According to the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship (ILCW) Lectionary (1973), as contained in the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) and Lutheran Worship (1982)
The Christian observance of Christmas began in the West, in the 300s. At Rome, by 336, December 25 had become the beginning of the church year. Pope St. Gregory I “the Great” (d. 604) wrote of three Christmas Masses–at St. Mary Major, at midnight; at St. Anastasia’s Church, at dawn; and at St. Peter’s, during the day.
Luke 2:1-20 is not historical. I, as a student of history, cannot refute the evidence for this conclusion. However, I embrace the prose poetry of Luke 2:1-20, for it speaks of a great truth: Jesus, not the Emperor Augustus, was the Son of God and the savior of the world, regardless of what the Roman government and coinage claimed.
I have the sources and background to parce all the assigned readings. Yet I choose not to do so in this post. Instead, O reader, I invite you to frolic in divine audacity, evident in the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity as a baby (however that worked). I invite you, O reader, to frolic in divine audacity, which continues to influence lives and societies for the better. I also invite you, O reader, to frolic in the mystery of divine love, to feel comfortable leaving the mystery mysterious, and to respond favorably to God daily, in gratitude.
Merry Christmas!
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
JANUARY 9, 2022 COMMON ERA
THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY: THE BAPTISM OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, YEAR C
THE FEAST OF JULIA CHESTER EMERY, UPHOLDER OF MISSIONS
THE FEAST OF EMILY GREENE BALCH, U.S. QUAKER SOCIOLOGIST, ECONOMIST, AND PEACE ACTIVIST
THE FEAST OF GENE M. TUCKER, UNITED METHODIST MINISTER AND BIBLICAL SCHOLAR
THE FEAST OF JOHANN JOZEF IGNAZ VON DÖLLINGER, DISSDENT AND EXCOMMUNICATED GERMAN ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, THEOLOGIAN, AND HISTORIAN
THE FEAST OF SAINT PHILIP II OF MOSCOW, METROPOLITAN OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA, AND MARTYR, 1569
THE FEAST OF THOMAS CURTIS CLARK, U.S. DISCIPLES OF CHRIST EVANGELIST, POET, AND HYMN WRITER
The Reverend Will Humes, consistent with the Roman Catholic tradition of the three masses of Christmas, provides Propers 1, 2, and 3 in his proposed lectionary. Proper 1 is for Christmas Eve. Propers 2 and 3 are for Christmas Day.
St. Gregory I “the Great,” Bishop of Rome (d. 604), provided the oldest surviving documentation of the three masses of Christmas. The midnight mass was at the Church of St. Mary Major. The second mass, at dawn, was at St. Anastasia’s Church. The third mass of the day was at the Church of St. Peter.
Proper 2
The context of Isaiah 62 was the end of the Babylonian Exile. The nations had witnessed the vindication of Israel in 61:10-62:2. The best days of the returning exiles lay ahead. The problem was that, according to all historical sources, those predictions of paradise on Earth did not come true. Returning exiles lived in a poor, backwater satrapy of the Persian Empire. Many people pushed those vaunted hopes into the future.
God is in charge. This is good news for the righteous and bad news for those He consumes. Justification by grace, which results from divine mercy, makes the justified heirs to eternal life, which is knowing God via Jesus (John 17:3). Part of living faithfully, of responding favorably to God in response to divine mercy, is striving to live more patiently as one acknowledges God’s promises. There is always hope, even though some of it has yet to arrive.
Regardless of the year you are reading this post, O reader, I guarantee that global news looks nothing like God’s full-blown reign on Earth. This is a matter of human sinfulness and of divine scheduling. Mustering patience can be difficult, I know, but we need not rely on our strength, which is insufficient anyhow. Fortunately, God seems to smile upon even the effort to muster patience; at least the attempt is a sign of good faith.
Proper 3
The readings from Hebrews 1 and John 1 present the heavenly Jesus, who dwelt among people and met with both acceptance and rejection. All the people of the Earth should rejoice because of the Incarnation, but most do not. This is unfortunate. It is also a matter for divine judgment and mercy; I will not presume to know more about the balance of those two factors than the very little I perceive.
