Archbishop of Canterbury Christmas Day sermon

Archbishop of Canterbury Christmas Day sermon; Dr Rowan Williams sermon (continued) SOT - "But all this shouldn't make us completely forget entirely the underlying image. The life that lives in Jesus, the everlasting divine action that is uniquely embodied in him, is like something that is said – a word addressed to us. Because, like any word addressed to us, it demands a response. And the gospel goes on at once to tell us that the expected response was not forthcoming. Before we have even got to Christmas, in the words of the gospel we are taken to Good Friday, and to the painful truth that the coming of Jesus splits the world into those who respond and those who don't. Once that word is spoken in the world, there is no way back. Your response to it, says the gospel again and again, is what shows who and what you really are, what is deepest in you, what means most. What we say or do in response to Jesus is our way of discovering for ourselves and showing to one another what is real in us and for us. And like the other gospel writers, St John hints very strongly that some people respond deeply and truthfully to Jesus without fully knowing who he is, even without knowing what exactly they are doing in responding to him; this isn't a recipe for tight religious exclusivism. But the truth is still an uncompromising one: if you can't or won't respond, you are walking away from reality into a realm of trackless fogbound falsehood.There is the question we cannot ignore. It's been well said that the first question we hear in the Bible is not humanity's question to God but God's question to us, God walking in the cool of the evening in the Garden of Eden, looking for Adam and Eve who are trying to hide from him. 'Adam, where are you?' The life of Jesus is that question 'where are you?' translated into an actual human life, into the conversations and encounters of a flesh and blood human being like all others – except that when people meet him they will say, like the ...
Archbishop of Canterbury Christmas Day sermon; Dr Rowan Williams sermon (continued) SOT - "But all this shouldn't make us completely forget entirely the underlying image. The life that lives in Jesus, the everlasting divine action that is uniquely embodied in him, is like something that is said – a word addressed to us. Because, like any word addressed to us, it demands a response. And the gospel goes on at once to tell us that the expected response was not forthcoming. Before we have even got to Christmas, in the words of the gospel we are taken to Good Friday, and to the painful truth that the coming of Jesus splits the world into those who respond and those who don't. Once that word is spoken in the world, there is no way back. Your response to it, says the gospel again and again, is what shows who and what you really are, what is deepest in you, what means most. What we say or do in response to Jesus is our way of discovering for ourselves and showing to one another what is real in us and for us. And like the other gospel writers, St John hints very strongly that some people respond deeply and truthfully to Jesus without fully knowing who he is, even without knowing what exactly they are doing in responding to him; this isn't a recipe for tight religious exclusivism. But the truth is still an uncompromising one: if you can't or won't respond, you are walking away from reality into a realm of trackless fogbound falsehood.There is the question we cannot ignore. It's been well said that the first question we hear in the Bible is not humanity's question to God but God's question to us, God walking in the cool of the evening in the Garden of Eden, looking for Adam and Eve who are trying to hide from him. 'Adam, where are you?' The life of Jesus is that question 'where are you?' translated into an actual human life, into the conversations and encounters of a flesh and blood human being like all others – except that when people meet him they will say, like the ...
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696561212
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ITN
Date created:
25 December, 2011
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00:04:34:09
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ITN
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r25121104_10577.mov