Category: Christmas

‘Born of God – Born in wonder’ Christmas 1 Year C 2018

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Sermon for Christmas 1

Col 3:12-21
Luke 2:41-52

Born of God

Well it is an unwritten rule in our household that we don’t use stories about our children to illustrate sermons, however, just this once, not least because its a story of parental incompetence and therefore I think allowable . . . as a family we can’t hear this story of Jesus being left in Jerusalem without recalling an incident which occurred some years ago in Keswick. We were there for the annual Bible convention and had gone to the local supermarket before departing for a campground with a large group of friends and family – well we hadn’t gone a couple of days walk but we had been about half an hour before we realised that Megan wasn’t with us.

Running as fast as I could I returned to the supermarket to find she had been found by some fellow campers and convention members – one of the lovely things about Keswick when the Convention is on is that the town is full to bursting with Christians 🙂 We were Mighty relieved . . and it must be said didn’t scold her as Jesus’ was scolded by his distraught Mother!

Although of course Jesus gently rebukes his mother . . . ‘“Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (or about my Father’s business)

So, although we haven’t yet got to the 12th day of Christmas, Luke has moved forwards 12 years to this account of Jesus’ family – about the time of the Passover, and how he goes missing in Jerusalem, for about three days . . . surely an echo of years later when Jesus is three days in the tomb before being found in the garden . . . the scriptures are full of these allusions, of stories within stories – it reminds me of those Russian Dolls which I was always fascinated with as a child. dolls within dolls within dolls – and here stories within stories within stories – and so, to pick another incident of Jesus life with his mother Mary, we might hear the words, ‘my time has not yet come’, so Jesus does not remain physically within the Temple, but returns to Nazareth with Mary his Mother, and Joseph . . .
Yet the incident is not forgotten – Mary ‘treasured all these sayings in her heart’

This is a repeated note in the Gospel. Mary treasuring things that have been said about Jesus and now by Jesus, in her heart. She treasured them – you might say having as it were lost her son for a while, she held him in her heart through all that had been said about him and by him . . .

What is immensely clear in this story is that Mary and Joseph do not understand. If they are going to understand they will have to live with these words, these seeds in their hearts, until such time when with persistence and in a good soil, they take root and bear fruit . . .

‘I must be in my Father’s house’

I wonder, what is it that we treasure in our hearts? What finds a home in us? To pick up on the image of Russian dolls again, Jesus uses the idea of Abiding, or Living within us. Abide in me, as I abide in you. We live in Him as He lives in us, or will if we attend to Him, if we follow Mary, our Mother in faith, who for nine months says Yes to this Word of God growing within her, and bearing fruit. Who goes on even though she does not understand, for who truly can hope to fully understand, who goes on treasuring these words in her heart. As the child conceived in her comes to birth, so the Word in her comes to bear fruit in her life.

One of the things I find most odd about faith in these days is how readily we dismiss these stories, beach we do not understand. They do not make sense to us. You are not likely to find many even within the church who attest to truth of The Virgin Birth. ‘Why? This is nonsense!’
As if we understood. As if we stood in a place where all of existence and reality was beneath our feet . . . Anything which doesn’t readily fit our casual notions truth discarded, for ‘this saying is too hard’ . . . like Jesus’s words ‘Whoever eats me will live because of me’ . . . too hard. Thus the Word is snatched away and perhaps we see within the church the effect of that word being snatched away – where is the Life? – as our ‘Modern’ understanding dismisses anything we cannot fit into our own picture –

Yet if is something which fits into our picture, we may well ask, why bother with it in the first place? If it is something that we infinitely small creatures can readily comprehend – why do we consider it of worth? Do we think that the understanding of ants is rational, and truthful? On the scale of the Universe and all that is – It is as if we were ants and proudly thought we comprehended existence itself . . .

Mary, although she does not know ‘how can this be, since I am a virgin?’ does not understand, she allows the words, the announcement to find a home within her. Although she is distraught at the actions of her son which have so upset her and Joseph, actions which make no sense to her and upset her greatly, she does not dismiss them, she treasures his words in her heart. She is not proud. She blows that she doesn’t understand, but believes

We have 12 days of Christmas. Days in which we can in humility allow these words of Jesus, this story of Jesus to find a home within us – even though there is so much of it which is ‘hard to understand’, much which indeed we may find dismays us.