The reading from Isaiah 52 is a prophecy of the restoration of Jerusalem. The Presence of God will dwell with the people, as it did after the Exodus and before the crossing into Canaan, we read. The full victory of God remains for the future, but the Incarnation constitutes a unique divine intervention into human events. The Incarnation points toward intervention and tells us, among other things, that we who follow Christ have excellent reasons to hope for the future.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
MARCH 17, 2018 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINT PATRICK, APOSTLE OF IRELAND
THE FEAST OF EBENEZER ELLIOTT, “THE CORN LAW RHYMER”
THE FEAST OF ELIZA SIBBALD ALDERSON, POET AND HYMN WRITER; AND JOHN BACCHUS DYKES, ANGLICAN PRIEST AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND, ANGLICAN HYMN WRITER AND PRIEST
–William Allen Knight (1863-1957), “Come, My Heart, Canst Thou Not Hear It” (1915), quoted in The Pilgrim Hymnal (1931/1935), Hymn #77
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Part of the mystery of the Incarnation is its counterintuitive nature: a vulnerable baby was God incarnate. This truth demonstrates the reality that God operates differently than we frequently define as feasible and effective. Then again, Jesus was, by dominant human expectations, a failure. I would never claim that Jesus was a failure, of course.
If your enemies are hungry, give them bread to eat;
and if they are thirsty, give them water to drink;
for you will heap coals of fire on their heads,
and the LORD will reward you.
–Proverbs 25:22, The New Revised Standard Version (1989)
Speaking of counterintuitive ways of God, shall we ponder the advice of St. Paul the Apostle in Romans 12:14-21?
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” No, if your enemies are hungry, feed them, if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
—The New Revised Standard Version (1989)
That old sweet song of angels will not attune to heaven our life if we ignore this sage advice–if we fail to overcome evil with good. How we treat others indicates more about what kind of people we are than about what kind of people they are. If we react against intolerance with intolerance, we are intolerant. We also add fuel to the proverbial fire. Is not a fire extinguisher better?
As the Master said,
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
–Matthew 5:43-48, The New Revised Standard Version (1989)
Perfection, in this case, indicates suitability for one’s purpose, which is, in the language of the Westminster Shorter Catechism,
to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.
–Quoted in The United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, The Book of Confessions (1967)
As the annual celebration of the birth of Christ approaches again, may we who follow him with our words also follow him with our deeds: may we strive for shalom on a day-to-day basis. Only God can save the world, but we can leave it better than we found it.
Some of the readings for this occasion seem to indicate that God has, at various times, designated entire populations and refused to permit them to repent of their sins. This reading is at odds with the theology of unlimited atonement (by Jesus, via his death and resurrection), which ends a process begun by the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity as Jesus of Nazareth. My understanding is that (A) all of us are sinners, (B) God desires all sinners to repent, and (C) many sinners simply refuse to repent. In Judaism one can find an interpretation of the lection from Isaiah that insists that God predicted that many people would not understand and did not desire them to fail to understand. In this reading First Isaiah’s mission was to help people to repent, not to prevent it. This makes sense to me.
Why might one not repent? One might identify a set of reasons, but perhaps the most basic reason is that one must recognize something as an error before one seeks to correct it. Spiritual blindness is a major problem from which all people suffer. We can, by grace, see what occupies our blind spots. Assuming that we do this, do we want to change? Maybe we think that necessary change is pointless or too difficult. Or perhaps we are simply afraid to take action by trusting in God and venturing into unknown (to us) spiritual territory. Either way, one does not repent.
Whoever loves himself or herself more than God is lost, we read in John 12. To be a Christian is to follow Jesus, who went to a cross then a tomb, which he occupied only briefly.
To think this much about Good Friday and Easter Sunday on Christmas Day might seem odd, but it is theologically correct. The recognition of this reality is hardly new. Indeed, Johann Sebastian Bach incorporated the Passion Chorale tune into his Christmas Oratorio.
