The Second Sunday of Christmas Year C
Taken from Twelve Months of Sunday year c
Description
The Second Sunday of Christmas
Jeremiah 31.7–14
Ephesians 1.3–14
John 1.1–18
Take a deep breath, and try reading Ephesians 1.3–14 all in one go. It is, after all, a single sentence in the Greek, a Christian version of the Jewish-style prayer, ‘Blessed be the God who . . .’. Only now, instead of the Jewish affirmations, we have a rethought set of Christian ones. God’s choice of his special people; their rescue from slavery; his purpose to bless the whole world through them; his offer, and advance guarantee, of an inheritance. Election, exodus, promised land, and the presence of God himself: this is Israel’s story, summed up in the Messiah’s story and thus made available to those who are ‘in him’. Jeremiah’s promise of covenant renewal has come true...