And I wonder what might happen were we to hear the words of Jesus and ponder them and allow them to take such root in us, that they become our words? When His life becomes ours?

‘“Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ What if we became the sort of people who were so given to attending to the Word in us, that perhaps our lives became lives that perplexed others, that caused them to question, that asked questions of the very way we understand our lives in the world, that had others searching us out.
If we stopped our casual denials quoting that simple convenient ‘modern science’ or something other such thing. (It is amazing how those who so readily quote ‘Modern Science, don’t know an science, and when challenged cannot explain ‘how modern science refutes all these things) It is easier not to allow the Word to take root within us. Like Mary gives birth to the Word in patience and great labour – if we allowed that existence was at once more glorious and full of wonder than we might imagine – if we became once more little children ourselves and said YEs to God’s word.

I only do what I see the Father doing . . . I must be about my Father’s business . . . if, to quote St Paul as dearly loved children, knowing we knew very little about anything, we became imitators of our big brother Jesus, the true human, and the true God, who pours out his life for us if we would beat let it take root . . .

In the beginning of John’s gospel we read ‘to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” To all who received him . . . who allowed his Word to sink deep into their heart, to find a home in them, to bear fruit in them . . . to become those who rise to new life each morning and say as His words become ours as we abide in Him and he in us – ‘I must be about my Father’s business, I must be in my Father’s house’.

Of course, Megan wasn’t lost in the Temple, or indeed a church, she was in the Supermarket – perhaps that has become our father’s house in these days, perhaps we have become children of the consumer age, with endless options before us, or perhaps we might again attend to the One thing necessary – hear these words of Jesus ‘Did you not know that it was necessary, – we might attend to this ‘that I must be about my father’s business’ – allow it to take root, and grow us into the fulness of Children of God

The Creation – To See Truthfully – Christmas 2018

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Sermon for Midnight Mass 2018

Hebrews 1:1-4
John 1:1-14

‘The Creation’

‘For we live by faith and not by sight’

As human beings we have a problem. For our most powerful sense – Sight – is also the one most easily taken hold of and deceived. We live in an age where visual stimuli assault us at every turn, increasingly so that we can be sold things. To compound matters to a significant degree, we now carry devices with us pretty much all the time, whose power over us is rooted in this weakness to have our attention stolen, to the point that we often find ourselves looking at our cell phones for no reason whatsoever.

In this age as much as any other if not mores, our Sight needs to be returned to us, that we might See truthfully.

So as when we seek to heal someone of an unhealthy addiction, we take the desire that is distorted and for a while put it to one side. To use a Christmas metaphor, we go cold turkey 🙂 When we want to speak of things that are outside the realm of our physical seeing, indeed perhaps to remind ourselves that there are things beyond the realm of sight, or better to our Sight so that we might behold the true nature of all things – there is perhaps no better time than in the depth of night.
For as the sun hides the stars and the entire Universe from our gaze, and our cell phones seem to rob us of the ability even to see those around us – thus the created lights of the World hide from us The Light, the light of Life. The Truth of our existence.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness

The Light shines in the darkness

The Light which is the Life of all people. The Light by which we Behold the Truth of our own existence – The Light by which we See clearly, by which we Behold All things – Everything.

For the message of Christmas goes well beyond anything that we might care to consider – out into the depths of space and time – filling them and completing them,

Here in the depths of the night we listen to words of John, coming to us from ‘the beginning’ When John wishes to speak to us of the coming of Jesus into the world, he opens his account ‘In the beginning’ In speaking of what we like to call The Christmas Story, John wants us to pay attention to the story of Everything. In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the Earth . . . and God said . . . Let there be Light, and there was light – In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God . . . in Him was Life and that Life is the Light of all people