Grace is free to all, fortunately. Yet many will not accept it and the demands accompanying it. Each of us has a responsibility to say “yes” to God, whose grace is always free and never cheap. Each of us has a responsibility to love his or her neighbors as he or she loves himself or herself. Doing so will, for different people, lead to different ends in this life, and translate into action in a variety of ways, depending on circumstances. The principle is constant, however. Jesus, who came to us first as a baby, demands nothing less than taking up one’s cross and following him.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
AUGUST 30, 2016 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF HENRIETTE LUISE VON HAYN, GERMAN MORAVIAN HYMN WRITER
The readings for this occasion present a realistic appraisal of the world, not only in antiquity or today, but during all the times in between. Certain powerful empires conquer weaker neighbors. Wicked people flourish. Good people perish. Persecution of people of God occurs. Nevertheless, one should avoid committing the theological error of assuming or otherwise concluding that the existence of God, of whom caring is an essential property, precludes the reality of suffering for many righteous people. At this point one might point to the Book of Job and the crucifixion of Jesus as Exhibits A and B in that case.
Although suffering (for righteousness, sin, and simply having a pulse) occurs, that fact does not negate or contradict the mercy of God. That mercy is available regardless of ethnic and cultural factors and boundaries. That love is evident in the form of baby Jesus, born into a place and time at which his life was in danger. That love is and always has been evident in many ways. That love is worth pondering every day, but especially on Christmas Day.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
AUGUST 23, 2016 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SAINTS MARTIN DE PORRES AND JUAN MACIAS, HUMANITARIANS AND DOMINICAN LAY BROTHERS; SAINT ROSE OF LIMA, HUMANITARIAN AND DOMINICAN SISTER; AND SAINT TURIBIUS OF MOGROVEJO, ROMAN CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF LIMA
THE FEAST OF WILLIAM JOHN COPELAND, ANGLICAN PRIEST AND HYMN TRANSLATOR
One of my fellow parishioners observed that a local radio station ceased to play Christmas music early in the afternoon one Christmas Day a few years ago. David remarked sarcastically that Christmas must have ended at that time. I know that he was sarcastic because he observes all twelve days of Christmas–through January 5.
The twelve days of Christmas, when one observes them with the assigned biblical readings for the holy days, take one on a tour through joy and abject grief, through love and hatred, through tenderness and violence. The Feasts of St. Stephen (December 26) and the Holy Innocents (December 28) function as counterparts to the joy of December 25. The whole picture tells us that God became incarnate in the form of a helpless infant born into a violent world in which people threatened his life. Young Jesus survived, of course, but others died because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness is menacing indeed. Yet, as we read in John 1:5 (The New Jerusalem Bible),
…and the light shines in darkness,
and darkness could not overpower it.
That is an excellent reason to celebrate. Merry Christmas!
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
NOVEMBER 9, 2012 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF MARTIN CHEMNITZ, GERMAN LUTHERAN THEOLOGIAN
THE FEAST OF BARTON STONE, COFOUNDER OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH (DISCIPLES OF CHRIST)
I collect hymnals and service books. Exploring them and finding treasures is a wonderful hobby, one which brings joy to me. And sharing those gems sheds that joy abroad. That is the rationale for my GATHERED PRAYERS weblog, which links into this one. Some hymns, however, are not prayers, so I seek and fine other venues for sharing them.
William Allen Knight (1863-1957) was a U.S. Congregationalist minister and author. Yesterday, for example, I found some books he wrote available at archive.org:
Knight also wrote the following Christmas hymn in 1915:
Come, my heart, canst thou not hear it,
Mid the tumult of thy days?
Catch the old sweet song of angels,
Join thy voice to swell their praise!
Hast thou never shared the blessing,
Never known kind Heaven’s gift?
Bethlehem thy Saviour cradled!
Heart of mine, a song uplift.
+++++
First to hear were watching shepherds,
Sore afraid that winter’s night;
Soon their Bethlehem’s low manger
Changed the song to wondrous sight!
