The Second Sunday of Christmas" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upVCydSEUcE)

[For further analysis and discussion on this week's lectionary text: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/xmas2abc/]

From the Lectionary for 28 December 2025 (Christmas 1A)

Matthew 2:13-23 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the magi. Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

“A voice was heard in Ramah,
    wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
    she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazarene.”

Hebrews 2:17-18 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.

~

"In Matthew, Jesus is the new and more powerful non-violent Moses. Moses' birth was also contested and empire his enemy. At the time of Moses' birth the Hebrew women were to abandon their male babies lest the birth of more little boys, who could grow into warriors, threaten the king. [...] In Matthew the new Moses miraculously escapes death at the hands of empire by going to Egypt. Being in Egypt, he is set to come out of Egypt and save all people just like Moses saved the Hebrews. [...]

"After King Herod died, an angel from the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. “Get up,” the angel said, and “take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel. Those who were trying to kill the child are dead.” I love the phrase “get up”; take action, get a move on, get going, it's time to go forward in a new way. These are significant times! Do you believe that? The New Year has arrived, the Christmas break is over. It's time to move back to Israel and reclaim the journey toward wholeness there. The gospel of the non-violent Jesus has been hidden in Egypt and it's time for it to return to its homeland.

[...]

"We end with Joseph and the Holy Family beginning anew in Nazareth. We too are beginning anew; a new year [...] And like Joseph and his family, we are not alone. We journey forth with each other and with the Spirit from God telling us we are non-violently loved and that we can nonviolently love wherever we are. We know we are part of the biggest movement in history that, in the end, will show love as the driver and maintainer of the whole universe."

- Tom Truby, from a sermon delivered on January 1, 2017 (https://girardianlectionary.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Truby-Christmas1-2017-Get-Up-and-Embrace-the-Future-Unafraid.pdf)

~

"[T]he Bible's sense of Christmas is well-anchored in our human reality of pain and suffering, so that it can truly bring us Good News. Our second lesson from Hebrews is a good example. [...] Jesus came into the flesh, not to gloss over reality with fantasy, not even the fantasy world of holiday cheer, but to share in the very things that make up our realities. It says that “he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might pioneer for us a perfect way of salvation through the sufferings of our human reality.” Not around them, or over them. But through them. That's the Good News for us this morning, even in the face of our normal, non-holiday reality. The Good News is that God helps us to face that reality. We don't have to try to run away or escape it.

"No, the gospel stories of Jesus' birth never wander far from that reality. In this age, our culture has built up whole fantasy world stories to surround Christmas, but that's not what the gospel stories of Jesus' birth are like. Luke's story of Christmas is the most pastoral and peaceful. Yet even there the cold reality is that there was no room for Mary and Joseph under a roof, so Jesus was born in a barn. And as Mary and Joseph bring the infant Jesus for his naming, the prophet Simeon tells them, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed - and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” (Luke 2:34-35)

[...]

"Matthew expresses the theme of rejection directly with a story. Three traveling magi welcomed the prospect of a new king, but local King Herod didn't think much of it. He responded with the kind of violence we'd rather not think about, the kind of violence we'd like to forget with our holiday cheer. Jesus is saved at this point of Matthew's story. But for what? We know the ending: eventually the powers and authorities will get their wish and kill Jesus. At the beginning of Matthew's story, it is not yet time.

"But the troubling part is that, in the meantime, scores of other little children are slaughtered by Herod. Isn't that the same kind of reality we go back to this week, the kind of world we live in? We celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace at Christmas, but this week we return to a world of terrible violence, where innocent children suffer and are killed everyday. This is the point of the sermon were I am tempted to find a nice story that will help us to feel better and to make things alright. But there isn't such nice stories, are there? I may search all my sermon resources, and I don't think I'm going to find such a story. I search my own personal story, and I know so. Because I know too many people who suffered terribly as children, who were abused and neglected. And there aren't any nice stories that magically make it alright. There isn't enough holiday cheer to cover over the reality.

"No, there is only one story I know that can begin to make things alright. It is this story of a baby born in a barn, who escaped death at the hands of the authorities as a child, but who did not do so as an adult. No, he knowingly went to his death for me and for you. And it is only the fact that God raised him up from death, that I can begin to have any hope at all. Because that resurrection is the promise that God does ultimately save us from this world of suffering and pain. God does ultimately rescue us from the hands of those who would do us harm.

"I say that it only begins to make things better, because two thousand years later, there are children still being sacrificed to madmen the likes of Herod. But this is because God has chosen a whole new way of living to win us salvation. This new way does not run away from the violence but faces it. Neither does God resort to the old way of doing things, which is to fight force with force. God will not stop the madness by getting caught up in the same madness. No, God gives us a totally new way to live. God neither runs away from the madness, nor gets caught up in it, but stands there in the face of it and continues to love. Love. Instead God came into the midst of the madness, and through a suffering love has begun to pioneer a new way for us. Jesus was the pioneer of that perfect way.

"Why is there still violence? Because love refuses to violently snuff it out. Love only knows love. With this new option, one that will someday end the madness, there may even be more violence for a time. Matthew's story of Herod makes that clear. When those who stand for the old way of doing things like Herod, when they are confronted with this new possibility, they strike out with all that they can muster. But Christ-like love is the power of love that can stand tall in the face of it. And we who are called as disciples are called to follow in this new way of love. Perhaps the best news is that God, in becoming a human being, took on our human nature and has begun to transform it, baptize it, so that we are able to follow in the way of Christ.

"Let's close today with that last line of our second lesson: “Because Jesus himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.” (Hebrews 2:18) Did you get that? Because Jesus fought off the temptation to do things the old way, to use force to fight force and violence and inflict pain on others, because he won out over that temptation, he is able to help us to do so, too. That is the Good News this morning. That you and I, in knowing that story of Jesus, and in the Holy Spirit of that same Jesus, that you and I can beat that temptation, too. We can become new creatures with a new way of life. We can begin to make a difference in this world.

"As we face a New Year, we do so again with the promise that we daily can become new creatures in Christ. The only resolution we need make this New Year is to truly be his disciples. For his is the way that goes through reality, the reality of suffering. Not around it, or over it, but through it. That's the Good News for us this morning as we head back to our post-holiday realities."

- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from sermon delivered on December 30-31, 1995 (https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/xmas1a_ser_1995/)

[Source of links to Tom Truby and Paul Nuechterlein sermons, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/xmas1a/]

From the Lectionary for 25 December 2025 (Christmas Day, Year A)

Isaiah 9:2 (NRSV Updated Edition)

The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
    on them light has shined.

John 1:1-18 (NRSV Updated Edition)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ”) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

~

"The beginning of John's Gospel, even though in one sense it seems the furthest removed from what we're used to at Nativity, which is focusing down on the very practical issues of baby, manger, beasts, swaddling clothes, stars, shepherds - all those very particular human and animal things which attend a birth - and what we get in John's Gospel, if you like, seems so extra-planetary that we pass it off with something like dismay. [...] These 18 verses are some of the most remarkable words ever to have been written in any human language, it would be foolish to try and expatiate too wildly on them. What I would like to do is to say how much closer I think they are to more concrete, more human, more historical sense of a little baby in precarious situation in Bethlehem then perhaps we might give credit for.

[...]

"The beginning was the Criterion, was the Word, the beginning for us of creation. [...] In creation, you remember the Genesis narrative,  “And God said.” The creative Word, the Word that creates. So the Word was at the very beginning of all things, [the] Word was with God, and the Word was God. [It's saying] the creative thing is not simply an extra thing that God happens to do, it is God's criteria for God. We are actually learning something about who God is, when God makes God's Criterion available to us, in, and as, and through creation.

"We pair that off with the very end [of the passage], [...] “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.” So the Criterion that was with God, and the Criterion was God, was in the beginning with God. So it turns out that the Criterion for everything being is a Son. That's in a sense the most extraordinary claim that's for us to understand and from which to get a glimpse of what's going on in the Christmas story. [...] [T]he criteria for bringing everything into being is that of a father's love for a son. The underpinning reality of everything that is, is this sort of affection. The very structure of reality is made available to us through this sort of love.

[...]

"“But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.” Here's the suggestion that the very structuring force of reality, which is a loving structure, finally came into our midst as something that can enlighten us, light us up from within - was the light, was the source of our seeing - has come in and for those who receive him who believe in his name I believe that his name is the same as of the name he gives power to become children of God. [...] He's talking about people being brought into being so that we may actually participate on the inside of creation and discover what really is [...]

"The way that this was made available to us started - of course John doesn't say this, we only get this in Matthew and Luke - started with the bizarre, the bizarrely powerless-seeming sign of the babe born in Bethlehem. This was a wholly, fully human sign. It's us learning to detect the love of the only begotten son.

[...]

"With grace and truth, and through Jesus Christ, the sense of the tenderness and 'not out to get us' - the friendly quality, the backdrop to everything that there is, that this is a friendly gentle adventure - strangely it's that, if you like, the background colours to the Nativity picture, that are some of the most difficult things to get, the background colours which are of the whole of creation actually being vastly more friendly to us if only we could learn to find our way into being sons and daughters of God, those who are actually on the inside of creation. [...]

"So as you come to Christmas celebration this year, think not only of the 3D figures in the creche, what they say about God's power being shown forth in being disposed to be absolutely weak, in the middle of precarious situation, in the middle of people who are going to make his life difficult and ultimately kill him; but also the vast backdrop of the sheer friendliness of creation, that which we're becoming used to learning about and seeing ourselves as sons and daughters. This is, if you're like, not a moral thing but us being shown who God really is.

"He said, “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.” Everything that we learn about God is going to be learned through following the human life of Jesus, and it's going to show us that there is an extraordinary power in weakness, an extraordinary joy in our discovering our likeness with apparent others, and that all these actually tend to show a vastly richer project, adventure - a friendly adventure - which is creation. And that this is the constant backdrop to everything that is. Curiously it's the difficulty of receiving and living from that backdrop which is one of the real challenges of our lives and one of the real joys of Christmas."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for The Solemnity of the Nativity 2022 A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jx9ElzPlWo)

~

"Christmas is the gift that keeps on giving. The Word made flesh in Jesus Christ comes to be born in all people - through the Gospel of grace and truth - the gift of a common identity in a divided world - the gift of peace. This is the present we receive today. This is the gift that we receive in order to give away all year long - the Word made flesh - Jesus Christ - God’s peace to us."

- David Froemming, from sermon, “Christmas: God’s Peace.” (http://www.christlutheranlancaster.com/site/file.asp?sec_id=180019502&file_id=180425357&cpage=180096537&table=file_downloads)

~

"Like a stone on the surface of a still river
Driving the ripples on forever
Redemption rips through the surface of time
In the cry of a tiny babe"

- Bruce Cockburn, from song "Cry of a Tiny Babe"

[Source of link to David Froemming sermon, and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/xmas/]

From the Lectionary for 21 December 2025 (Advent 4A)

Matthew 1:18-25 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to divorce her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

“Look, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to a son,
    and they shall name him Emmanuel,”

which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife but had no marital relations with her until she had given birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.

~

"We are on the very brink of the Nativity. Our sense of the power of the One Coming in has been stretched, challenged, recast over the last three weeks. And now the reality of that power begins to dawn more clearly. And what is astonishing about it, is that unlike any power we know, this power is confident enough to be vulnerable. And that means confident enough in us to be vulnerable to us.

[...]

"[In Isaiah 7:10-16] Isaiah gives [King Ahaz] a sign [...] There is nothing outlandish about it. It doesn't appear to come from Heaven, nor to emerge from Sheol. It is quiet, gentle, ordinary-seeming. A maiden is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Immanuel. It would appear, at first glance to be totally natural, totally from this, human side of things, rather than emerging from something special, divine and portentous. Thus it seems not really to be a sign at all. And yet, it is in this sign of quietude, and confidence that God will reveal himself as the one who loves his people, and who will bring his kingdom to flourishing. It is the sort of sign which is not able to be perceived by those whose attention is fixed on current affairs, on power politics and on strategic calculations.

"Matthew has seen this in his Gospel. He has seen that Isaiah's promise of a sign relating to a kingdom flows into the much fuller sign which is happening now, quietly, and offstage. The fulness of the power pointed to by Isaiah was revealing itself in a gentleness made available under the most delicate of circumstances. For the maiden chosen to bear the son was not living in any well-protected enclave. On the contrary, the first thing which the power dared to do was to make itself visible as a provocation, inviting the maiden who was found to be with child to share the opprobrium of being a single mother in a society where such things might easily lead to death. She was to depend for her reputation, and maybe for her life, on the good will of an untested male who knew that he was not the father of the child.

"What sort of power is it that allows itself to be so vulnerable? It is prepared to trust itself to one of the most notoriously unreliable features of human existence. Not merely the pain and riskiness of human gestation and childbirth. But also the whole of human skittishness around male honour, and the potential for violence which goes with female dependency.

"Beyond even this, as Matthew makes clear, this power is prepared to allow itself to be vulnerable to that most dangerous of constructs: the Law. For Joseph was a righteous man, and as such would know well what Deuteronomy 22 prescribed for cases like this: death by stoning. That Joseph's righteousness already consisted in his being inclined to interpret that law in the most gentle way possible, seeking to obey it by “putting her away quietly” was not something automatic.

"Joseph decides to apply the law in this way, already a fragile act of interpretation, and one which it might not be at all easy to carry out in practice, since “secrets will out”. This decision was made just prior to the Lord inviting Joseph to consider another possible interpretation: that Mary's pregnancy was not in any way something which fell foul of the Law, coming instead from the Holy Spirit. Joseph is given a dream, and in the light of that he is invited to make an interpretation with enormous practical consequences.

"Again: quite how extraordinary is the power that is gentle and confident enough to be able to enter into the practical consequences of a human act of interpretation? For there is no sign that is not also a human act of interpretation. And there can be no riskier way than this to enter into the realm of signs. This pregnant woman is either an adulteress or a virgin blessed by God. What power is it that is prepared to trust that a human will choose the latter, infinitely less plausible interpretation, and then be so gracious as to cover over the vulnerability of his bride to be and allow the sign to flourish?

"It is little wonder that Paul in Galatians emphasizes that Jesus was born under the Law, for Jesus' vulnerability to the Law is the sign of the power of the one who was to fulfil the whole purpose of the Law. This is all about power, as is made magnificently clear in the Introduction to Romans. The fulfilment of all God's promises would come through someone who was of the now failed and insignificant line of David. This one would be declared, or ordained the High Priest of God, God's Son, YHWH himself, bearing the Name by his passing through death in the spirit of holiness.

"Vulnerability to mere flesh; vulnerability to the Law; vulnerability to death: these will be the signs of the power of the One coming in, of his confidence in us, in what we can become, and in what he can make of us."

- James Alison, from facebook post on 18 Dec 2019 (https://www.facebook.com/JesustheForgivingVictim/posts/pfbid0yXSqGzq5YesYmeF4hEnFxCazGVKXoVfAkYknrRAqWvHYBhSXpUwJmDzYJ2GRqqi2l)

[For analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see also: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/advent4a/]

[I also highly recommend James Alison's video "Homily for Fourth Sunday in Advent 2022 A" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whq4HhUxFhA]

From the Lectionary for 14 December 2025 (Advent 3A)

Matthew 11:2-11 (NRSV Updated Edition)

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What, then, did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. What, then, did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written,

‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
    who will prepare your way before you.’

“Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

~

"With each Sunday of Advent, it is as though the Spirit brings us deeper into the Presence by bringing us closer to having our feet on the ground, closer to the present, and closer to our hearts. The Divine heart surgeon carries on reconfiguring our desires so that we can inhabit both the Presence and the present. For how else can we be made alive?

"And this means learning how to be stretched, how to long, how to hope, how to be vulnerable to failure. This is the route without undergoing which there is no Coming. For if we cannot be taken to the end of ourselves, stretched beyond our capacity to imagine a salvation, have our longing forged against the hard anvil of apparent impossibility, then we are still wanting something that is a continuation of our selves, and not the Other who is Coming in.

"There is scarcely a more poignant communication in the New Testament than John’s message from prison: “Art Thou the One who is to come, or wait we for another?” Here is a heart stretched towards a fulfilment that is not of his making, and in the face of which he is vulnerable to a sense of shame, loss and futility. Given what he is undergoing, how can he be sure that he was even pointing in the direction of God’s breaking in? Will this One vindicate him against the enemy who holds him in a dungeon? Even he runs the risk of being scandalized by Jesus.

