​This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. (1 St. John i. 5)
On Christmas Eve we read about the birth of God’s eternal Word, Jesus Christ, whom St. John the Evangelist called the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. (St. John i. 9) St. John is the Apostle of Light. Yet this Light shines as the Life and the Love of God out of Jesus and into John’s own heart, so that he calls himself the disciple whom the Lord loved. St. John the Evangelist then is illuminated by Christ the Light and what he sees is nothing other than the Life of God the Father as Love in God the Son.   
         Yet St. John is often criticized for being the most mystical, other-worldly, and transcendental of the Apostles. The argument goes that if the other Gospel writers were overemphasizing Jesus’ humanity, then John was surely determined to redress the balance with a heavy dose of Christ’s divinity. But the differentiation is over simplified. John indeed does emphasize the mystically Divine nature of Christ. But he goes on to tell us that the Divine Word, That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.) (1 St. John i. 1,2)So a more accurate picture of St. John reveals the Apostle who truly grasps and embraces Christ’s Light as Love precisely because it has been communicated to him through Christ’s humanity. St. Augustine asks: Who could touch the Word of God with his hands, were it not that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us? (Comm. 1 St. John i.) St. John maintains that the only way back to the Word of God is through human nature of Jesus. St. Augustine then tells us that the Word was made flesh in order to be touched by human hands. (Idem) And He intended to be touched by human hands since the human spirit is too far removed from God’s Word by reason of the Fall. Sinful man is incapable of perceiving and sensing God’s Word without its manifestation in human flesh. ‘The Word was made Flesh’ so that a reality only perceptible to the heart might also be visible to our eyes, and thus heal our hearts. For God’s Word is seen only by the heart, but the flesh is seen also with the eyes of the body. We have that with which to see the flesh, but do not have that by which to see God’s Word. And so through His flesh Christ reveals to us that He is God’s Word. (Idem) The Word was made flesh in order for man to perceive, see, understand, and embrace once again God’s Word and Will in human life. St. John tells us that eternal life, which was with the Father, was manifested to us in time and space in Jesus Christ.
So St. John and his fellow Apostles were eyewitnesses of the Word made Flesh, the Incarnation, as the Life, Light, and Love of God for man. St. John writes, that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 St. John i. 3) John and the Apostles have seen and heard ‘the Word made flesh.’ Now he declares or speaks the truth of the Word that we who cannot see might nevertheless hear and believe. Our fellowship with the Apostles is based upon hearing the Good News of ‘the Word made Flesh’ and believing. John saw, heard, embraced, and followed the Word of God made flesh in the historical Jesus. But he, like all others, would soon be called to surrender and release the human Jesus to the place of His heavenly origin. Jesus would ascend to the Father and then demand to be seen, heard, touched, handled, and embraced in John’s heart and soul. The Word [that] was made Flesh would now insist that His ultimate intention is to be made flesh truly in the hearts and souls of as many men as would hear and believe, who would be born not of blood, nor of the will of the felsh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (St. John i. 13) To have Jesus Christ truly is to have Him as God’s Word, and to have Him as God’s Word is to inwardly submit, acquiesce, and obey Him as God’s eternal Will and Desire made flesh.
         Of course St. John doesn’t expect us to jump immediately into a state where we are holding, embracing, touching, and having God’s Word inwardly and spiritually. He knows that we must be prepared for a long journey out of earthen vessels and into heavenly temples. So he provides us with a detailed history of how God’s Light, Light, and Love were manifested in the earthly Incarnation of Christ. Then he goes on to show us how we too can begin to allow the Word of God to be made flesh in our hearts and souls. His message is clear. That the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us is God’s revelation of how His Life, Light, and Love save us in Jesus Christ. This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all. (Ibid, 5) In the heart of Jesus John has seen how God’s Light has triumphed over all darkness. Now he speaks the truth of this Word made flesh to us that we might hear and have fellowship with God. Yet he reminds us that, If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the Light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. (Ibid, 6,7) To walk in the Light of God is to participate in Jesus Christ’s victory over all darkness and evil. To walk in the Light of God is to be touched and handled by the bright beams of His truth that engender only godly fellowship and goodwill. To walk in the Light of God is to be cleansed from all sin by the blood of God’s own Lamb. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his Word is not in us. (Ibid 8,9)
St. Augustine tells us that, If “God be light, and in Him is no darkness at all, and we must have fellowship with Him,” then from us also must the darkness be driven away, that there may be Light created in us, for darkness cannot have fellowship with Light. (Idem) To become the friends of Christ the Light we must embrace His desire to be lovingly touched and handled in our souls as the Word of Life. In Christmas tide our hearts and souls are invited to cradle and clutch Him as the Infant Babe of Bethlehem. So let us, with St. John, carefully, cautiously, and lovingly hold and handle Him, and in so doing be touched, moved, and transformed by the new birth that His Life, Light, and Love offer to us. May His Light truly make His Birth –that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, an occasion for our own new birth on this Feast of St. John in Christmas tide. Amen.
©wjsmartin

I am your friend and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not got, but there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take.
No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven!
No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace!
The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see - and to see we have only to look. I beseech you to look!
Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by the covering, cast them away as ugly, or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power.
Welcome it, grasp it, touch the angel's hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angel's hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Our joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.
Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty - beneath its covering - that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.
Courage, then, to claim it, that is all. But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are all pilgrims together, wending through unknown country, home.
And so, at this time, I greet you. Not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you now and forever, the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