Whilst it is true in some very limited sense to speak of the birth of Jesus as occurring 2000 years ago, that is only a fragment of a much greater truth – that the birth of Jesus, the story of Bethlehem and shepherds, and Mary and Joseph, and Angelic announcements in the night, is the Revealing, the Appearing of that which is true ‘from the beginning’ and also that which is true ‘to the ages of ages’. It is the Revelation of the entire work of God in the World . . . To See truthfully, to see Truth in its entirety, to See all things, our gaze must be restricted, drawn to a single point, a pin prick of light in the Universe, in the sign that is a child lying in a manger – to recover our sight we need to begin in the darkness in order to see Jesus

If the physicists are to be believed, and being a physicist myself I guess I have to declare an interest in physicists being believed, were we able to stand outside of the universe – an impossibility – we would see all of space, and therefore all of time. We would in a moment see everything from East to West, From North to South – from its beginning to its end. All space, all time – but we do not need to take a space ship to get outside of all space and time – for to Behold the Word made flesh is to begin to See all things – to have our sight restored, that we might truly be able to see all things

The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews puts it like this in speaking of the coming of Jesus into the World ‘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. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word.

For the One born to us in the depths of this Holiest of Nights, He is the Alpha and the Omega, He is the Beginning and The End. ‘[The Word] was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.’ He is the Light that is the light of all people. He is in all and through all and above all . . . He Encompasses All things in His Being

One of the old Saints of the church says of God, ‘A circle whose centre is everywhere and circumference is nowhere’ – This Word of Life which calls forth the entirety of Creation is revealed in the Centre of Creation, in the One who sustains all things

The Incarnation, the birth of Jesus we might say is the coming into the world of Centre of History, a Centre that is Everywhere and at all times. That has no boundary. A Love without borders. This is the meaning of History., the meaning of all things.

 

Amen

Christmas ‘Knowing my Place – Home for Christmas’

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Christmas

Hebrews 1:1-4
John 1:1-14

‘Finding my Place – Home for Christmas’

Home for Christmas . . . These simple words may well evoke a great deal in us – Family not least. As we get older our focus shifts. When we were small we were caught up in it all, drinking in that deep sense of home without noticing or naming it, it soaked into us.
As we grew older, then more and more it became something we began to create for those who were younger. Build a Home, a Place we hope of Trust, of Security, of Joy and Peace. Too man of us tragically know the pain of a broken Home. We have a deep sense of what Home Should be when things are Right!
A Place we Know as the Right Place for us. Preparing for Christmas is so much about getting things ready, getting everything in its right place. When we Know our True Place, or Right Place, we are Home

In the final years of my grandmothers life, I used to love to sit in her kitchen and hear her talk about her childhood Home. She grew up in the early years of the last century in a small hamlet on the far north west coast of England, in the shadow of the Lake District hills. It was a community where there was a strong sense of everyone and everything being ‘in its place’. To her last days she could tell you where everyone sat in the village church – from the Lord and Lady of the Manor with their family at the front of Church, back through the yeoman farmers – my Grandmothers family were sat here – then the tenant farmers, then at the back the labourers . . . everyone in Place, everyone Knowing their place . . . and although it is very easy for us to dismiss this, my Grandmother wouldn’t have it – for it was to her in amidst the hardship of life, a community of great security, true Social security, for everyone in knowing their public place knew also their public obligations to those around them.

She would tell of how whenever someone was ill in the village, and perhaps unable to work and thus buy food, the Lady of the manor would be seen making her way to the house to visit with a basket of fresh fruit and vegetables – of how my grandmothers family looked after the poor of the village who had large family’s and little money with fresh milk and eggs and butter and any other produce. Everyone Knew their place – a sense of being in Place, of belonging.
Of course it wasn’t an idyll, but she could not remember anyone going hungry – for that would have brought shame on those who had responsibility in the community . . . it wasn’t an idyll – it wasn’t perfect, but like so many long standing ‘orthodoxies’ it pointed beyond itself. In the impurity, a Deep Truth lay veiled and my Grandmother knew that simply ‘doing away with the old ways’ wasn’t the answer

But her age, her generation and its Wisdom has gone . . . Now ‘Know your Place!’ is only heard in terms of shackles. We are too hasty – we throw things away – we too readily miss the treasure hidden

