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Sermon 2021-12-24:25.pdf

24/25 December 2021 St. Margaret’s & Holy Trinity Holy Communion (11.30pm & 10.00am) Christmas Eve & Christmas Day Luke 2:1-20Some years ago on Christmas Eve, I was preaching at our midnight service. It was packed, a large congregation of both regulars and visitors in about equal measure and I asked them a rhetorical question........how many of you were once a shepherd? I got a whole lot of puzzled faces. Tylers Green has never had a reputation for sheep farming and most of the lamb around here would have been restricted to the butcher’s counter. So then I asked, had anybody ever been a wise man?......... and there was a gradual dawning of clarity as to what I was getting at and people began to laugh. Most of the people there had indeed been in a nativity play when they were children themselves. For many of us, our introduction to the Christmas story will have been through taking part in just such a school or church nativity play. You remember those plays - you know the kind of thing, where very few can hear everything that is said, but everybody remembers the mistakes. Maybe this explains the origin of the phrase “Christmas is a time for children”. But the irony of it all is that, beyond Jesus himself who is completely passive, there are absolutely no children in leading roles in the Christmas story. Jesus wasn’t born in a nursery surrounded by children wearing their father’s dressing gowns or their mother’s tea towels. Most of the players in this tale are old........Elizabeth, Zechariah, Simeon and Anna are clearly marked out by the gospel writers as either elderly or very elderly. The shepherds wouldn’t have been toddlers either, and I suppose that the wise men wouldn’t have been considered wise unless they were also old. So, it seems that the Christmas story is more about God expecting older people to enable a new and surprising thing to happen. Just because we are not young energetic go-getters doesn’t mean that we have no part to play. The Christmas story might have looked very different if Elizabeth, Zechariah, Simeon and Anna had taken that attitude. Something for us all to think about over the next few days. And as we do that, we should also take a few moments to think on how remarkable it is that God’s own son should become a baby. For me, it really is amazing the lengths to which Jesus was prepared to go to save a broken and condemned world.

This is the time when we celebrate the mystery that is the beating heart of what we as Christians believe. It’s a mystery that’s easy to state but can be barely understood by our finite human minds. This baby that was announced by the angels, worshipped by the wise men, that the shepherds rushed to see, that was celebrated by Simeon and Anna, isn’t just a special child with a special future. This baby in the feeding trough with his village mother and carpenter father, this baby is......God. He could have remained in heaven. Yet he became ‘one of us’ so that he could rescue and restore us. He came as the light for a world in darkness. He came as the life for a world facing death. He came as hope for a world in despair. So, Christmas is, in one way, both remarkable and special. And yet, in another way, there is nothing special about Christmas at all. It’s just a baby being born to a previously unknown couple. The fact that it was in a stable yard, and that he was laid in a manger, is nothing special either. Plenty of children are born today in makeshift maternity units and laid in whatever is to hand - just look at the recent news clips from Afghanistan or South Sudan for evidence of that - there is no hype, there are no trumpets. And despite what the carols say, Bethlehem wasn’t silent and Jesus cried just like any other baby when a slap on his backside brought his lungs into life. What we are celebrating is not God becoming special - he already was special. What we are actually celebrating is God becoming ordinary - God becoming human. So, if you once were a shepherd or an angel or even the hind legs of a camel, don’t let this Christmas be just a time of eating and drinking. If this Christmas is to make any difference in the world around us, then let it be that, whether we are rich or poor, powerful or powerless, we - like God - should ourselves go to incredible lengths to make sure that the hope that Jesus brought is made known beyond the four walls of this church building. As we remember his birth today, let us all also resolve to make known the peace, the joy and the hope of Jesus Christ to our families, to our friends and to our neighbours. One of the things that we could do for those around us who don’t yet know Jesus, is to recover our own sense of wonder at the amazing generosity of God coming to us as a human being. We could ask to be filled with the very peace he came to bring. We could ask for the joy that is the mark of his Spirit. We could ask for the love that makes a safe and tranquil space for others. A second thing for us all to ponder on this Christmas time.

And so on this most special of nights/days, it is my prayer that your Christmas may be filled with wonder. And that that wonder may spill over into your daily lives, into opportunities to bless someone and help them a step closer to the joy of knowing Jesus for themselves. God, the Word made flesh, full of grace and truth. Amen.

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Sermon 2021-12-24:25.pdf

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