​And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the Heavenly Host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward men. (St. Luke ii. 13,14)
One of the most compelling instruments to foment belief in the Christ as the Son of God are the details that describe Him as the Son of Man. What I mean is that the New Testament is not full of particular moments that overturn or destroy nature and her course. Rather, on the whole, we read of a very human situation being bettered or perfected. What one finds then is a very broken, wounded, sick, diseased, and disordered human condition that is being healed and sanctified, improved and saved by the Son of Man. Now, to be sure, it is here that you may want to object. What about all those miracles? you ask. And, if you mean that they are not exactly normal, you might have a point. But even the miracles are instances in and through which Jesus heals and sanctifies a disordered condition. The miracles are not reminiscent of divine interruptions, the likes of which might be read in Homer or Virgil. The miracles do not involve some radical destruction of the objects of healing. Rather they take what is in the state of sickness and move it into a state of health.
And this is what the Incarnation is all about. The Incarnation is about the healing, sanctification, and salvation of the human condition from the inside out. What I mean is that God comes to save us by insinuating Himself into our condition. He does not come from outside to magically shower it with some extraordinary Divine mystical wash. Instead He comes into the predicament of our sinful condition in order to reconcile it with God. He takes on our nature in order work His redemption into it. From the inside of human nature He works out our salvation.
Last night we read that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. (St. John i. 14) And what we believe about this is that God’s Word, God’s Wisdom, God’s Love, and God’s Power all became flesh. Again, it is important to remember what this means. Christians believe that in one Jesus Christ God’s Word is enfleshed or humanized. This, of course, shouldn’t be much of a shock to us, since God’s Word always intended to be made flesh. What does it mean for Adam to obey God if not that God intends that His Word and Commandment should rule and govern the human nature or flesh of the creature? And just because Adam didn’t end up acquiescing to God’s intention for his nature doesn’t mean that God’s Word doesn’t intend to save him. Adam is a Son of God. God’s Word, despite Adam’s Fall, always intends to be made flesh so that he might once again be a Son of God. And in Jesus Christ this perfect obedience of the Son of Man to God’s Word is revealed to us.
Of course we must also see that this process of being obedient and faithful is neither automatic nor necessary. That God becomes flesh is a process in which man must shun the evil and cleave to the good. That God becomes flesh is a journey in which man’s soul matures in proportion to His obedience to his Maker. This process is taken on by Jesus Christ. This journey is undertaken by the Son of Man so that in following Him we might become the Sons of God once again. So the process by which we are redeemed and saved never forsakes or denies the spiritual struggle that must perfect both reason and free will. Man’s journey back to God in Jesus Christ will be fraught with all of the distractions, temptations, and disruptions that Fallen Life entails. None of this battle or warfare need be evil. It is merely the way in which man comes to know and love God through seeing and fleeing evil.
Jesus comes to insinuate Himself into our human condition in order to save it. From the very beginning of His Incarnation, his life was confronted with obstacles. His conception in the womb of His Virgin Mother is doubted and questioned by the confused St. Joseph. His birth is virtually unknown, except for the fact that Joseph must register the Holy Family with the Roman Governor Cyrenius. Little did the world civilized by Augustus know that the one whom Rome was enrolling would be in the process of identifying and enlisting faithful men into the service of God’s census! Then there is the fact that he is born in Bethlehem. Bethlehem means House of Bread. Who would have guessed that He who would call Himself the Living Bread which came down from Heaven (St. John vi. 51) would begin to feed the world from this inconspicuous and unknown place? Most men would have thought that God the Saviour should come to His people in a more radically Divine and otherworldly way. But instead He comes quietly, silently, and a way that is hidden to vision and knowledge and reserved for belief and faith in the human heart.
Then in this unknown little backwater village, we read that He isn’t even born with a roof over his head. He is a stranger to what men consider to be civilization. He is a stranger even to the basic elements that tend to serve and facilitate childbirth. He is born in a cave, a cratch, or a manger on the side of a hill. St. Luke tells us that there was no room for them in the inn. (St. Luke ii. 7)  The birth of God’s Word, the coming of God’s Son is not naturally afforded a space and place in a Fallen World. Men cannot provide a place for His birth until their souls are made ready to believe His true nature. The beasts and elements of nature can serve Him, since by the laws imposed upon them they are already close to His coming. And then there are shepherds. Shepherds will be closer to His coming since their poverty and nomadic vocation bring them close to the creation and any alterations in her demeanor. Shepherds don’t have the luxury of being tempted and tried by the false gods of the city’s worship of Mammon.
So the first beginnings of Christ’s coming to save us are not exactly what we might have expected. And yet they are human. They are human in the best of ways. Here is a humanity that finds a kind of desert or wilderness in which to focus on the coming of God’s Son. Here is a humanity that can take nothing for granted, can expect little from His fellow men, and must rely only upon God. Here is a human birth that can be seen as the beginning of God’s work of Redemption because the false gods and idols have been left behind. Here is a human birth that can speak to simple and industrious shepherds whose senses are alerted to any changes that God brings into the world because spirit and matter are intertwined in the simple life. Here is a human birth that can make shepherds and angels the best of friends because both are close to God and unlike Satan and his friends. Here is a mere human birth that can lead simple souls back to God because in all humility God has stooped down from Heaven to begin to reconcile man to God.
Here we find that humility, self-emptying, and meekness that are the seeds that begin to return our souls to God. In humility, self-emptying, and meekness let us welcome the birth of the Baby Jesus. In this Christ Child let us find the beginnings of the birth that will mature us into His Sons and Daughters. In the Son of Man let us find that nature which alone can give us that new birth which must begin our journey home as the Sons of God. Amen.
©wjsmartin