The other day I was at a Graduation ceremony and the speaker told the assembled graduates that they should ‘challenge the orthodoxies’ This phrase passed I guess without comment, after all isn’t that what we are supposed to do nowadays? Challenge Orthodoxies??
It must be said it didn’t entirely pass the attention of Brett who asked afterwards. ‘Challenge Orthodoxies? Doesn’t Orthodoxy mean “that which is Right”?’ Bright lad that he is, he was of course correct. Orthodox means that which is Right, that which is True in the very deepest sense – literally it means Right Glory. To Reveal the deep Truth and Beauty of existence.
As many a young child might discover after an over vigorous engagement with their new toys on Christmas day, We live in an age in which we ‘happily’ break things down, and as that same child learns to their deep sorrow – it is a lot easier to break down, than it is to heal. Think how easily a word of criticism destroys – how seemingly impossible to speak a single healing word . . .

As we might look around at the wider order of things – what which we used to call ‘The Creation’ How easy to break, to destroy – how difficult to heal . . .
The sociologists have been telling us now for many years that breaking social structures, ‘challenging orthodoxy’ we might say, seems to lead inexorably to rising mental illness, despair and a sense of meaninglessness to our existence . . . a sense of lostness, of not knowing where our healing is – where our Home is . . .

For with the breakdown of the Old Structures – we lose our sense of Place, or Home. And we note this most powerfully at Christmas, loneliness is the great curse and killer of our age . . .
Alone at Christmas, not Home for Christmas . . . deep within we know this is Wrong . . . and yet

The Christmas Story is a story of Place, indeed of Home. Joseph takes the heavily pregnant Mary to his home, to the City of Bethlehem – a Place in an imperfect world in which a Child finds a Place, a Home – in a manger, a stone feed trough for the animals. A place of Security in a world of uncertainty.

As John tells us in the opening to his Gospel, this is a story of God coming to make His Home. “The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us” – literally He “pitched his tent in our midst”.

The Word of God – the Greeks called it ‘the Logos of God’ – Logos, the very meaning of The Universe, the Mind of God, The Goodness of God, the Beauty of God – The Logos of God . . ; became flesh and dwelt amongst us – the One who ‘sustains all things by his powerful word’ took on our human flesh and made Home in and amongst us . . .

God made Home here – for he desires that we might have a Home ‘even the sparrow has found her an house, and the swallow a nest where she might lay her young, even thine altar O Lord of Hosts, my King and my God’ Where is this Home of God? ‘The Word became flesh and made his Home . . . here . . .’

At Christmas we usually get only half of the message. ‘God is with us! Round the world the message bring’ – it is Half of The Good News – but we Need the other half. As we Need, Truth and Beauty and Goodness and Love – we need them in their Place – Here. We are the ones who need a Home. We Need a Place where we are Known and can Know the Deep Peace and Beauty and Joy and Hope and Love for which we were made – a Place of our deepest healing in a age which only seeks to break down . . .

The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us – He finds his Home with Us, so that we might find our Home in Him . . . as Jesus says – Abide in me, as I abide in you. God in Jesus makes His Home amongst us, so may we find our true Home in Him.

A Home which is Orthodox – which reveals Right and True Glory – The Word became Flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we have seen his doxa, his Glory – Full of Grace and Truth.

God has come Home to us – might we, believing in His Son, come Home to Him. Now at this Christmastide – and to the ages of ages

Amen

Inside out Christmas . . .

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Sermon for Christmas morning

 

Christmas presents – lots of excitement – but occasionally don’t deliver – the toy which needs batteries – which aren’t included – or the 1000 piece jigsaw, with one key piece missing -and it hasn’t fallen under the table =

 

 

 

The Christmas Sermon – perhaps less excitement 🙂

Of course all this talk of missing pieces – or the missing batteries might suggest that I’d be asking ‘What is missing to make your christmas complete – or rather whom??’ But I’m not . . . it would be most misleading to say that we need Jesus to make our Christmas complete – for Jesus isn’t part of Christmas . . .

 

 

Because it’s the summer – many of us will be heading away for a break and now more than ever holidays are about the accumulation of ‘experiences’ – perhaps bungie jumping?

Or walking the Routeburn?

Or visiting a vineyard? Or sky diving?

But there is one experience which everyone here has in common – can anyone guess what it is??