Ever since, all they who hear it
Find a Saviour where they dwell;
Sing it, heart! Who knows what toilers
Thou the Christward way shalt tell!
+++++
Long ago the angels vanished–
But their song is sounding still!
Millions now with hope are singing,
“Peace on earth, to men good will.”
Sing, my heart! Tho’ peace may tarry,
Sing good will mid human strife!
Till that old sweet song of angels
Shall attune to heav’n our life.
I keep hearing about a war on Christmas. Yet I note that many, if not most, of those who speak and write at length on that subject seem oblivious to the liturgical calendar and many well-documented facts. “Xmas” is not a way to remove “Christ” from Christmas. No, “X” is an abbreviation derived from the Greek alphabet. I have, for example, squeezed “Xian” into a tiny gap when taking notes and meaning “Christian.” And I do not hear many of these self-appointed defenders of Christmas against the great secular hordes speak of Advent or twelve days of Christmas often. Thus many self-appointed defenders of tradition violate the tradition they claim to affirm. I love the irony.
Talk is cheap and frequently annoying. But keeping holy seasons quietly and sincerely is where, as an old saying goes, the rubber meets the road. We can start by dropping out of the rat race or never entering it. And we can live daily in the awareness that time is sacred–something of which the older, more formalistic Christian denominations tend to engender better than the iconoclastic schools of Protestantism.
The angels’ song is sounding still. Thanks be to God! But do we hear it over the din of pointless arguments and of hustle and bustle?
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 23, 2013 COMMON ERA
THE TWENTY-THIRD DAY OF ADVENT, YEAR A
THE FEAST OF SAINT JOHN OF KANTY, ROMAN CATHOLIC THEOLOGIAN
THE FEAST OF SAINT CHARBEL, ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST AND MONK
THE FEAST OF GERALD R. FORD, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
One of the great virtues of High Churchmanship is having a well-developed sense of sacred time. So, for example, the church calendars, with their cycles, tell us of salvation history. We focus on one part of the narrative at a time. Much of Protestantism, formed in rebellion against Medieval Roman Catholic excesses and errors, has thrown the proverbial baby out with the equally proverbial bath water, rejecting or minimizing improperly the sacred power of rituals and holy days.
Consider, O reader, the case of Christmas–not in the present tense, but through the late 1800s. Puritans outlawed the celebration of Christmas when they governed England in the 1650s. Their jure divino theology told them that since there was no biblical sanction for keeping Christmas, they ought not to do it–nor should anyone else. On the other hand, the jure divino theology of other Calvinists allowed for keeping Christmas. Jure divino was–and is–a matter of interpretation. Lutherans, Anglicans, and Moravians kept Christmas. Many Methodists on the U.S. frontier tried yet found that drunken revelry disrupted services. Despite this Methodist pro-Christmas opinion, many members of the Free Methodist denomination persisted in anti-Christmas sentiment. The holiday was too Roman Catholic, they said and existed without
the authority of God’s word.
Thus, as the December 19, 1888 issue of Free Methodist concluded,
We attach no holy significance to the day.
–Quoted in Leigh Eric Schmidt, Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), page 180. (The previous quote also comes from that magazine, quoted in the same book.)
Many Baptists also rejected the religious celebration of Christmas. An 1875 issue of Baptist Teacher, a publication for Sunday School educators, contained the following editorial:
We believe in Christmas–not as a holy day but as a holiday and so we join with our juveniles with utmost heartiness of festal celebration….Stripped as it ought to be, of all pretensions of religious sanctity and simply regarded as a social and domestic institution–an occasion of housewarming, and heart-warming and innocent festivity–we welcome its coming with a hearty “All Hail.”