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​And we beheld His glory, as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of Grace and truth. (St. John i. 14)
In Holy Advent you and I have been endeavoring to prepare our hearts and souls for the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ on Christmas night. But in order to truly welcome Him, we must beware of missing Him, missing His coming Life which St. John tells us is the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. (Ibid, 9). Tonight we shall learn that He shall be hidden from us if we continue to live in the darkness of the night. So on this night we must endeavor to be illuminated and enlightened by Christ the coming Light of God the Father. On this night we must endeavor to embrace the Holy Spirit of this Light, that this Life may not merely irradiate our minds with God’s truth, but may enkindle a fire of love in our hearts, so that Christ the coming Light may be made flesh in us.  
         But first to the darkness. St. John is one who has heard the call of Jesus in his fellow Apostle Paul: The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. (Rom. xiii. 12) What Christ has told him in darkness, he must now speak in the light. (St. Matt. x. 27) For the people who sat in darkness have seen a great Light, and to them that sat in the region and shadow of death, upon them hath the Light sprung up. (St. Matt. iv. 16) St. John knows that the Light of God has shone into the darkness of man’s fallen world. He knows also that if Christ is to give Light to them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide their feet into the way of peace (St. Luke i. 79) the Light must shine from the heart of God into his own. He sees that those who follow Christ shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the Light of Life. (St. John viii. 12)
And so St. John reminds us that we are called out of darkness into Christ’s marvelous Light. (1 St. Peter ii. 9) To grasp this vocation, to heed this call, he will take us through the stage of spiritual conception in the first bright beams of the Light to fertility and maturity as the Life and Love of the same Light perfect our lives. But to begin to be touched by the Light, our minds must move out of primordial darkness to the space and place that is before all beginnings, into the source and origin of all that comes to be and passes away. St. John draws our minds up and into what is beyond and before all things. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Same was in the beginning with God. (St. John i. 1) Before the possibility of any birth, old or new, earthly or heavenly, there is God, His Word, and the Spirit, one God who exists forever and without any change. With John we are invited to come out of the spiritual darkness to see God’s Word, Christ the Light, whose Spirit of Love binds Him eternally to the Father. So before we are spiritually born again we must see that Christ’s Divine nature comes from the Father and before all beginnings.
But as soon as our minds come into this Light, we see that this Life has a desire and Love to make all that is other than Himself. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was Life; and the Life was the Light of men. And the Light shineth in darkness; and the darkness overcame it not. (Ibid, 3-5) God’s Eternal Word is the Life that not only enlivens and quickens all of created reality, but gives Light or lends meaning and makes sense of all that He has made. He with His Word commanded all to be/ and all obeyed Him, for that Word was He! (Davideis: Cowley) This Light shines in the darkness and so calls us forward into the new birth of a knowledge that sees meaning, purpose, and definition as coming from God in order to be returned to Him. John knows that, the minds of the wise are lucid by reason of a participation in that Divine Light and Wisdom. So by the lack of it they are darkness. (T.A. Comm. John, 1)
         Yet there is more to this Living Light of Love. This is that true Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew him not. He came unto His own and His own received Him not. (Ibid, 9-11) The Light intends not only to be seen but to be embraced as the brightness of God’s Glory, the express Image of His Person. (Hebr. i. 3) The Word of God, Christ the Light, has never ceased to desire and long for His people. In His Light we come to see our vocation and calling. In His Light also we come to see our failure to indulge, envelop, and cradle His Love. The world knew Him not...His own received Him not. (Idem) In His Light we see that while we were made for intimate incorporation into God’s own life, our proclivity to sin prevents us from having it. This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (St. John iii. 19) In the Light of His Life, God is Love. In the darkness of sin’s death we reject it. These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever. (2 Peter ii. 17) Still, with John we realize that God has never ceased to desire for man’s new birth and new life in the Light of His Love. 
         So the birth of John’s new knowledge generates within him a deeper gratitude for the longing and yearning that is forever being reborn from this Life. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (Ibid, 12, 13) He writes with earnest hope: A new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in Him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true Light now shineth. (1 John ii. 8) In this Light John sees that for the invisible, incomprehensible, and inconceivable Word of God to be born, man must welcome its Light from the depth of his heart with faith. For John sees that it does not emerge from appetites in the blood, nor desires of the flesh, nor even from the will of man. The generation of the sons of God will not be carnal but spiritual, because they are born of God. (T.A., idem) Thus John understands that he is born again by the Grace of God alone. And so in the everlastingly begotten Light of God’s Love, he realizes the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.( Ibid, 14) The reason or cause that compels his conclusion is that we beheld His glory, as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of Grace and Truth. (Idem) John looks back over a very long life and knows that the Jesus who first loved us and on whose love John makes a good return is the same Christ who has transformed him in Grace and given him new life with God. John sees too that the same Life whose Light has imparted nothing but God’s Love to him is the same Word of God from whom created love becomes redemptive desire in the heart of Jesus Christ.
John reveals to us the effect of his experience of Jesus Christ. This experience endured throughout the earthly life of his Master the Messiah. This experience persevered through the Lord’s Ascent back to the Father and into Pentecostal rapture and transformation. What John experienced was the Glory of God in Jesus Christ. What John experienced were signs and evidences that this Jesus was not merely another well-intentioned human prophet. Rather in Jesus he found the wellspring of eternally begotten new birth that was being imparted to all men as the trigger and catalyst of the love that would return them at last to God. He found in Jesus the desire to share new birth and new life, and to create and make anew through redemptive passion for the salvation of the world. In Jesus John discovered that the desire to create and the desire to redeem are but two names for that one uninterrupted and eternal ardor and longing of God for man’s union with Heaven’s home.
John traces the Glory of God through Jesus’ earthly existence back to Heavenly desire.  Whether it be in the innocent suffering and death of Jesus as atonement for man’s sins, in the loving Resurrection, in the Glorious Ascension, or in the coming down again to be rebirthed in the hearts and souls of His newfound friends, John sees nothing but God’s Glory. He writes:
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life…that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.   
The joy he shares with us is in the birth and persistence of Eternal Love, revealed in the span of Jesus’ life. The joy he shares with us is in a new birth brought out of the sterile cold winter’s night in the fertile fire of God’s unending day. The joy he shares with us is in the new birth of Heaven’s God made in the hearts of all faithful men of goodwill. In awesome wonder and with heartfelt thanksgiving, then, let us, on this Christmas night, with St. John and the poet, sing of this Light that even now intends to be born in our hearts and shine out from our souls:
Welcome to our Wondering Sight,
         Eternity shut in a span!
Summer in Winter, Day in Night!
Heaven in earth! And God in man!
Great little one, whose glorious birth,
Lifts earth to Heaven, stoops Heaven to earth!
                           (R. Crashaw)
Amen.
©wjsmartin

ADVENT is a coming, not our coming to God, but his to us.
We cannot come to God, he is beyond our reach; but he can come to us,
for we are not beneath his mercy. (Austin Farrer)
 
