Sermons

The Fist Eucharist of Christmas
Saturday 24 December at 11.30pm

Simon Cowling
Readings: Readings Isaiah 52. 7-10; John 1. 1-14

In the tender mercy of our God,
the dayspring from on high shall break upon us,
to give light to those who dwell in darkness
and in the shadow of death;
and to guide our feet in the way of peace.

Those words come from the opening chapter of St. Luke's Gospel. They are spoken by Zechariah, an elderly priest in the Temple at Jerusalem. Late in life he and his wife Elizabeth have had a son, John, and Zechariah sings a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to God which ends with the words I quoted just now. But Zechariah's thanksgiving is not just for the gift of his own son. He is also giving thanks that John is to be the one who will prepare a way for the Lord; John will prepare the way for the Lord long-expected, long-hoped for by Israel: the dayspring, the light-giver, the peace-bringer. John we know by his rather fuller name, John the Baptist. The Lord we know by the name of the one whose birth we celebrate on this holy night: Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, described by another John, in the opening verses of his Gospel, as the Word of God made flesh.

In his hymn of praise, Zechariah speaks of the Lord giving light; he speaks also of how the Lord will guide our feet into the way of peace. Those two words, light and peace, can be thought of as one way of summing up the Gospel, the Good News which Jesus Christ embodies and which we, in our generation, are called to proclaim.

Light. In the opening verses of St. John's Gospel we hear Jesus described as 'the light of all people'. Light which shines in the darkness; light which the darkness does not overcome; light which the darkness does not understand. Light is one of the most characteristic words in St. John's Gospel. Light, both literally and spiritually, is what saves us as human beings. We cannot survive physically without natural light; so when Jesus describes himself later in St. John's Gospel as 'the light of the world' we must understand him to mean: you cannot live, truly live, live in and for God, without the light that I bring.

There's a legend told by a Jewish rabbi of the sixteenth century in a collection of mystical writing that has become known as the Kabbalah. I have found the legend a helpful way of understanding what Christians refer to as original sin, the state of hopelessness and helplessness from which humanity yearns to be freed.

When first setting out to make the world, God planned to pour a holy light into everything to make it real. God prepared vessels to contain this light. But something went wrong. The light was so bright that the vessels burst, shattering into millions of broken pieces like dishes dropped on the floor. The broken fragments are what cause the world to be such a mess. When people fight and hurt one another they allow the world to remain shattered. The same can be said of people whose pantries are full of food but who allow others to starve. We live in a cosmic heap of broken pieces.

So it is into the darkness of this cosmic heap of shattered fragments that God comes to us in Jesus Christ. The holy light of the world's first birth, at the dawn of creation, comes to us again - as a child; the world is reborn - in a child; the shattered fragments are made whole - by a child. In the midst of our hopelessness and helplessness we are given new life - through a child.

If light is one part of the Good News, peace is the other. Zechariah sings that the Lord is 'to guide our feet into the way of peace'. The angels proclaim to the shepherds, 'Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace, goodwill to all people.' The words of our Christmas hymns and carols, not surprisingly, are shot through with this deep longing for peace. Seductively, these words can sometimes lull us into a kind of false consciousness, into a belief that because we are getting the warm Christmas glow all must be well elsewhere. Unfortunately all is not well elsewhere. Here is just one reason why:

A formidable 26-foot high concrete wall confronts the visitor at the town entrance. Its sinister, slate-grey façade and massive cylindrical watch-towers are truly awesome. This barrier will soon encircle the town on all its sides but one. It will be 30 miles long and confiscate more than 17,500 acres of the town's best agricultural land. Two gates for people and one for commercial traffic, all controlled by the army, will be the only access. …..The wall's completion will seal the prison that the town has already become.

That's an extract from an article in a Christian periodical dated 12 November 2005. I have omitted only the name of the town, but you may have guessed it already. It is Bethlehem. The author of that article, herself a Muslim, warns Christians that '(if) nothing is done, and soon, the Bethlehem (you) celebrate each year will be no more than a folk memory.' Bethlehem is fast becoming a ghost town. The Palestinian Christian population is dwindling year by year. They are distrusted by the Israeli army because they are Palestinian and distrusted by Palestinian Muslims because they are Christian. They feel they have no future. Remember and pray for them as we sing, at Communion, 'O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie'. Remember and pray, too, for all those other places where there is not peace. Countries where people are dying because of others' wars; countries where people are dying because of others' neglect; countries where the people who are dying see us as 'the others'.

Jesus Christ, if we will only recognise him, is light shining in our darkness; light that brings us life in all its fullness. Jesus Christ, if we will only follow him, will be our guide into the way of peace, peace that will bring healing to the shattered fragments of our world. In recognising the light of Christ, and in following him into the way of peace, we become disciples who bring that light to others, disciples who seek out what is broken in our world and, in Christ's name, begin to repair it. May it be so.

Show us good Lord,
the peace we should seek,
the peace we must give;
the peace we can keep,
the peace we must forgo.
Show us the peace you have given us,
in Christ, your Son. Amen

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay