First Sunday after Christmas; 26 December 2021; Christmas 1C (RCL); Isaiah 61:10 – 62:3; Psalm 147:13-21; Galatians 3:23-25, 4:4-7; John 1:1-18.
The passage from Isaiah speaks of the vindication of God’s servant, and the institution of a new covenant with the servant’s followers (61:8-9 speak of that covenant). This new people is now clothed with salvation and righteousness, that is, they are invested with the covenant. Note that in the restoration of Jerusalem in this passage, no mention is made of the Temple. It is the people clothed with righteousness who shine out to the nations. And the people of this new covenant (of forgiveness and restoration after the period of punishment) will be a crown of beauty in the hand of God.
A little theological anthropology here. The Alexandrian tradition (most clearly reflected in Athanasius, and continued through Maximos the Confessor) saw the creation of humankind as the crowning glory of God’s creative act. Humanity was created to delight in God and God’s creation, just as God delighted in the creation. Human was to have served as the priesthood of creation, offering the created order back to God in delight (see Nicolaus Loudovikos on Eucharistic Ontology).
Humanity’s sin was to delight in creation for its (humanity’s) own sake. This interrupted the flow of grace into creation, as it interrupted the flow of thanks from creation back to God. And because God’s grace keeps creation in existence, the whole creation became subject to decay (see Romans 8). I believe Paul is quite familiar with these chapters of Isaiah as he writes his letters, and particularly the letter to the Romans. It presented no difficulty to the early Christians to see the vocation of the Servant in Jesus. Indeed, Luke has Jesus quote the first verses of chapter 61 of Isaiah in his sermon at Capernaum.
For Paul, Jesus is the first human to be (re-)clothed in righteousness, but through baptism, we will all share in that glory — becoming by grace what Christ is by nature. John’s prologue picks up and extends this theme. Jesus is now the the Word incarnate, the Word being the creative agency of the Godhead. And to all who believe in him, he gives power to become what he is, children of God.
And again, the Temple has no role in John’s Gospel. The Word become flesh and tabernacled among us. Jesus is the moveable tabernacle where we encounter the divine as we journey with him through his Father’s house to be where he is, Just as the exiles will journey back to Jerusalem to become a royal diadem in the hand of their God.
As we worship, returning the created order to God in our offering of our gifts and of ourselves, we participate in the divine life of eternal self-gift in thanksgiving. As Athanasius saw it, and so Maximos after him, it is our eucharistic worship that keeps the world in existence, continuing the flow of grace from God to creation and thanks from creation to God. It is this ongoing eucharistic dialog that brings creation into the divine life, and in Christ, we have been clothed in the garments of that priesthood.