Throughout our spiritual season of Advent we have been preparing for the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ at Christmas time. He has been coming to us in one way that we might see and experience Him in another. Of course we know that Christ is always coming to us. It is in the nature of God that He never ceases to communicate and express Himself in the rule and governance of creation and to the hearts and souls of the faithful. God speaks His Word and things are created, preserved, and related to one another. God speaks His Word and men and women, with the ears to hear, learn to obey His will and walk in His way. God never ceases to speak to us, and yet in specific seasons of the Christian Year He speaks in one way more than another. In so doing, He is always preparing us for a more advanced coming and deeper union with Himself. In Advent, he speaks as one who readies and prepares us for the birth of His Word in our souls on Christmas day.
         So in Advent the Word speaks to us, calls and summons us to make ready for birth, new birth, our births. Yet for the Word to be generated within us, it must be heard and remembered. And what a challenge this task seems to be, in a world with so many words that the Word cannot be heard. If the Word is heard at all, it seems to be a Word heard only partially, refined and suited to the desires and pursuits of a godless people. Think about it: is it not the case that so many people only ever hear what they want to of God and His Word? The tendency is evidenced in the post-modern Christmas. Wouldn’t you say that there are lots of people who get rather sloppily sentimental about the birth of Christ? They like to think about His being born in a manger nestled away from the noisome pestilence of consumer society. Others tend to focus on atmospheric tenderness and climatic love that somehow permeate the environment with a global spiritual warming. Still others center their hopes on the ever-romantic peace on earth and good will to men. Even the best intentioned of respectable bleeding hearts hear what they want to hear of and from the Word, and leave the rest to God, or so it would seem. As a result, in the end, truly the Word is not heard, and most men remain all the worse off for it. Left with the bits and pieces of a deconstructed God and His half-heard Word, lukewarm believers will spend another Christmas indulging a self-satisfaction that leaves them as bereft of God’s plan and purpose as ever before. Thus the world will indulge another meaningless Christmas. T. S. Eliot wrote that Against the Word, the unstilled world still whirled/About the centre of the silent Word. (Eliot: Ash Wednesday) God’s Word remains mostly silent as the world kills its nature in a whirl of inane words.
In Advent, Christ has been speaking to us. He is the silent Word addressing us from the centre of all reality. He has called us into the silence of stillness that we might hear His Word. On the First Sunday in Advent Christ the silent Word came to purge the temples of our souls. We were then exhorted to cast off the works of darkness and put upon us the armor of light. (Advent Sunday Collect) On the Second Sunday in Advent we learned that the silent Word is the permanent and unchanging Wisdom of God, which we must begin to hear with patience, comfort, and hope. On the Third Sunday in Advent the friends of John Baptist heard the Word and witnessed its power, learning that the approaching silent Word intends not only to be heard, but received and handed on, as what heals and gives new life to those who hope in His love and power. And now on the Fourth Sunday in Advent, the silent Word is still heard, as the sole cause of true rejoicing, from the ground and center of the soul, in the wilderness of the soul’s self-emptying, from a space at last removed from the false gods of this world.
Today we end our Advent journeying, in order to welcome a new beginning. The silent Word that we hear can be received only in the heart and soul that has been emptied of all pride, so that humility might courageously submit to its scope, rule, and sway. Today we hear the silent Word that has touched and transformed John the Baptist. Who is John the Baptist, we ask in this morning’s Gospel? And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ.  And they asked him, What then?  Art thou Elias?  And he saith, I am not.  Art thou that Prophet?  And he answered, No. (St. John i. 21) Who is this man that awaits the coming Word, whose ears long eagerly to hear the silent Word? Indeed he is one whose own silence becomes the only space suitable for the silent Word to be heard. He is the one in whom the silent Word can find meaning and purpose. I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias. (St. John i. 23) He tells us that the silent Word has been heard in the empty wilderness of his desert home. The sterile ground of his wilderness has yielded no fruit; he has repented of his sins and discovers within himself no power capable of producing any manner of goodness. Now in the barren land of his soul’s impotence the silent Word has been heard and finds articulation in the spirit of hope. Make straight the way of the Lord, or Open up a direct route in your souls so that the silent Word can be uttered and heard. The sound and substance of this Word can approach and sound within us only when the clutter of all other disturbances and distractions are silenced. Our minds must be stilled and our souls focused only on the speech of the silent Word.
The contrast of the Word that John hears and awaits with rejoicing, with the words of a world that will not hear the Word, is striking. Over and against all human words that reveal only humanly conceived expectations, comes the silent Word which longs to be heard. The silent Word speaks to us from the mystical depths of Divine Desire. The Word will be explained and articulated in the human life of Jesus Christ. The silent Word will yearn and long for the salvation of men. The silent Word will lovingly carry those who hear into the destiny of eternal joy. St. Paul says, Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice (Phil iv. 4). He too, like John, hears the silent Word and now urges others to rejoice in its immanent approach. Like John the Baptist, he tells us to be careful for nothing (Phil. iv. 7) –to be anxiously determined and moved by none of the things of this world. Rather he says rejoice, and again I say rejoice. The silent Word prepares us for itself. The silent Word intends to be heard. It is God’s Word, which shall be spoken in and through the life of Jesus Christ. It will be the cause for great rejoicing and never-ending happiness. But it can be born in us only if and when, because we are careful for nothing, we are ready to hear this silent Word.
Being careful for nothing is, as John Henry Newman said, the state of mind which is directly consequent on the belief that "the Lord is at hand." Who would care for any loss or gain today, if he knew for certain that Christ would show Himself tomorrow? No one. (Parochial and Plain Sermons) Advent issues a needful wakeup call for Christmas. But more importantly, Advent issues an alert that the Lord is [always] at hand. What if we are destined to die this evening? Are we ready to face the final timeout in our lives? Once we are dead, our last opportunity to be made right with God will have been lost. John the Baptist’s life was cut short, but not before he became a faithful witness to that spiritual disposition which alone is ready for Christ’s coming. He empties himself and so is ready for death at any time. Are we preparing ourselves for the same immanent death?
Emptying ourselves is a necessary effect of having come to know and confess the truth about ourselves. In the 8th Century the Venerable Bede said this about John the Baptist: John Baptist gave his life for [Christ]. He was not ordered to deny Jesus Christ, but was ordered to keep silent about the truth (cf. Homily 23: CCL 122, 354). The silent Word of Christ was heard. John does not keep silent but tells us the truth about who we are in relation to the coming Word. John Baptist did not keep silent about the truth and thus died for Christ who is the Truth. Precisely for love of the truth he did not stoop to compromises and did not fear to address strong words to anyone who had strayed from God’s path. (Benedict XVI: Audience, Aug. 29, 2012) God’s silent Word will not be heard if we compromise the truth about ourselves, the truth that confesses that we are in desperate need of what this Word brings to us.
Coming to the truth about ourselves is only ever the outcome of thoughtful reflection and prayer. Rather than judging and analyzing others, let us then return into ourselves and repent with John Baptist. Let us claim with the great Forerunner and Precursor all that we are not and have failed to become. Then the coming silent Word, so unheard by a world that whirls around with words, will begin to overcome our vice with His virtue, our sin with His righteousness, and our death with His new life. Then truly He shall begin to be made flesh in us at Christmas time. Amen.
 
©W.J. Martin†

Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation be known unto all men. (Phi. iv. 4, 5)
The Apostle exhorted us in the end of the preceding Epistle that we should reserve all things to Christ, the true Judge; but, lest we should be overcome by the long delay, he said that He was about to come in a very little while. The Lord, he said, is at hand.
What we consider to be a long time is but the twinkling of an eye in relation to God’s eternity. So a long time with us can be a short time with God. And thus we must live in the day, always anticipating Christ’s immanent return to Judge the Quick and the Dead. The Lord Jesus Christ is always at hand, and thus we must live in the day and ask Him to judge us now, lest we be judged in a very unusual and unpredicted way on Judgment Day.
But the Apostle in the words of the text teaches three things (1) he exhorts to inward holiness; (2) to honest conversation ; (3) he subjoins the reason.