 

Actually this experience is common to everyone who has ever lived and who ever will live . . . and none of us can remember it – it is the experience of being born!

 

When you and I were born we came into a world of which we have no sense of ownership  – we don’t even begin to have the language to say – ‘this is my world’ – although ‘Mine’ is a word most of us pick up in our very early days . . . yet how easily we say that ‘Jesus is born into ‘our’ world’ . . .  where do we learn this way of speaking about things? That the message of Christmas is that God has come to us to be with us in ‘our world’ as if God was somewhere else? – perhaps lived in a different world – like a long lost relative visiting from the other side of the world . . .???

 

How often do we hear – ‘God in Jesus is born into our world’ . . . without thinking for a moment about it.

 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. ‘. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being’.

 

Jesus came into our world? The babe of Bethelehem is born into that which he has himself created . . . He prepared a world to be born into!

 

Jesus’ birth is unique in that He alone is born into the World which he knows as his own – the world which cannot be known apart from Him – a world which makes no sense apart from knowing Him

 

St John picks this up – he says ‘although the world was made through him, the world knew him not . . .’ speaking through the prophet Isaiah God says ‘The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.’ The rest of Creation knows its Maker . . . this is where the idea of the ox and the ass at the cradle of Jesus comes from, THEY recognize their maker . . . yet  ‘He came to his own and his own knew him not . . .’

 

YET . . . Yet  to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

 

The message of Christmas is that by and large we have got Christmas inside out – it is not that God is on the outside of our world and is born into it – rather that he is at the heart of it and comes to us who are on the outside – cut off from his life and promises that we might be born again, born into His Life, to know the world as it really is.

 

‘What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness’ In so far as we might understand Christmas as Jesus coming to us – it is like the master of the house opening the door – filling our darkness with light and inviting us in to that Light and Life

 

It is not that Jesus comes to us as a present, but as an invitation

 

Jesus has not come to join in with Our Christmas, to share in our lives – he has come that we might share in his . . .

 

And so we come to his house – to participate in his life in Word and Sacrament, in Bread and Wine

 

Amen

 

Sermon for Christmas 1 – Year A – Keeping Christmas

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Sermon for Sunday December 29th – First of Christmas – Year A

Matthew 2:13-23

‘Keeping Christmas’

 

Sing lullaby!
Lullaby baby, now a-dozing,
sing lullaby!
Hush, do not wake the infant King.
Soon comes the cross, the nails, the piercing,
then in the grave at last reposing;
sing lullaby!

I wonder how we kept Advent? In what way did we make of Advent a time of preparation for this season of Christmas? How are whatever means we used affecting the nature of Christmas for us this year?

A lot of questions to start with, but note the last one – How are whatever means we used to keep Advent affecting the nature of Christmas for us this year? How is Christmas different because of our preparations? How Is it? For we are of course only a few days into the twelve days of the Feast of Christmas. And being only a few days in, we may well ask, How are we keeping the season of Christmas? What practices are we building into our days to keep our attention on the Word made Flesh?

Of course it almost goes without saying that we live in a culture where it is far from easy to Keep Christmas. As I saw someone in the church say – ‘Christmas trees are very odd here, for come Boxing Day we throw them on the fire and set off on our summer holidays’. The Christmas of out imaginings doesn’t seem to work here in the Southern hemisphere . . . but then the Christmas of our imaginings is by and large a thing of myth, a powerful and controlling myth and Here in New Zealand we might say, ‘A northern hemisphere myth’. Rooted in ancient pagan practices based around midwinter festivals which the church transformed to announce the birth of Jesus – we sing of Holly and Ivy, and ‘Snow on Snow’, we put up fir trees, which are all that grow in cold Northern climes at this time of year . . . It is all too easy to make our own Kiwi Christmas – except it too would no doubt be a thing of myth, and little to do with the birth of Jesus.

I have to say I rapidly tire of those well meant but trite comments seen on FB and elsewhere, ‘don’t forget, Jesus is the reason for the season’. It falls into the category of ‘don’t forget to say thank you for the gift of electricity when you sit down to your dinner’. I’d like to make the perhaps painful suggestion, that as Christians, our Keeping of Christmas, is not much better than that of those around us to whom the name of Jesus is at best incidental to ‘the holidays’. And that our inattentiveness to Jesus is in no small part because of how peripheral the church has become in our own lives.

