St Bartholomew, Brighton Midnight Mass 2019

‘Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth’

You’ve come to Midnight Mass, to glorify God, welcome him into your heart and be made a channel of his peace. This day is set apart from all other days to begin with Holy Communion, Christmas is Christ Mass nothing less. 

We’re glorifying God, led by choir and orchestra, in Brighton’s greatest Church. We’re prepared for Our Lord to enter our hearts in the Blessed Sacrament. We’re expecting the peace promised ‘to his people on earth’ to flow in and through us.

St John of the Cross describes the soul prepared for God as like a house grown still and silent. Centred on God we leave the inner chatter of self behind to welcome and be absorbed by the presence of the Prince of Peace. From such inward stillness flows the outward peace the world longs for.

In this great Church, in this great city there’s a miracle gift tonight which is ‘the peace of God which passes all understanding filling our hearts and minds with the knowledge and love of God and of his Son Jesus Christ’.

‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.’

If the soul is like a house it’s openness to God floods it with peace so beyond understanding it intrigues it’s neighbours. St Seraphim of Sarov says famously, ‘acquire peace in your heart and thousands around you will find salvation.’

My son works at Brandwatch on Middle Street and when we meet up there I pass the Brighton Buddhist Centre round the corner. Hundreds enrol there on a quest for peace through meditation. I quote a comment on their website: ‘A wonderful location for Sunday morning yoga and meditation with great teachers, calm atmosphere and welcoming environment’. Thousands more, including this congregation, engage with Christianity to be made instruments of peace. That peace for us is less an end in itself - God as the genie in your lamp - but more part of life lived glorifying God in heaven and building peace on earth. 

‘Rejoice in the Lord always’ the apostle Paul writes from prison ‘and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 4:4,7). As we look to praise God tonight may that peace descend to us and through us to all in our circle. It’s peace beyond understanding as Paul knew in prison and many other hard-pressed believers have discovered.

Walter Ciszek spent 23 years in Soviet prisons and Siberian labour camps. Over those years he lived with brief respite between four walls, yet he writes these words in his autobiography ‘He leadeth me’ : ‘No one can know greater peace… no one can achieve a greater sense of fulfilment in their life than the one who believes in this truth of the faith… to accept every moment of every day as a gift from the hands of God and strive always to do his will… it’s to know a peace, to discover a meaning in life, that surpasses all understanding’.

Our trials aren’t prison walls - for now! They’re real enough though - family strains, living alone, unemployment, bereavement or depression. Keeping in God’s peace links to ‘accepting every moment of every day as a gift from the hands of God’. How did you feel 10 o’clock on 12 December? Were you able to accept the exit poll and its consequences? Maybe you rejoiced, maybe you lost peace for a day or two? Acceptance of what God sends day by day, hour by hour is pivotal to Christianity, even if we have to work at times to change those circumstances in accordance with his will. That the process is finally in hand to leave the European Union is a relief to many. It’s a sad outcome for others. Christians fall on both sides but we shouldn’t lose peace over it.

‘Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth’

Tonight we entrust earth’s peace and justice to God, including the needs of our nation, as we give him glory and welcome his presence in Holy Communion. Christmas Communion is a sign we own Christianity and the reason and purpose it gives to life. In an age of anxiety, with mental health high on the social agenda, the message of the angels is as ever timely. It’s as ever timely as Our Lord is ever new, ‘the same yesterday and today and for ever’ (Hebrews 13:8). Living in that perpetual newness is the gift above all gifts since it brings peace beyond understanding.

Bless the Buddhists for their witness to detachment and mindfulness but what the world needs is not mindfulness but thoughtfulness, the overflow from knowing you’re loved forever by the almighty love revealed at Bethlehem. To live close to God is to welcome that love and gain a peace that prevails through earthly trials. Practically, as Walter Ciszek reminds us, that peace flows from acceptance of both the Lord and our circumstances as in some way his gift.

