Lancelot Andrewes

Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1621) had a wonderful way with words. His sermons were full of imaginative metaphors and elaborate wordplays. It’s no surprise that he became the leading translator for the King James Version Bible. He aspired to master one new language every year (he was fluent in sixteen languages!). English poet T. S. Eliot said of him, “Andrewes could take a word and derive a world from it.” Lancelot’s sermon preached on Christmas day in 1609 before King James I, and his court at Whitehall Palace in London is illustrative of his way with words. His text that day was Galatians 4.4, “When the fullness of time was come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.” It’s fascinating how much time Lancelot devotes in his sermon to the little phrase “in the fullness of time.” He notes that Paul could have simply written that the time had come but he doesn’t. There is something poignant about the “fullness of time,” and Andrewes takes every opportunity to plumb its depths. Time came to its fullness when God sent his Son. Fullness had a double meaning in Lancelot’s sermon. Not only did Jesus come in the “fullness of time,” but he came with all the fullness of God. He came “full of grace and truth” (John 1.14). The Spirit, in full measure, resides in Jesus. God offers fullness in the coming of Christ: the fullness of divine love and full forgiveness for our sins. Eliot was right: Lancelot can take a single word like fullness and extract a world of meaning from it. Lancelot said in his sermon, “The measure we receive shall so full as it cannot enter into us, we cannot hold it. We must enter into it.” Yes! And so, we do this Christmas: