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Lectionary for Jan. 4, 2026
Second Sunday of Christmas
Jeremiah 31:7-14; Psalm 147:12-20;
Ephesians 1:3-14; John 1:[1-9]10-18
Can you remember a time when things might have been a little too good for you? When something went your way, then another thing was great, and then something else amazing happened? As an example, I attended the joint meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature in November. While there, Fortress Press sold out of my book God, Gender and Family Trauma. My two papers met with gracious and interested responses from relatively full rooms. And I attended a beautiful, welcoming and serious church service in a centuries-old Boston congregation. In addition, my wife came along while my mom watched our kids, so we got a weekend to ourselves. Awesome things were piled on top of each other.
Adding grace upon grace is the theme of the lectionary texts for this week.
In the passage from Jeremiah, God-through-the-prophet speaks of a future ingathering of the people of Israel back to their homeland. Jews would be brought from the north—and everywhere else they had been scattered on earth—to dwell in Zion (31:8, 11-12). Jeremiah said there were those who would try to prevent the Israeli’s from emigrating or entering the promised land (11), but the Lord would gather Israel together as a shepherd gathers sheep and as a father scoops up a firstborn (9-10). This is my favorite image of God in Scripture!
The context for these verses is the national calamity at the hands of the Babylonians. Jeremiah—and other prophets—frame this as a punishment for Israel’s and Judah’s idolatry and injustice. Yet, God promises to move heaven and earth to bring the people back to their dwelling place after they are uprooted. This is a profound grace.
The psalmist sings of still other graces. God makes the people of Jerusalem secure by granting peace, reinforcing protective structures and bringing water in due time (Psalm 147:13-18). As if that weren’t enough, God treats Jacob’s descendants differently than all other nations! God declares God’s words to Jacob and God’s statutes and judgments to Israel (19-20). This unique gift of God’s words is grace indeed—and a cause for praise and celebration (20).
It’s in the context of heaped-up gifts of grace to God’s people that we need to understand John’s prologue. First, we need to overcome a major disservice found in the King James Bible. The “translators” added a disjunctive “but” to verse 17 where none exists in the Greek. Grace and truth aren’t in opposition to God’s law given through Moses but are framed by the previous verse as grace added to grace (John 1:16).
The core argument of John’s prologue is that God’s Word should be recognizable by a continuity of graces. The Word co-created the world and came again to God’s own people (John references Deuteronomy 32:9). While some rejected the Word, the Gospel accounts point to the thousands who received the Word and became heirs of God (John 1:11-13). This gracious approach to God’s people, despite rejection, will come as no surprise to anyone who has read Exodus, Jeremiah or, indeed, much of the Hebrew Bible. This is God’s grace stacked upon previous revelations of God’s grace.
And like any good infomercial salesman, Paul announces, “But that’s not all …!” To the Ephesians, Paul says that Jesus’ gift of grace on grace extends to a people formerly hostile to God and God’s people. In Jesus, the formerly Artemis-worshiping citizens of the Second City of the Roman Empire were redeemed through the Messiah’s blood, forgiven their sins and made inheritors of the riches of God’s grace (Ephesians 1:7). The inheritance of God’s grace is for all who take part in the promise of Jesus and accept redemption into God’s own possession (again, referencing Deuteronomy 32:9).
The good news here is that God’s graces pile up on top of each other—they don’t nullify one after another. It was God’s good pleasure to redeem God’s people and return them to their home in peace and safety. It was God’s good pleasure to come again (and again) to God’s people, bringing good tidings of grace upon grace. And it is God’s good pleasure to announce a surprise inheritance to still other peoples if they (we) are willing to receive Jesus’ lordship instead of Caeser’s. God just keeps on being gracious to people who have turned away, wooing us back with the good gifts of law, grace and truth.