"The presence of the One who is coming in had been vastly easier to talk about when its time was not yet at hand. And yet now, as it comes in, the presence is very unlike how John, as all the prophets before him, had imagined him. The Presence becomes much more difficult to identify as it draws closer to us in time and place. Shouldn’t the criteria be clearer? Shouldn’t it be more obvious that the One who comes in will recompense his faithful ones and wreak vengeance on evil doers?

"Our Lord replies in two ways. First he replies to John. [...] The signs being given are those of the Creator breaking in to fulfil his creation, which is what the promised redemption was all about. John’s heart, stretched beyond parchedness can rest on this knowledge – can be satisfied, for to the heart attuned to the One who is no part of the order of existing things, a prophet’s heart, a sign of the creative work of God being made manifest is already the greatest refreshment that can be given. It allows the heart to rest on the giver.

"And Our Lord even recognises for John that at the very end of being stretched towards the Other who is coming in, there does lie the risk of scandal. There lies the risk that we will interpret the One according to our own pattern of desire, make of him a resolution of our partisan needs, and so be scandalized into not recognising the real One who comes. If however we are not scandalised, we are set free, we no longer need fear the social other which surrounds us, because we are confident of being held in the regard of that power which is coming in, and which is more solid than any form of group bonding, cultural togetherness or inter-personal prestige.

"Here, at the very edge of the stretched fulfilment, it is as if Jesus knows that by asking people to let go of the very notion of vengeance, of divine retribution, he leaves them with two options – to trust in the goodness of the One coming in, or to be locked in scandal at the collapse of partisan goodness and the constant need to build it up again. This latter possibility is indeed the arrival of a new sort of wrath, but rather than being divine wrath, it is a purely human wrath, one no less powerful for that. A human wrath that is a being enclosed into a scandalised imagination in the face of a goodness far too gentle for it to behold.

"Our Lord then turns to those he was teaching, and comments on John: when the crowds went out to the desert to be baptised, was it just a celebrity show, a collective display of mourning? This week we have an ascetic celebrity. Next week we will have a Hollywood starlet? Yet the crowd fascination is just the same. Was this all there was to John? No indeed! He was indeed part of the solidity of God’s self manifestation, nothing futile about him. The crowd was right to pick up that there was something of God here. Just as John was stretched, even in his imprisonment, so he had been sent to stretch hearts and imaginations towards the fulfilment so that others might find themselves closer to being able to receive the One coming in.

"Yet, and here Jesus is adamant. There is a difference not only in degree, but in kind, between the imagination of John, stretched as it was, concerning the things of God, and the imagination of those who are to find themselves ushered into the Presence, one where human violence has been taken inside himself by the one undergoing the sacrifice, and where there is no violence coming out at all.

"[...] It is easier now for us than for the stretched prophets, for, if only we would remember it, we have seen what John did not live to see: the full purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. Not as add-on qualities but as the full purpose of the Lord. The One coming in wants to show us that there is no violence in him at all.

"Did I say that makes it easier? What is it like to be stretched out in a wrathful world in expectation of the arrival of an incommensurable power who is not wrathful at all?"

- James Alison, from "A Stretching Fulfilment" (https://www.facebook.com/JesustheForgivingVictim/posts/pfbid02jEPbChUdUmBwb3zhpmSAzSiof9kgb8LrBeBhPxDepiTHWQwtqN5wmhj5ZGBn6Z8gl)

~

"Remember that Jesus caused scandal to those who are too good rather than those who are too bad, to those who wanted to sort things out quickly rather than for those who are weak, too weak to do anything. The scandal of Jesus is the scandal of the one who is non-violent and who is going to make a God entirely available as one in whom there is no violence. And now we're on the threshold of beginning to sense what strange potential scandal is coming into our midst as the apocalyptic noise begins to diminish and our Saviour's birth draws nearer."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Third Sunday in Advent 2022 A" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dYXcF3ZXpQ)

[For analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday, see also: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-a/advent3a/]