As you start Christmas with this hour be inspired to start each Sunday with it and each day with prayer so the Lord’s peace may fill your life and make you his channel to intrigue those in your circle. ‘Acquire peace in your heart and thousands around you will find salvation’ wrote Seraphim. Let your soul be made Bethlehem, the house of bread, in Christmas Communion so your soul be made a still, house with outflowing peace: ‘Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth’

St Bartholomew, Brighton Candlemas 3.2.19

Lord, now you let your servant go in peace: your word has been fulfilled. My own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people; a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel. Luke 2.29-32

The Nunc Dimittis or Song of Simeon is a Gospel Canticle used daily at Evensong or Compline, at funerals and each year at Candlemas in the Gospel and again at the blessing of candles.

It breathes fulfilment, peace and joy. Inspired by the Spirit the elderly Simeon comes to the Temple, takes the infant Jesus in his arms and joyfully breaks into the canticle which signals fulfilment of God’s redemptive plan and the peace and joy of salvation.

The Church puts it on our lips at the evening of each day to remind us darkness is no darkness to the Lord who is Light of the world, who fulfils believers, lending us peace after the day’s strife and anticipates unending joy beyond death’s night.

A few thoughts on such good news - the Christian good news of fulfilment, peace and joy.

The elderly Simeon was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. The same Spirit brought him to the Temple coincident with the Holy Family and used Simeon to announce the arrival of fulfilment, peace and joy in the person of Our Lord.

Like many I haven’t got a particular moment of fulfilment, of seeing salvation. It’s been a process in which faith has lit up my life and made increasing sense of it. Last month on a stormy sea journey to Dieppe at one point on our crossing of the Channel the sun broke through the storm clouds. Light streamed on the turbulent sea reflected forwards in a scene of extraordinary beauty. You couldn’t look at the sun but you could feast on a remarkable display of light reflected from the moving waters. Their threatening look was changed into a scene of immense beauty. The traumas of my personal life - I’d just been bereaved of a friend - were put into a new perspective. Like Simeon approaching death I felt, like the sunlight on the stormy sea, the light of faith transfiguring life’s dark circumstances showing me God in the midst of them.

Lord, now you let your servant go in peace: your word has been fulfilled. My own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people; a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.

Christianity fulfils us because God’s word is true to life. Then, as Simeon proclaims, we live in peace. The good news of Christ settles our rough waves as the stabilisers on that ferry settled the impact of the storm on the passengers.

Like me you may be travelling through a storm in your life. Put faith in Jesus Christ as your stabiliser and keep fellowship with others in the ferry which is his Church. You’ll one day reach harbour and be part of the rejoicing felt after a stormy voyage! Simeon’s Nunc Dimittis breathes the peace of God passing human understanding as the old man sees salvation in the young child, a sight that fulfils and settles him as he looks with gratitude to his own end. St Seraphim spoke of this peace in these telling words: ‘find peace in your soul and thousands round you will find salvation’.

Lord, now you let your servant go in peace: your word has been fulfilled. My own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people; a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.

Fulfilment, peace - then joy! Our good news first announced by Simeon, Zechariah and Our Lady in their canticles at Christ’s infancy thrill with joy. The Nunc Dimittis, Benedictus and Magnificat express the church’s joy in our daily offices and all are rooted in joyous encounters. As Simeon’s face lit up at the sight of the Christ Child so this morning’s liturgy lights our faces both outwardly through our candles and inwardly through the Holy Spirit. To meet up with a friend is cheering. Our eyes light up! So it is as Christians meet the Lord in his word, in prayer, in the breaking of bread and in fellowship with one another. My own eyes have seen your salvation and there’s joy in that, joy that by joy’s very nature can’t be contained in Israel - I mean the church - but has to flow out from us to our circle and, indeed, to the nations.

Simeon’s smile and those of the Holy Family reach down to us this morning through 80 generations brightening our lives on the Feast of the Presentation. As we present ourselves with Christ to the Father in his Sacrifice at this Mass may the joy of the Lord be our strength, joy triumphing over the hardships we bear bringing peace and fulfilment.

Lord, now you let your servant go in peace: your word has been fulfilled. My own eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared in the sight of every people; a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.