Let’s just come back to my opening barrage of questions? How did we keep Advent? In what way was Advent for us a time of preparing a space in the depths of our being wherein Christ might find a home? Where had our focus been those few weeks, outward on the ‘many things’ which pressed in on us as we sought to get what we think of as Christmas together? Or was it inward? Did we take the opportunity the church gives us in the season of Advent to preapre our Selves for the coming of Christ? Did we go to work on our habits of Attentiveness to him? Spending time in prayer, asking him to show us how our hearts needed to be changed that we might be fit vessels for the Holy Spirit?
A good test of the quality of our preaprations in this regard would be ‘what difference did you notice in your heart on Christmas day?’ Was there a different quality to the Joy, or the Peace that that celebration brought? The Church gave us Four Sundays with this one focus – preparing to meet Christ? What did his coming reveal in us of our preparations? And now we are in the season of Christmas – how are we keeping that? How Do we keep Christmas?

There are a couple of suggestions I’d like to make as to how we might do this – how we might train our hearts and minds in Attentiveness, that like Mary our Parent in faith, we might ponder and treasure these things in our hearts.

Firstly, play carols around the house! There is no doubt that the deep tradition and faith of our traditional carols work a deep magic when it comes to learning our faith better. Now you may note I said ‘Traditional’ carols. Not modern ones 🙂 And there are two reasons for this. We live in a culture, which is particularly sharpened here in New Zealand, which is continually seeking the new, the novel, and to use a word which should always be treated with healthy scpeticism, The Relevant 🙂 This focus diminishes the value of our roots.

As we demonstrated in Advent through the JEsse tree – we are people whose faith comes to us from the past. Part of the sickness of our age is that we fail to see that we are midgets stood on the shoulders of giants – we tend to see things the other way round, and our lack of appreciation for History and Tradition bears this out. So as to carols . . . are they a hundred years old?? They haven’t stood any tests, they are not deep rooted, they may have sprung up with joy – but will they survive the heat of day? – leave them be – go to that which is tried down through many years.

The second reason for going to the older carols is that they are the ones which speak in the fullest terms of the significance of the birth of Jesus. Over and over they speak of the one born to die. Of late I have been studying contemporary carols, from here in New Zealand and from further afield, and almost without exception they do not speak of the suffering and death which lies ahead of the infant King. That this is The reason He is born into the world. They speak all too readily of Emanuel, GOd with us, not recognising anywhere in their lyrics that this is a word of judgement – that the coming of God into the world is at once his Saving act of Judgement and Mercy. Christmas carols which miss this have not been rooted in the preparation of Advent. They see Christmas as separate, not the culmination of the time of preparing. And they are not Carols which are rooted in the Christmas season.

If we would Keep Christmas then the Church’s calendar gives us Profound and RICH resources to keep us from those myths of Christmas which are not profoundly inculcated with the significance of the birth of Jesus. Firstly, and here it would help if we might speak Christianly, Christmas day is Not followed by Boxing Day, but by The Feast of St Stephen. Of course Old Carols help us here to keep this in mind 🙂 Immediately we see how deeply a mythical Christmas has intruded into our consciousness. How Jarring it is to awake on the day after Christmas Day to read of the death of the church’s first martyr! Like Marley’s ghost it is an unwanted intruder. Yet the Church in her wisdom would have us meditate upon that on December 26th.
Then of course a day which is of Huge significance to us here, December 27th, our Patronal Festival! The Church Keeps our Attention upon Christ in calling us to meditate upon the one who lay upon his breast at the last supper, the beloved disciple who in many ways IS the Church founded at the Cross where Jesus gives John, His Mother. In my household like I am sure in most if not all others, there are no unopened presents under the tree, but there are SO many unopened presents which the Church would give us from her treaure trove of deep tradition. I was recently preaching at St Nicholas, Waverley, asking them to take time to address Nicholas in prayer, seeking his intercessions before the throne of Grace. I wonder if we also have some unopened treasure of Grace?

