Book of Common Prayer Sunday Eucharistic Lectionary Propers

Appointed for the Week of

The Second Sunday After Christmas

THE COLLECTS.

ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us thy only begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure Virgin: Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

O IMMORTAL Lord God, who inhabitest eternity, and hast brought thy servants to the beginning of another year: Pardon, we humbly beseech thee, our transgressions in the past, bless to us this New Year, and graciously abide with us all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

THE LESSON. Isaiah 9. 2.

THE people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Thou hast multiplied the nation, thou hast increased their joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgement and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

THE GOSPEL. St Luke 2. 15.

AND it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

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Book of Common Prayer Sunday Eucharistic Lectionary Message

A Sermon for

The Second Sunday After Christmas

By: Fr. David Curry

(4th January, 2026, Christ Church, Windsor, NS)

“When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son,
made of a woman, made under the law”

Some can’t wait for Christmas to be over; others want it to last forever. Yet however much Christmas has been co-opted, if not hijacked to every other agenda imaginable, it has an undeniable hold on our imaginations and our lives to one degree or another. It has a global reach and presence in very different cultures in our world and even among non-Christians. Why? Because of its catholicity, dare I say, meaning something universal and in its fullness. The word, fullness, is a repeated feature of the Christmas mystery.

There is a fullness of things in heaven and earth, a double fullness, we might say, but one which is captured in the central mystery. For in “the Word made flesh”, as John puts it “(we beheld the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth”; a fullness contained in a parenthesis. In the readings for The Sunday after Christmas we have “the fullness of the time” which is just as much “the time of fullness”. The twelve days of Christmas are unique, not just an octave such as at Easter, but an octave and a half, ultimately culminating in Epiphany on Tuesday of this week. With Epiphany, Christmas goes global. What is proclaimed as “good tidings of great joy for all people” reaches far, far beyond a tiny corner of the world. With the coming of the Magi-Kings to Bethlehem, Christmas is omni populo, literally for all people, itself a kind of fullness.

But what does all this fullness mean? Quite simply, fullness belongs to God and to our being gathered into the life of God. Fullness speaks to the highest truth and dignity of our humanity; it cannot be constrained to ethnic, cultural, political, social, economic, and linguistic communities and cultures. This sense of the fullness of things is theological, not merely sociological. In a radical sense, the Christmas mystery at Bethlehem never goes away but signals the whole purpose of God’s revelation in the gathering of all things into unity in God. Like the Magi-Kings, we may leave Bethlehem and return to our own places, but, perhaps, as T.S. Eliot suggests, “no longer at ease” because the Christmas mystery at Bethlehem always remains with us. The point is that we are changed by what we have been given to see.

TBA