Any preacher at Midnight
Mass/Christmas speaks into a maelstrom of emotion.
Christmas is a milestone in lives
and families bringing back memories of of past joys and not least those we love
but see no longer who’ve passed beyond this world.
It’s a feast of family. Even
now I look back at the excitement of finding my Christmas stocking to be
emptied before Church, the pillow case of presents before lunch and listening
to the Queen at 3pm all my life.
To enter the spiritual joy of Christmas though we
have to go behind and beyond such experience however hard that can be.
To gain the forward looking
newness of Jesus which is the spiritual force of tonight/today, our looking
back needs to go further. Instead of looking back at our experience of the
Feast, we’ve got to look back a lot further, beyond our lifespan and even the lifespan
of Christianity to the Old Testament and make its eager longing for the Lord
our own. The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness - on them
light has shined. For a child has been born for us, a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counsellor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Those
words of Isaiah are fulfilled by God’s speaking to not just in words but
personally through the arrival of his Son onto the earth. Isaiah’s brother
prophet Micah, also writing 800 years before Christ, predicts the geography of
tonight when he writes in Chapter 5 verse 2: You, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah who are one of the little clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel.
Micah,
Isaiah, Hosea, Jeremiah, Zechariah, David and the Psalm writers, all witness to
those summary words of expectation in Isaiah Chapter 9 that the day will come
when they’ll say The people who walked in
darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness -
on them light has shined. Israelites held – and Jews still hold by
rejecting Jesus - that God will act in the future to redress the darkness in
the world by bringing something new – Someone
new.
When
that newness broke into the world that first Christmas, Easter and Whitsun the
writer of our second reading expresses the truth of it in an awesome sentence,
Hebrews 1 verse 1: Long ago God spoke to
our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days
he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through
whom he also created the worlds.
Later
on in that epistle the writer speaks of God’s appointment of Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday and today
and for ever. (Hebrews 13:8). Something new, Someone new who can never grow old, in whom we too find newness
tonight.
The Word
became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a
father's only son, full of grace and truth. Those words from tonight’s/today’s
Gospel put the Christmas message in a sentence repeated in another way by Saint
John two chapters later: For God so loved
the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may
not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:16)
Tonight/this
morning we stand with the eager longing of Isaiah, Micah and the prophets
before a revelation of God of immense spiritual force and possessing the
capacity to turn our lives around tonight.
The
one true and loving God planned and made human beings for eternal life with
him.
Knowing
that once made we’d need renewing again and again on account of the errors we’d
make that dull our spirits God came to embrace us face to face. Love needs a
body to express itself and in that way to bring renewal to the one who is
loved. As God in the child of Bethlehem first embraced his mother he embraces
us tonight/today through the physical elements of bread and wine we call
Christmass.
The
prophets cried out to God for 1000 years about the errors of the people but
into their cries God spoke a promise that would be fulfilled on a time scheme
of his own so that as St Matthew says, Jesus
was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King. (Matthew 2:1)
God
who is love spoke through the prophets and then as the second reading says in these last days he has spoken to us by a
Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the
worlds.
I can
point you tonight/this morning to the Bible and its witness to God’s speaking
to us over 3000 years. I can point you to the Christian revelation of God in
Jesus Christ 2000 years back and the building of St Giles to homage that truth 1000
years ago.
More
powerfully and immediately though, my task as preacher is to point you to
someone outside the pages of history who is here for us right now. Someone new who is waiting to bring something
of his unending newness right into your soul tonight in the Blessed Sacrament
of his body and blood.
To be
a Christian is to be made new, day by day and hour by hour, by welcoming the
perpetual newness of God’s love shown to us in
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
(2 Corinthians 4:6b)
Christmas
isn’t ultimately about nostalgia but
about newness gained through the
unique reaching out of God to humanity in Jesus Christ.
May we
sense with the prophets that gift of renewal which is ours day by day as we
engage with the stupendous fact of God made flesh, made flesh to live in our
flesh, Jesus, who came and died and rose, whose Spirit is knocking on the door
of our heart tonight/today.
Jesus who came to what was his own, and his own people
did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he
gave power to become children of God. (John 1:11-12)
Lord
Jesus, the same, yesterday, today and for ever, bring your newness to our souls
tonight/today in this sacrament of your body and blood.
O come to my
heart, Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for you!
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