Allow that insight to work its way out.  Not for nothing does Jesus’ first ‘sign’ transform a wedding from disaster to triumph.  Not for nothing do we find a man and a woman at the foot of the cross.  The same incipient gnosticism which says that true religion is about ‘discovering who we really are’ is all too ready to say that ‘who we really are’ may have nothing much to do with the way we have been physically created as male or female.  Christian ethics, you see, is not about stating, or for that matter bending, a few somewhat arbitrary rules.  It is about the redemption of God’s good world, his wonderful creation, so that it can be the glorious thing it was made to be.  This word is strange, even incomprehensible, in today’s culture; but if you have ears, then hear it.

Third, and finally, we return to the meal, the food whose very name is strange, forbidding, even incomprehensible to those outside, but the most natural thing to those who know it.  The little child comes out to the front this morning, and speaks to us of the food which he offers us: himself, his own body and blood.  It is a hard saying, and those of us who know it well may need to remind ourselves just how hard it is, lest we be dulled by familiarity into supposing that it’s easy and undemanding.  It isn’t.  It is the word which judges the world and saves the world, the word now turned into flesh, into matzo, passover bread, the bread which is the flesh of the Christchild, given for the life of the world because this flesh is the place where the living Word of God has come to dwell.  Listen, this morning, for the incomprehensible word the Child speaks to you.  Don’t patronize it; don’t reject it; don’t sentimentalize it; learn the language within which it makes sense.  And come to the table to enjoy the breakfast, the breakfast which is himself, the Word made flesh, the life which is our life, our light, our glory.

Article excerpted from the sermon,What is this Word? (2006), originally appearing on N.T.Wrightpage.com; Used by Permission of the Bishop of Durham, Dr N. T. Wright