The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
One of the things I love about this Cathedral’s Sanctuary is the splendid mix of light and colors that shine through the stained glass at various times of the year and the day. This is most noticeable if you can sit with lights down or off. You may not notice if you are not looking at how the hewed colors shine through that magnificent Rose window of ours, slowly making their way throughout the day toward the altar as the day progresses. Hues of green, blue, yellow, paint the pews and aisles with gentle strokes of color. From the original entrance, this side of the Baptistry, the light in the late afternoon sneaks in and shines off of the pulpit, making the brass “face” of the pulpit literally become translucent. If you look at it with a fixed gaze, it really does come to life.
It’s hard to say this was done by design, but nonetheless it happens that as the day wears on, the light from rear and side do meet near the steps that lead to the chancel. It is the intersection of this light that in the right frame invites us to consider a deeper sense beyond our intellect of a mysterious and holy intersection.
This Christmas morning you and I are invited into a mysterious and holy intersection. The feast of the Incarnation is what we call this celebration and it is the bringing to “light,” if you will, the intersection of the human and the divine! We make a theological and a life statement in our prayers and in our songs this day that God brings to us in the person of Jesus, one who will become our Christ. God is acting in an intentional intertwining of the human and the divine. This mystery we celebrate invites us to consider that God’s love, hope, and presence intersect with our human limitation: our fears, our despairs, our sin. This intersection gives birth, not to a passive response, but to an action, that is to place our hearts in trust that the babe in the manger grows into full stature, and through his life, teaching, and sacrifice, reveals to us a righteous life-giving path to follow!
In his Gospel, John brings speech to this mysterious intersection in poetry. 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. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.
Children of God we are indeed. We stand this day in an intersection of light and hope. How shall we follow?
Perhaps we follow the words of a then young preacher who, during the very years that this wonderful structure was being built to house a vibrant congregation in South Bethlehem, was coming into his own as Rector of Trinity Church Philadelphia. The young Philips Brooks, best known as Rector of Trinity Church Copley Square Boston, and then Bishop of Massachusetts, is the author of the text of one of our most beloved hymns, O Little Town of Bethlehem. First his words invite us to sing out an invitation to this holy child to be made manifest in us.
O holy Child of Bethlehem!
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in,
Be born in us to-day.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel!
Second, in a short exhortation from a sermon, to have our lives reflect the divine in our human existence: "Do not pray for easy lives, but pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, but pray for power equal to your tasks. Then the accomplishing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself and the richness of life which has come to you by the grace of God."
Merry Christmas. Amen.