–Quoted in Schmidt, Consumer Rites, pages 179 and 180
Presbyterians, with their Puritan heritage, resisted celebrating Christmas for a long time. In fact, some very strict Presbyterians still refuse to keep Christmas, citing their interpretation of jure divino theology. (I have found some of their writings online.) That attitude was more commonplace in the 1800s. The Presbyterian Church in the United States, the old Southern Presbyterian Church, passed the following resolution at its 1899 General Assembly:
There is no warrant for the observance of Christmas and Easter as holy days, but rather contrary (see Galatians iv.9-11; Colossians ii.16-21), and such observance is contrary to the principles of the Reformed faith, conducive to will-worship, and not in harmony with the simplicity of the gospel in Jesus Christ.
–Page 430 of the Journal of the General Assembly, 1899 (I copied the text of the resolution verbatim from an original copy of the Journal.)
I agree with Leigh Eric Schmidt:
It is not hard to see in this radical Protestant perspective a religious source for the very secularization of the holiday that would eventually be so widely decried. With the often jostling secularism of the Christmas bazaar, Protestant rigorists simply got what they had long wished for–Christmas as one more market day, a profane time or work and trade.
–Consumer Rites, page 180
I affirm the power of rituals and church calendars. And I have no fear of keeping a Roman Catholic holy day and season. Thus I keep Advent (December 1-24) and Christmas (December 25-January 5). I hold off on wishing people
Merry Christmas
often until close to Christmas Eve, for I value the time of preparation. And I have no hostility or mere opposition to wishing anyone
Happy Holidays,
due to the concentrated holiday season in December. This is about succinctness and respect in my mind; I am not a culture warrior.
Yet I cannot help but notice with dismay the increasingly early start of the end-of-year shopping season. More retailers will open earlier on Thanksgiving Day this year. Many stores display Christmas decorations before Halloween. These are examples of worshiping at the high altar of the Almighty Dollar.
I refuse to participate in this. In fact, I have completed my Christmas shopping–such as it was–mostly at thrift stores. One problem with materialism is that it ignores a basic fact: If I acquire an item, I must put it somewhere. But what if I enjoy open space?
I encourage a different approach to the end of the year: drop out quietly (or never opt in) and keep nearly four weeks of Advent and all twelve days of Christmas. I invite you, O reader, to observe these holy seasons and to discover riches and treasures better than anything on sale on Black Friday.
Pax vobiscum!
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
NOVEMBER 25, 2013 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF SQUANTO, COMPASSIONATE HUMAN BEING
THE FEAST OF JAMES OTIS SARGENT HUNTINGTON, FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF THE HOLY CROSS
–Martin Luther; translated by William James Kirkpatrick
Yesterday I sang in my parish choir’s performance of the Christmas portion of Handel’s Messiah. We dropped “His yoke is easy and his burden is light,” culminating instead in the Hallelujah Chorus. The concert was glorious and spiritually edifying for many people.
There are still a few days of Advent left. So I encourage you, O reader, to observe them. Then, beginning sometime during the second half of December 24, begin to say
Merry Christmas!
and continue that practice through January 5, the twelfth and last day of Christmas. And I encourage you to remember that our Lord and Savior was born into a violent world, one in which men–some mentally disturbed, others just mean, and still others both mean and mentally disturbed–threatened and took the lives of innocents. Names, circumstances, empires, nation-states, and technology have changed, but the essential reality has remained constant, unfortunately.
The Hallelujah Chorus, quoting the Apocalypse of John, includes these words:
The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.
That is not true yet, obviously. But that fact does not relieve any of us of our responsibilities to respect the Image of God in others and to treat them accordingly. We must not try to evade the duty to be the face and appendages of Christ to those to whom God sends us and those whom God sends to us. We cannot save the world, but we can improve it. May we do so for the glory of God and the benefit of others.
May the peace of Christ, born as a vulnerable baby and executed as a criminal by a brutal imperial government, be with you now and always. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
DECEMBER 17, 2012 COMMON ERA
THE FEAST OF MARIA STEWART, EDUCATOR
THE FEAST OF EGLANTYNE JEBB, FOUNDER OF SAVE THE CHILDREN
THE FEAST OF FRANK MASON NORTH, U.S. METHODIST MINISTER
ADVENT, CHRISTMAS, AND EPIPHANY DEVOTIONS 
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