Proper III, Christmas Eve, 9:30pm (2006): "God Speaks His Word"

Proper III, Christmas Eve, 9:30pm (2006): "God Speaks His Word"
Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 98; Hebrews 1:1-4, (5-12); John 1:1-14
Preached on December 24th, 2006, by the Rev. Preston Parsons

It is very difficult to talk about God.

Words about God don't come easily for many of us, and when words about God come easily for others, many of us become deeply suspicious. Deep down something tells us that there is something about God, in His deepest being, that is indescribable, deeply mysterious, even unfathomable and untouchable.

When we open our mouths to speak about God, we can get the feeling that what we say is never quite right. Because when we speak about God it can feel a bit like we are limiting the limitless, describing the indescribable, and touching the untouchable.

***

There was a young man, quite a time ago, that wished to enter a monastery. He was a large man, and he didn't speak very much, so the monks thought he was dumb. They called him "the ox".

He had a hard time entering the order, because it was a preaching order, and preachers need to be able to speak.

But the ox was quiet.

The ox finally did become a monk, and as it turned out, when this humble, quiet man preached, everyone was surprised, Because the quiet man preached with wit and intelligence.

Eventually, we are told, a friend and fellow-monk said of him that "we call this young man a dumb ox, but his bellowing in doctrine will one day resound throughout the world." His friend was right. The dumb ox, St. Thomas Aquinas, turned out to be one of the most influential theologians of the middle ages. He continues to be influential, and the doctrine of the dumb ox still resounds throughout the world.

Our story doesn’t end there. There is something else to be told of the dumb ox of a monk (who wrote more than 40 books and preached all over Europe). Near the end of his life, and only partway through his great achievement, the Summa Theologica, Thomas was at Mass, where he had a vision. Immediately afterwards he told a friend that all he had written amounted to no more than a heap of straw. After that vision, the great theologian, doctor, and saint of the Church, didn't write another word.

***

Thomas was brilliant. He is one of the greatest intellects the church has ever produced. So I hesitate to say this, but if the story of Thomas’s vision is true, and that he did call his work a heap of straw, then he was wrong.

Life in Christ is far more complex than a simple choice between piles of books and utter silence. Both doctrine and silence are good. The option is not between meaningless words and meaningful quiet.

***

It is the incomprehensible God that St. John encounters when he begins his gospel, but thankfully St. John doesn't take either of Thomas's options. John neither writes 40 books, nor does he remain in silence. St. John is wiser than St. Thomas, and we are all better off because of it.

When John begins his gospel, he begins it with a hymn.

When words fail us in the face of God we can rest in silence, but to rest in silence is to fail in our response. When words fail us, we can rest in silence, or we can sing. When our understanding leaves us lacking the right words, sometimes it is only music that remains.

So St. John sings to us, he chants a hymn about God, and the Word who was with
that incomprehensible God. St. John sings to us about the Word who was himself God. St. John sings to us about the one who, with the creator, spoke all of creation into being. St. John sings to us about the indescribable, the mysterious, unfathomable, and untouchable God. And he tells us that this God is the one that comes to us, to dwell with us, to make his home among us, to live alongside us and with us as Jesus, the Word of God, both God and man, the one who is born in Bethlehem.

And the God we can hardly speak about, the one who renders us silent, is now Jesus the man who with a human voice speaks to us.

The indescribable describes himself, and he describes himself as a human person, a small child born of a woman, as human as you and I.

St. John sings to us that what was once mysterious and unfathomable, has now come into plain sight. The untouchable has become touchable.

The Word, the one who was with God and who is himself God has become flesh, and he has lived among us.

***

Thomas Aquinas, the dumb ox of a monk may have been right.

Perhaps silence is worth more than words.

But I’m not so sure. Utter silence is to remain unresponsive to the God who has spoken to us first.

The God who was born to us in Bethlehem has come to us, spoken to us, and has called us, like a light shining out of the darkness, calling us to receive him, to believe in his name, so that we may become children of God.

God, by his incarnation, has become a human person, and calls us out of the darkness.

The divine has become human, so we who are human might become children of God, so that we might become divine. God calls us, through Christ, into the divine life of God.

And these words of the God-man who invites us into the divine life, these words are worth speaking about. These words, the words of Jesus, fully God and fully human, the one who invites us into salvation in him:

these are words worth singing about.