1. Inward holiness consists in two things: firstly, that evil affections should be renovated; and, secondly, that good affections should be obtained. S. Bernard said that holy affection makes the saint, whilst evil affection is to rejoice in the world.

First, we must renovate or repair passions that have been bent on evil affection. Thus we must pray that the Lord will transform evil and sinful affections into good and noble ones. In order to do so affectively, we must contemplate the nature of good affections. Good affections are found in persistent meditation upon God’s nature, as what alone is true, good, and beautiful. Thus we must look into God’s essence and then supplicate His mercy in obtaining the effectual means of fulfilling His will through the infusion of His Divine virtues. 

1. But there is an evil joy of the world, as in evil things, in vanities, in base pleasures. The joy in evil things is to rejoice in wickedness; the joy of vanities is to rejoice in riches, which are vain; and the joy in base pleasures is to rejoice in wantonness.

We must thus endeavor never to rejoice in wickedness and evil. To rejoice in wickedness might be to delight in other men’s sins or even in our own. The absence of God must be mourned over. Next, we must never indulge vanities. Riches corrupt us. If we have more than we need, it is time to purge. Finally, when we engage in base pleasures, we have taken some good thing and perverted it to suit our fleshly lust. ‘Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton.’
St. Augustine says of these three kinds of joy: What is the joy of the world? Wantonness is the impurity or the wickedness of the world; to toy with the games, to be luxurious, to be allured, to be swallowed up, and to offend by baseness. 
To rejoice in the Lord is that joy which tends to salvation; for the loving-kindness of the Lord leads to justification, for He is most bountiful by way of remuneration. For a very small servitude He gives eternal life and the heavenly kingdom, and such a Lord is without doubt to be rejoiced in; Who saves His servants by redeeming them; Who dismisses all their debts by justifying them; and Who will crown them with an eternal kingdom by preserving them."
Of the first: The Lord is our King; He will save us. (Is. xxxiii. 22) He shall save His people from their sins. (St. Matthew i. 21)
God’s love far surpasses all that we can either deserve or desire. His reward is to give to us what we can never make or create on our own. His reward is to bestow upon us what cannot imagine or conceive in our minds and imaginations. His reward is what exceeds our natures and thus is the free donation of His love from His nature. Let us rejoice in God’s superabundant love for us.
Of the second: Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. (Rom. v. 1)
God redeems and saves us in Jesus Christ. He justifies us or makes us right with Himself through His Son, Logos as flesh, the God Man. We are justified or made right with God through faith in Jesus Christ. This is faith in God’s Grace made flesh. This is faith in what Jesus has done for us in bringing our old man to death and in beginning to recreate a new man out of His flesh and into our spirits. This is a dismissal of all our debts to God through Christ’s sacrifice. This is a gift imparted to us that will make us right with God beyond death and into new life.
Of the third: Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. (Rev. ii. 10) 
To be preserved unto death, we must be faithful in this life. We shall be rewarded with the crown of eternal life only if we are faithful until the end.
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my God, for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. (Is. lxi. 10)
God desires to clothe us with that righteousness that saves us. This is the clothing of Jesus Christ our Lord. Let us rejoice to be so clothed and robed by God’s Grace. Let us truly endeavor to rejoice in this process whereby God suits us up for salvation. Let us rejoice in the love that touches and transforms us. Let us rejoice in a love that punishes, disciplines, and corrects us through Divine Judgment beginning here and now. Let us rejoice in the love that will lead into eternal union with Himself, though for a season we must endure with patience His future coming. To which joy may we be led through Jesus Christ our Lord to our eternal destiny.
©wjsmartin

Advent III
December 13, 2015
 
Art thou He that should come, or do we look for another?
(St. Matthew xi. 2)
 
