Christmas Midnight Mass Incarnation
“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.” John 1.14Like most families, we have developed various traditions around Christmas. I and my 5 brothers and sisters and their families never attempt to spend more than 3 hours together in the same house – or even on the same continent. This year two sisters are in Florida, one in the South of France, a brother in Dubai and another in St Alban’s. It’s a tradition that has kept us a big happy family.
There are so many traditions wrapped around Christmas, some more recent than others:
Nine Lessons and Carols– 1880And in recent years of course, Hollywood has got in on the act. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without that now greatest of traditions, an epic sword-and-sorcery blockbuster.
Queen’s Christmas Message on TV – 1957
Christmas Trees – 1840s
Christmas Cards – 1844
Christmas Crackers – 1850s
Christmas Pudding – well not as we know it, but 14thC
Christmas Day falling on December 25th – 330
Midnight Mass – 340
The Nativity Scene – 1223
Harry Potter wrestles with the evil wizards, corrupted by their own power. The various Lords of the Rings struggle with good and evil. Last year it was schoolchildren again, entering Narnia to do battle in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.
This year, it’s the turn of Eragon, a larger-than-life story of dragon riders, cruel sorcerers and evil despots. It’s certainly action-packed but somehow doesn’t match up to the subtly of Tolkien or Lewis.
It has all the usual ingredients that we love in our ‘grand’ stories. An orphan boy lives with his uncle out in the sticks, discovers amazing powers and leaves home to be schooled in the ways of magic and dragon riding, and along the way, to ‘fulfil his destiny’. So far, so good – and so very similar to Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings... But what is missing in this year’s Christmas blockbuster, and it’s quite a substantial omission, and a departure from tradition, is God.
Or, to be more specific, a Godlike figure: a venerable sage with a pure white beard whose powers are to be feared, and whose wisdom can only be dismissed at great cost to the hero. Chances are that in the course of events the old man will also end up sacrificing his life for the greater good, only to be resurrected in a form even more powerful than before.
Step up, Obi-wan Kenobi, Albus Dumbledore, Gandalf and the Oh-so-obvious Aslan. You are God-types in our Christmas epics.
And this brings us to the tradition that lies behind all our Christmas tradition.
For in all the best tales of sorcery and magic; in the most loved heroes of our myths and sagas; there is a longing in all of us to discover the extraordinary, behind the ordinary. It is a human yearning for a deeper significance to our life on earth.
As Christians, we believe this immortal longing is part of God’s gift to humanity. It means that at our best, we long and strive for peace and hope and love and justice and a better world.
But much more than this, all these myths and Christmas epics point to our longing for God himself. As Augustine says: “He has made us for himself and our hearts will not rest until they rest in Him”.
And here, in this ordinary baby, born to a peasant girl in Palestine 2000 years ago, is the most extraordinary event in the 15 billion years of our cosmos. God, who created all things, became a human being and lived among us. He entered all the pain and the heartache of our world, which is why we celebrate his birth by celebrating, at this altar, his death.
But here we celebrate also his resurrection, for he is Emmanuel, God with us for this life and in the life to come.
At this Midnight Mass we repeat the belief and the hope of Christians throughout the world and down through the centuries: that this is not another grand myth of magic and miracles. It is the underlying Truth of the Universe; it is the transforming Truth of the Gospel; it is the Truth that, in the words of Jesus, sets us free, to live life to the full – an extraordinary life.
Of course we have become so used to myths, that we hardly dare believe that this is a true myth; that God can be “born in us today”. Yet that is what we celebrate around the world tonight
Father Alan quoted from a John Betjeman poem this morning, and his familiar words sum up what most of us feel when faced with the miracle of the incarnation; the enfleshment of God in the baby Jesus:
And is it true? For if it is,May you have the happiest of Chrismasses and sense the extraordinary presence of Christ in your own lives.
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things...
…Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.” John 1.14
