Sunday Reflection with Canon Robin Gibbons: 4 January 2026

Jan 3rd, 2026

Detail from Romanesque apse wall painting, Christ in Majesty, originally in Church of San Clemente, Catalonia, Spain

Second Sunday after Christmas

If we fail to remember that the words of the Liturgy are poetry, symbolic in meaning, and crafted down the centuries to carry the weight of the mystery that is 'God-in-Christ' come amongst us, then we will fall into all kinds of traps; such as taking literally what was not meant to be; imposing the letter of our liturgical rules and regulations on the flexible dynamism of the Holy Spirit; trying to change mystery into magic and missing the essence of that invisible yet active encounter of the Trinity with human life through Christ and the Spirit. The Liturgy holds the mystery that we may encounter it!

For example from the Cappadocian Fathers, Saints Basil, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus we get the term perichoresis, (from two greek words, 'around' and 'dance') which describes the mystery of the life giving Trinity in ways which we are able to grasp, even if intuitively. Their image, the never ending dance of the Trinity, comes alive to us particularly in the prayers of our worship, when we let our imagination open to the promptings of the Spirit to help us 'visualise' the Trinity as moving, dancing in a never ending circle of love, persons that interweave, penetrate and embrace each other, drawing us in through our connection to the Christ.

The Word helps us encounter Christ

What I have just tried to do is illustrate how words create meaning and understanding, in and through that Greek word for a never ending circle dance, the Trinity takes root in our imaginations, which are never separated from our souls, and helps us journey onwards into the mystery we glimpse.

This is of course what the Nativity season does well. In the Liturgy, through the Word of God and also the words of prayer, we forge a particular relationship with Christ in the encounters of these great feasts. Unlike the world that chooses to be very literal about Christ's birth, we see a different picture. Even in the warmth of those pictures of stable, shepherds, Mother and Child, Joseph, the Magi , angels and star, we discern other meanings beyond the merely human. Advent pointed us towards it, and all through the Nativity celebrations our hymns, scripture, chants, carols and texts draw in towards us something greater-the cosmic Christ!

The Word in Christ comes amongst us!

This Sunday we pause for a moment, looking back over the great Octave of Christmas, celebrating the birth of the Divine Child, and the feast of the Holy Mother of God on January 1st which points us towards more mysterious encounters beyond the limits and vision of human life. Firstly with the Magi and their deeds and words, both an affirmation of human mortality, and the ambiguous tension between good and evil seen in Herod, yet also in them, goodness and hope, heralded by the star and understood through their gifts, of eternal life for us and the Child who is the light of the world, Christ-our-true-God!

Secondly in the feast of his baptism, where a theophany occurs, the Father anointing the Son by the descent and power of the Holy Spirit and a voice, words, revealing the truth of who Jesus is to John the baptiser but also to us who hear them in the gospel.

Today our readings take us into that world where the Word becomes en-fleshed, makes real what is spoken. At creation it is the Word spoken that brings into being what is uttered. In our first reading from Ecclesiasticus, that great attribute of God, Wisdom tells the story of her place amongst us, coming to pitch her tent with us until the end of the ages: 'I took root in an honoured people,
in the portion of the Lord, his heritage'.(Ecc 24:12)

But this Wisdom takes flesh in the form of the Word, which we discover in the poetic cadences of the great prologue of John's gospel, and the unfolding of great cosmic power, where in words, the dance of the Word amongst us is made real. This is the heart of that cosmic mystery, a glimpse of a greater reality that one-day we shall fully know, yet now, through the gift of the Spirit is made real in the various presences of the Risen Cosmic Christ amongst us, and allows us even now to see His glory! 'No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known'.(Jn 1:18)

Lectio

John 1:1-14

The Word Became Flesh

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 1He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Poem

The Cosmic Christ

after Alice Meynell

What power has the Universe to break
The puff of stardust in my aching bones?
The memory of that infinite wake
Still shudders in each atom's breath I groan.

The darkness closes on me, echoing
Its grim oblivion, entropy's shroud;
The bleak gulf bursts to waveform's meadow, sings
A hymn of life triumphant in the loud

Everything-God's creation ramifies
Like lightning's spark the Logos Cosmos force,
His body is divergent, justified
By His infinite reason's mighty course.

When I tread on the Lyre and the Bear,
The Pleiades man's destiny proclaim:
That death has died, they may yet be aware,
I will be there to bless them with a name.