Christmas Day 1995
St Stephen's Lewisham Parish mass
Hebrews 1: 1-16
John 1: 1-16
FULFILMENT
Ask a dozen people what they really want out of life and you will get twelve
different but interesting answers
One will say "money"; another "good health"; a third may opt
for "peace" and another might have dreams of rising to the top of his
profession, or simply "being famous"
However, one thing which all these answers have in common is that they are, one
and all, only partly true. Underlying them is a whole galaxy of assumptions
For example, the person who dreams to rising to the top of his profession
assumes that the profession in question will still enjoy the prestige and
respect that it does today. but esteem is a notoriously unpredictable thing.
What one generation regards as a really worthwhile job another may look upon
with contempt
And it's hardly necessary to remind you that being wealthy or being famous in no
automatic passport to happiness: Princess Di. is wealthy and famous but she's
certainly not happy
There's one word, however, which really does seem to cover what people want for
themselves. That word is "Fulfilment"
Like many other words, fulfilment, repays being broken down into its component
parts. The three parts are Full, Fill, and -ment
We all know what filling is. It's the process by which A is put into B. Petrol
is put into a car tank; water or wine is put into an empty glass or jug; and a
baby grows in its mother's womb until it fills it to the point at which the womb
itself has to go on and on expanding to keep pace with the growth of the child
which it contains
To ful-fil is to fill something till it can hold no more. Then it's time for
something else to happen. The baby is ready to be born, the car with the full
tank is ready to be driven away
And the last syllable, "-ment", wherever you meet it in English
implies that something has been deliberately done to make the rest of the word
happen. so "enjoyment2 doesn't just "happen"; you enjoy things
because you've taken the necessary steps to make the enjoyable thing happen or
put yourself in such a position that it has an effect upon you; and fulfilment
doesn't just "happen". We experience fulfilment because we have gone
about experiencing it in the right way
All of us from time to time get a taste of Fulfilment. whether it comes to us as
the result of winning a race or a football match, giving birth to a child,
writing the last sentence of the novel we've been working on, or seeing the
final curtain come down on the first night of the play we have successfully
produced. There's nothing quite like that feeling in the world. To experience
fulfilment is to know for certain that "we've got it right"; we've
"hit the target"; we are "spot on"
But none of these thing will of course happen unless we go about them in the
right way. the athlete has to train to win the race; the student studies to pass
the exam; the producer and cast rehearse to make the play a success
Now the Bible, and especially the first chapter of the letter to the Hebrews we
heard this morning, tells us that the Incarnation , and all that followed it, is
the fulfilment of what God had intended from the beginning of creation
"At various times in the past..., the writer says, "God spoke to our
ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, he has
spoken to us through his Son... the radiant light of God's glory and the perfect
copy of his nature." What he is describing is fulfilment. In Jesus Christ
is fulfilled, perfectly and uniquely what had only been understood partially and
imperfectly by even the wisest and most God-fearing men in the ages which had
gone before. What they had grasped was no more than the outline of the truth. In
Jesus Christ himself, the truth is fulfilled: the outline has been "filled
in", the picture is complete
That is why we acknowledge jesus as the unique Son of God: Begotten not made.
That is why he says, when he is coming into the world "...and let all the
angels of God worship him" Now if the process had stopped there, your role
and mine would only be that of the first-night audience, clapping their hands in
applause of the producer and the cast, or that of a doting relative saying of
the newborn baby "Isn't he lovely!". Admirers in other words
but god's intention for us goes much further than this. So far from wanting us
to be the audience, it is God's dearest wish that we should have a part to play
in the fulfilment of his plan for creation, the great drama which he is written,
and that we should share in the glory which he has revealed to us in the face of
Jesus Christ
Let us see how god's wish for us can be perfectly fulfilled within us through
Jesus Christ
We need to turn to this morning's gospel for the answer: St John chapter one
Our true fulfilment, St John tells us, is that we should become the sons of God
through believing on the son whom he has sent into the world. "Of his
fulness we have received, yes grace upon grace since, though the Law was given
by Moses, grace and truth have come [to us] through Jesus Christ" Notice
how the word "fulness" crops up over and over again. Man's fulfilment
can only be found in conjunction with God's fulfilment
Yet not everyone who sees that fulfilment believes in it. "He came to his
own domain and his own people did not accept him; but to all who did accept him
he gave power to become children of God, to all who believe in his name"
Our fulfilment, then, doesn't consist in the first place of being good; nor is
it just a matter of going to church sufficiently often
If we lack faith, then even the most morally upright, churchgoing person is
going to miss out on the fulfilment which god invites us all to share.
We must believe in Jesus Christ whom god has sent as the fulfilment of all that
the Law and the prophets were working towards. That is step one
And the second step is for us to allow God to fill us with his glory and grace
in order that we may take part with him the the great unfolding drama which God
has written
Secular man, man who has turned away from God, simply cannot begin to understand
this. He sees "religion" as being at best a series of commandments,
mostly beginning with "thou shalt not!" being shouted at us by some
rather forbidding deity who lives "up there" or "out there"
Whatever such a God as that suggests it is not "fulfilment"
"Frustration, failure and disappointment" would be nearer the mark
How different, then, are the facts. God has made us for himself and fulfilment
can only be found in him. Yet so far from placing that fulfilment beyond our
reach in the hope that we shall find it some day, God actually invites us to
play a part in his great drama of fulfilment here and now
he asked mary to play the role of his mother. She said "yes". he asked
Joseph to be his foster-father: he said "yes". he asked the innkeeper
to act as host, and the latter, rather reluctantly it seems, offered his stable
for the stage; he asked the angels to play the chorus, and one can just imagine
them falling over one another to be in the front line; he asked the shepherds to
act as his publicity agents, and wise men in their wisdom to write the reviews;
he asked his son to become the baby, and his answer, according to the writer to
the Hebrews was "Lo, I come to do your will". In other words they all
said "Yes"
and now god is asking you and me to join in the drama. We cannot yet know fully
the part which he is going to ask us to play
But of this we can be certain. If we say "yes"; we shall enjoy that
fulfilment which God has designed and destined us to share: and there is nothing
in heaven or on earth "that can be compared with the glory that shall be
revealed in us."