          We have said that Advent season is all about our preparing for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ at Christmas time. Our preparation is rooted in history and hope. Historically speaking Jesus Christ, the Desire of God, was made flesh some two-thousand years ago in ancient Palestine. That event was the culmination of a long history of God’s calling and summoning of his people through his Word. The Word having been made flesh, He quickly proceeded, in the span of a brief life, to overcome all obstacles to man’s salvation through the offering and immolation of Himself, the single action that alone could atone for man’s sinful rebellion against His Maker.       From the perspective of salvation history, humanity could now be swallowed up into eternity. For, from heaven Christ is continually communicating and expressing His unceasing love, primordial yearning and desire for all men’s reconciliation with His Father. Having overcome sin once and for all, Christ continues to send His love down from Heaven into a people whose hope is their destiny with Him. But in Advent we are preparing specifically for His coming once again as new birth in our souls, that with Isaiah the Prophet we might sing, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation. (Isaiah xxv. 9)
          If Advent is about making ready for a Christmas birth, today we learn how John the Baptist helps us to open up to Christ as our coming Saviour. John’s vocation or mission is to prepare us for the true and lasting coming of Christ –that birth that matures progressively into spiritual adulthood where man can become a true child of our Heavenly Father.  John’s life is preparation only because it involves man’s limited response to the power of Christ’s coming salvation. He must increase, and I must decrease. (St. John iii. 30) John the Precursor and the Preparer is on a mission to lead us into self-denial or self-emptying. I must die, that Christ may come alive, John exclaims. Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (St. Matthew iii. 2), he insists. Repentance reveals the desire to die to the world, the flesh, and the devil. To do so we must, with John, remove ourselves from the commerce of our noisy world in order to repent. John came to know himself in stark contradistinction to God’s Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. First in the barren wilderness or desert, and then within the abandonment of a lonely prison cell, John repents of his sins, empties himself of himself, and then waits and watches for the One whose coming alone can give new being and meaning to his evacuated nature. He must increase and I must decrease. (Idem)
          Repentance is the acknowledgment of our self-willed alienation from God. Repentance involves the naming and claiming whatever desire or passion lends itself to the ignorance, neglect, or willful refusal of God’s will in human life. Repentance cleanses and purges man’s inner being of the sterility and impotence that self-will harvests habitually in human life. Self-will is sterile and impotent because it prefers temporary and impermanent pleasures to the joy that Christ’s coming promises. When we empty ourselves of our worldly hungering and hankering, we acknowledge that we need to be made new, born again, and regenerated according to God’s intention and plan. But if we repent, we must also take the necessary steps to ensure that we are willing to die to whatever is not of God. Jesus says elsewhere if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee…if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee…for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. (St. Matthew 5. 29, 30) Repentance must be followed by the real intention to go and sin no more because what we desire truly is the birth of Christ’s new life in us.
          Yet we must acknowledge that repentance does not promise immediate consolation. Oftentimes the man who repents and calls others to imitation must be prepared for additional suffering before he is healed and saved.  When John Baptist called King Herod to repent of the sin of marrying his brother’s wife while his brother was yet alive, he was cast into prison. When we urge others to take up the call of needful repentance with us, we should be ready to be punished. The world in all ages tends to be far too enviously insecure and frail to heed the its call. Herod was a fragile, immature, insecure, and apprehensive self-possessed man who lived in fear of losing what little power he had. We are the same when we reject the call to serious repentance.
          What we must learn with John is that repentance is not an end in itself. The English word repentance comes to us from the French repentir, meaning to show contrition, sorrow, remorse, and regret over evil or sin committed. Repentance responds to Christ’s coming light and is a confession of deepest sorrow over complicity in idolatry. The idol or false god might be a besetting sin or the idealization of family, friends, the condition of earthly life, and even noble human ideals. John the Baptist reminds us that Jesus cannot come to us as long as there is anything in the way either of goodness of badness. (O. Chambers, Aug. 22) Repentance confesses surrender to the stubborn darkness that threatens to extinguish Christ’s coming light. Repentance then confesses utter helplessness. Finally repentance claims utter unworthiness in the face of a love that longs to conquer its sin. Repentance cries: He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me…I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness make straight the way of the Lord…He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, the latchet of whose shoes’ latchet I am not worthy to unloose. (St. John i. 15, 23, 26, 27) Repentance brings a man to his own undoing. John thinks to himself: I was indeed this and that, but He came, and a marvelous thing happened. (O. Chambers, Aug. 22)
Of course what happened to John cannot occur before his repentance has pushed to the extreme of being undone. According to St. Gregory, John wonders if his impending execution and death can be reconciled to Jesus’ coming. (Greg. Sermones…) Gregory says that John sends his disciples to ask Jesus, ‘Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another’ (Idem), that he may know whether He who in His own person had come into the world, would in His own person descend also to the world below. (Idem) Can this hell that I suffer be consecrated to and reconciled with the essence of Christ’s coming, John asks? Can a loving and compassionate God allow self-emptying repentance to yield only an anguish of unjust suffering that ends in death? Will suffering and death that precede knowledge of His full coming be taken up into Christ’s salvific life? Will Jesus come into death and carry the righteous into salvation and reconciliation with God the Father? Jesus answer is gentle but firm. Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. (St. Matthew 11. 4,5)
Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another? (St. Matthew 11. 3) How can John Baptist, who had baptized Jesus in the river Jordan, who had seen the heavens…opened unto him, and the Spirit of the Lord descending like a dove and lighting upon Jesus (St. Matt. iii. 16), ask this question? Has his faith failed? Has his imprisonment overwhelmed him in a sea of doubt and potential despair regarding his vocation? John is indeed emptied but must be filled with the true nature of Christ as Messiah. John, with the other Apostles, is no doubt looking for a Messiah who would establish a Messianic Kingdom upon earth. Such a Messiah should deliver His people from all injustice, not the least of which is being endured by the imprisoned John Baptist!
Needless to say, Jesus will correct any expectation of worldly redress. Rather, blessed is he who while suffering and dying for the sake of Jesus Christ can see the future of his new life imaged in the healing and salvation of others. Blessed is he who suffers gladly for Jesus and sees his own suffering as a gift from God to be endured as a trigger and catalyst for that trust and hope in the new birth that Jesus Christ brings. Jesus comes most effectively to those whose sense of utter unworthiness renders them so helpless that finally they open to Christ’s coming on God’s terms alone. Finally John’s repentance brings him into consciousness that his suffering and death must not stand in the way of the new birth and life that Jesus Christ brings to his soul.
We learn this morning that John’s is the only way for those who would welcome Christ’s birth inwardly and spiritually. Jesus asks His own disciples, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? Behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. (St. Matt. xi 7,8) John was not shaken by the natural shifts of the physical universe, nor was he pampered, coddled, and caressed by the comfort of human riches. John was moved violently within to deny himself and embrace the coming Jesus. Yet his wonder, doubt, and potential confusion reveal his ignorance about who and what Jesus Christ must be if we are to be saved.
So, as Romano Guardini puts it:
                           Into the depths of John’s lowest hour then would Jesus’
                           Word have been spoken: ‘Blessed is he who is not scandalized or offended
in me.’ The Lord knows his herald; knows his need. The message
                           sent by the mouth of his uncomprehending disciples into the
                           darkness of the dungeon is a divine message. John understood.
                                                                        (R.G. The Lord, p. 25)
At last, John understood. Because of John will suffer and die unjustly, God’s Grace rewards him with new life in another. In the end, John must repent of the false god of his own innocent importance that dangerously threatens to ruin Christ’s coming into his soul. John’s reward is a vision of the new salvation life that Christ is always breathing into the world. Our reward will be the same if we are not offended in Christ (Ibid, 6), and we look for no other to come alive in us. Amen.
©wjsmartin
 

Let a man so account of us as the ministers of Christ. (1 Cor. iv. 1)