And Then we come to todays gospel reading, another fundamental tradition of the Church, Helping us to Keep Christmas, not the mythic fake which consumes us.  For hot on the heels of St Stephen and St John, on December 28th the church remembers the slaying of the children by Herod in his Wrath. The Feast of the Holy Innocents. Here just a few days into the season we hear the dramatic words of Jeremiah, “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” Keeping Christmas holds this before our face. The birth of Jesus, sees the eruption of evil into the world, it has always been there smouldering under the surface content to remain quiet when the myths of Christmas do its work for it, But where the light that gives LIFE to all comes into the world, Darkness strives with all its might to extinguish it. In the profound depth of the winter of the human soul, gripped by fear the desperation of our human plight is laid bare. Our deepest need, for One who will save us from our sins.

I’ve spoken throughout of the ‘Myth’ of christmas – Myth is capitalised and in inverted commas – christmas is in lower case. Every year I see example after example of how still the darkness fights against the Salvation that Christ has wrought for us, put another way I see evidence that we as Christians need to live far more deeply into The Myth – THe Story of Christmas. For the dark distortion of Christmas continues to try and undo the work of the Cross. I see it in carolsl which expunge the Cross, and I see it in encounter after encounter with people, where a sense of unreality sets in. I think for example of a man who would spend Christmas day alone, although he had family locally, for he was very ill and felt intrusive if he asked to be collected for the day ‘I don’t want to spoil their Christmas’. Such a Christmas, a sentimentalised ‘time for families’ is a powerful Myth which needs shattering, that those for whom Christ comes, the lost and the lonely, the poor and the sinners might know his salvation. The Church by its insistence on keeping infront of us the harsh realities of Witnessing to Christ exemplified in The Feast of Stephenm by reminding us that the Darkness does not comprehend the Light, through our own St John the Evangelist, and that fear still rules the hearts of those in authority at the coming of Christ with catastrophic effect, in the story of the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, The Church will not have us rest easy in the ‘Myth’ of Christmas.

our forebears who were all poorer, whose lifes were usually of far greater suffering than many of us will ever know, knew this. They wrote Carols about the significance of the one who was coming into the world, of the final conflict upon the Cross of the babe of Bethlehem – and through observance of the 12 days of Christmas, of Saints and martyrs and evangelists Kept Christmas Wholly.

At the outset I asked how our obsevation of Advent had impacted upon our clebration of Christmas – may our Keeping a Holy Christmas – meditating in our hearts upon all that happens in and around the birth of Christ – transform our lives in the weeks and months that by the grace of God lie ahead of us. Christ is Born to die for us. Alleluia! Amen

On the Feast of the Nativity

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Reading for Vigils upon the Feast of the Nativity

‘Beloved borthers and sisters: Unto us is born this day a Saviour. Let us Rejoice!

It would be unlawful to be sad today, for today is Life’s birthday, the birthday of that Life which, for us mortal creatures, takes away the sting of death and brings the bright promise of an eternal hereafter. It would be unlawful for anyone to refuse sharing in our rejoicing. All have an equal part in the great reason why we are joyful, for our Lord, who is the destroyer of sin and death, finding that all are bound under condemnation, is come to make all free.

For when the fulness of time was come, the Son of God took upon himself human nature so that he might reconcile that nature to him who made it; hence the devil, the inventor of death, is met and conquered in that very flesh which had been the field of his victory.

Let us give thanks to God the Father through his Son in the Holy Spirit, who for his great love wherewith he loves us has had mercy on us and has quickened us together with Christ even when we were dead in sins, that in Him we might be a new creature and a new handiwork.

Let us then put off the old nature with its deeds, and having obtained a share in the sonship of Christ, let us renounce the deeds of the flesh.

Be conscious, O Christian, of your dignity! You have been made a partaker of the divine nature; do not fall again by a corrupt manner of life into the beggarly elements above which you were lifted.

Remember whose Body it is of which you are a member, and who is its Head.

Remember that it is he who has delivered you from the power of darkness and has transferred you into God’s light and God’s kingdom. By the sacrament of baptism, you have become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not cast away this guest by evil living and become again a servant of the devil. For your freedom was bought with Christ’s own blood.

From the ‘Sermons on the Lord’s Birth’, St Leo the Great