​IN the preceding Epistle the Apostle has taught us that Christ was a Minister for us. But I say that Christ was the Minister of the Circumcision, so, therefore, in this Epistle he teaches us that we ought to be the ministers of Christ, and six matters are treated of concerning this ministry.
First, that we ought to make ministers of Christ; second, that we ought to avoid a thoughtless choice; third, to despise human discernment; fourth, not to trust to individual conscience; fifth, to submit all choice to Christ as the Judge; sixth, to seek praises from God alone.
Of the first: Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ. Of the Second: to judge nothing before the time. Of the third: It is a very small thing to me that I should be judged of you. Of the fourth: I know nothing by myself. Of the fifth: Until the Lord come. Of the sixth: Then shall every man have praise of God. 
It ought to be known about the first point that there are three chief reasons why we ought to be ministers of Christ and to serve Him (1) Because whatever we are able to do He gave us the power to do when He created us ; (2) because He served us by redeeming us ; (3) because He will further preserve us to glory.
Of the first, S. Bernard, Who ought we more rightly to serve than Him Who need not have created us unless He willed. It is He that hath made us, and no we ourselves. (Ps. xcv. 7).  
What we are able to do is a gift that God intends we should perfect. Whatever gift has been given to us by God is a gift of His freely willing desire. So we ought to want to perfect what was not given to us by necessity but by God’s free will or desire. The power to perfect our natures includes the vocation to ministry. Ministry includes all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that God intends to bring alive in us through our cooperation with His Grace. So we are called to better ourselves in relation to God by freely accepting God’s Gracious invitation to generate, cultivate, and perfect the Divine Gifts of the Spirit in our lives.
Of the second: I am among you as He that serveth (St. Luke xxii. 27), for He temporally served them by washing their feet, in cleansing by His own blood the wounds of sinners, and in ministering to His own flesh. And began to wash the disciples' feet. (St. John xiii. 5) (2)Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. (Rev. i. 5) Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins. (Isa. xliii. 24) (3) Jesus took bread and brake and gave it to His disciples. (St. Matt. xxvi. 26) St. Bernard says: The good Minister Who gave His Flesh for food, His Blood for drink, and His Soul for a ransom, He will likewise serve in glory." That He will gird Himself and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth to serve them. (St. Mark xii. 57) Rightly, therefore, we are said to be His ministers.
To minister means to wait upon others, serve to, offer, reveal, disclose, and share from a disposition of humble love. As ministers we are to serve up God’s truth and love as a gift that is made to be multiplied and bestowed upon our fellow men. We must be the servants of truth and love lest we think that we are lords who make, preserve, and perfect it on our own. By God’s Grace we serve God’s truth and love to others. Thus the gift and the Giver are both greater than we are. And thus with caution, care, and wisdom we offer it to others. What we offer is something that we have discovered by the Light of His Grace. What we discover we delight in all the more because it is something that is not self-evident but gifted to us.
But there are these things which He chiefly hates in His ministers want of compassion, disobedience, and uselessness. Of the first: O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? (St. Matt, xviii. 32, 33)
The gifts of God’s Grace can be summarized chiefly in His mercy, pity, compassion, and forgiveness of sins made flesh in Jesus Christ. To minister God’s Grace is to impart and share His mercy with all men. The undeserved, unmerited, and unearned Forgiveness of Sins is the greatest gift that the Christian minister can bestow on others. Should we fail to extend it to others, we have not truly received, cherished, treasured, and grown it in and from the ground of our our hearts and souls.‘But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken, the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites : there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ (St. Matt. xxiv. 48, 49) The minister must be awake and alert to the need for the uninterrupted flow of God’s Grace into his heart and then into the hearts of others. Many ministers will be cut down while drunk, and thus will face the Judge in a state far removed from the sobriety that must characterize the soul that humbly and gratefully receives the gift of Grace. ‘And that servant which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.’
Of the third: And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (St. Matt. xxv. 30) There are three things which the Lord requires in His servants the first, that they should be cleansed from every defilement of sin ; the second, that they should be ornamented with every virtue; the third, that they should be decorated with honesty of manners.
Of the first: He that walketh in a perfect way he shall serve Me. (Ps. ci. 6) Let them minister having no crime. (1 Tim. iii. 10)
He who loves the Lord will keep His Commandments. ‘The Law of God is an undefiled Law converting the soul.’ (Ps. xix. 7) If we would be changed and perfected by the Grace of God we must be cleansed from all unrighteousness. For the merciful Grace of God to transform us, on our part we must flee all evil and open ourselves up wholly and completely to the redemptive process. 
Of the second: In all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God. (2 Cor. vi. 4)
What we embrace inwardly and spiritually, we must reveal and disclose to others externally and visibly. The First Love of our hearts must move us to holy and righteous thoughts, words, and works. These are the fruits of hearts that are right with God, intending to please Him with all of our lives. 
Of the third: Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles. (1 St. Peter ii. 12) Of these three things: And thou shalt bring Aaron and his sons unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation and wash them with water; (Ex. xl. 12, 13)and thou shalt anoint them as thou didst anoint their father (v. 15).We are unto God a sweet savour of Christ. (2 Cor. ii. 15) But the Lord requires that we should serve Him in three ways first, by imitating Him; second, by delighting in His service ; thirdly, by fearing Him.
To have an honest, upright, and holy conversation and commerce with all men, we must always resort to the Lord for purification, washing, and cleansing. Then the Lord will anoint us with His Holy Spirit that we might become a sweet smelling savour unto Him. Once we are washed, then we are ready to imitate and replicate His truth, delight in surrendering our wills to His Absolute Desire for us, and fear to disregard, disobey, and displease Him. Thus we shall be moved by His wisdom, His Love, and His power. We shall serve up His truth because we are honored to take up the call. ‘If any man serve Me, let him follow Me.’ (St. John xii. 26) We shall delight in this service. ‘Serve the Lord with gladness and come before his presence with a song.’ (Ps. c. 2) We shall then fear to lose the truth in which we delight. Thus we shall, ‘Serve the Lord with fear.’ (Ps. ii. 11)
The first makes the service acceptable to the Lord; the second makes us ready in serving ; the third preserves us in His service. But the Lord promises three rewards to His servants, viz., happiness, dignity, and eternity. Of the first Reward: For they that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree. (1 Tim. iii. 13) Of the second reward: Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things. (St. Matt. xxv. 23) Of the third reward: And serve Him day and night in His Temple;" and afterwards He " shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters. (Reve. Vii. 15)Eternity is a fountain of life. As Dionysius says, Eternity is endless, and at the same time the whole and perfect possession of life. 
The truth shall bring us true joy. God’s love will dignify our hearts as they blend with His in one will and desire. Our end is eternal life and in it God’s truth and love will define our lives forever. In eternity we shall be united also to those fellow men who understand His truth and love with His love. Amen.
©wjsmartin
​

​ 






​Let a man so account of us as the ministers of Christ. (1 Cor. iv. 1)
 
IN the preceding Epistle the Apostle has taught us that Christ was a Minister for us. But I say that Christ was the Minister of the Circumcision, so, therefore, in this Epistle he teaches us that we ought to be the ministers of Christ, and six matters are treated of concerning this ministry.
 
First, that we ought to make ministers of Christ; second, that we ought to avoid a thoughtless choice; third, to despise human discernment; fourth, not to trust to individual conscience; fifth, to submit all choice to Christ as the Judge;
sixth, to seek praises from God alone.
 
Of the first: Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ. Of the
Second: to judge nothing before the time. Of the third: It is a very small thing to me that I should be judged of you. Of the fourth: I know nothing by myself. Of the fifth: Until the Lord come. Of the sixth: Then shall every man have praise of God.
 
It ought to be known about the first point that there are three chief reasons why we ought to be ministers of Christ and to serve Him (1) Because whatever
we are able to do He gave us the power to do when He created us ; (2) because He served us by redeeming us ; (3) because He will further preserve us to glory.
 
Of the first, S. Bernard, Who ought we more rightly to serve than Him Who need not have created us unless He willed. It is He that hath made us, and no we ourselves. (Ps. xcv. 7).
 
What we are able to do is a gift that God intends we should perfect. Whatever gift has been given to us by God is a gift of His freely willing desire. So we ought to want to perfect what was not given to us by necessity but by God’s free will or desire. The power to perfect our natures includes the vocation to ministry. Ministry includes all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that God intends to bring alive in us through our cooperation with His Grace. So we are called to better ourselves in relation to God by freely accepting God’s Gracious invitation to generate, cultivate, and perfect the Divine Gifts of the Spirit in our lives.
 
Of the second: I am among you as He that serveth (St. Luke xxii. 27), for He temporally served them by washing their feet, in cleansing by His own
blood the wounds of sinners, and in ministering to His own flesh. And began to wash the disciples' feet. (St. John xiii. 5) (2)Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood. (Rev. i. 5) Thou hast made me to serve with thy sins. (Isa. xliii. 24) (3) Jesus took bread and brake and gave it to His disciples. (St. Matt. xxvi. 26) St. Bernard says: The good Minister Who gave His Flesh for food, His Blood for drink, and His Soul for a ransom, He will likewise serve in glory." That He will gird Himself and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth to serve them. (St. Mark xii. 57) Rightly, therefore, we are said to be His ministers.
 
To minister means to wait upon others, serve to, offer, reveal, disclose, and share from a disposition of humble love. As ministers we are to serve up God’s truth and love as a gift that is made to be multiplied and bestowed upon our fellow men. We must be the servants of truth and love lest we think that we are lords who make, preserve, and perfect it on our own. By God’s Grace we serve God’s truth and love to others. Thus the gift and the Giver are both greater than we are. And thus with caution, care, and wisdom we offer it to others. What we offer is something that we have discovered by the Light of His Grace. What we discover we delight in all the more because it is something that is not self-evident but gifted to us.
 
But there are these things which He chiefly hates in His ministers want of compassion, disobedience, and uselessness. Of the first: O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me: shouldest not thou also have had
compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee? (St. Matt, xviii. 32, 33)
 
The gifts of God’s Grace can be summarized chiefly in His mercy, pity, compassion, and forgiveness of sins made flesh in Jesus Christ. To minister God’s Grace is to impart and share His mercy with all men. The undeserved, unmerited, and unearned Forgiveness of Sins is the greatest gift that the Christian minister can bestow on others. Should we fail to extend it to others, we have not truly received, cherished, treasured, and grown it in and from the ground of our our hearts and souls.‘But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken, the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites : there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ (St. Matt. xxiv. 48, 49) The minister must be awake and alert to the need for the uninterrupted flow of God’s Grace into his heart and then into the hearts of others. Many ministers will be cut down while drunk, and thus will face the Judge in a state far removed from the sobriety that must characterize the soul that humbly and gratefully receives the gift of Grace. ‘And that servant which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.’
 
Of the third: And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there
shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (St. Matt. xxv. 30) There are three
things which the Lord requires in His servants the first, that they should be cleansed from every defilement of sin ; the second, that they should be ornamented with every virtue; the third, that they should be decorated with honesty of manners.
 
Of the first: He that walketh in a perfect way he shall serve Me. (Ps. ci. 6) Let
them minister having no crime. (1 Tim. iii. 10)
 
He who loves the Lord will keep His Commandments. ‘The Law of God is an undefiled Law converting the soul.’ (Ps. xix. 7) If we would be changed and perfected by the Grace of God we must be cleansed from all unrighteousness. For the merciful Grace of God to transform us, on our part we must flee all evil and open ourselves up wholly and completely to the redemptive process.
 
Of the second: In all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God. (2 Cor. vi. 4)
 
What we embrace inwardly and spiritually, we must reveal and disclose to others externally and visibly. The First Love of our hearts must move us to holy and righteous thoughts, words, and works. These are the fruits of hearts that are right with God, intending to please Him with all of our lives. 
 
Of the third: Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles. (1 St. Peter ii. 12) Of these three things: And thou shalt bring Aaron and his sons unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation and wash them with water; (Ex. xl. 12, 13)and thou shalt anoint them as thou didst anoint their father (v. 15).We are unto God a sweet savour of Christ. (2 Cor. ii. 15) But the Lord requires that we should serve Him in three ways first, by imitating Him; second, by delighting in His service ; thirdly, by fearing Him.
 
To have an honest, upright, and holy conversation and commerce with all men, we must always resort to the Lord for purification, washing, and cleansing. Then the Lord will anoint us with His Holy Spirit that we might become a sweet smelling savour unto Him. Once we are washed, then we are ready to imitate and replicate His truth, delight in surrendering our wills to His Absolute Desire for us, and fear to disregard, disobey, and displease Him. Thus we shall be moved by His wisdom, His Love, and His power. We shall serve up His truth because we are honored to take up the call. ‘If any man serve Me, let him follow Me.’ (St. John xii. 26) We shall delight in this service. ‘Serve the Lord with gladness and come before his presence with a song.’ (Ps. c. 2) We shall then fear to lose the truth in which we delight. Thus we shall, ‘Serve the Lord with fear.’ (Ps. ii. 11)
 
The first makes the service acceptable to the Lord; the second makes us ready in serving ; the third preserves us in His service. But the Lord promises three rewards to His servants, viz., happiness, dignity, and eternity. Of the first
Reward: For they that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree. (1 Tim. iii. 13) Of the second reward: Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things. (St. Matt. xxv. 23) Of the third reward: And serve Him day and night in His Temple;" and afterwards He " shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters. (Reve. Vii. 15)Eternity is a fountain of life. As Dionysius says, Eternity is endless, and at the same time the whole and perfect possession of life.
 
The truth shall bring us true joy. God’s love will dignify our hearts as they blend with His in one will and desire. Our end is eternal life and in it God’s truth and love will define our lives forever. In eternity we shall be united also to those fellow men who understand His truth and love with His love.  Amen.
 
©wjsmartin