Emmanuel - God is with us - Christmas Day

Emmanuel

"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us." Matt 1.23

I’ve just moved flat and seriously ‘downsized’. It meant getting rid of about 4,000 books to various good homes, and of course you begin to look at them once you start bidding them farewell.

And so it was that last night I found myself reading The House at Pooh Corner, the Latin version of course, Domus Anguli Puensis.

“Pooh”, said Piglet taking his paw.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just checking that you were there…”

Humans, like piglets, are social animals. We need the sense that someone is ‘there’. We are, for all of our lives, in some way dependent upon others.

God himself is a social being: Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the mystical, eternal intimacy of the Trinity.

Then in his incarnation which we celebrate at Christmas, God became a tiny dependent baby, mewling for his mother’s milk. The little boy, Jesus, needed Mary to be there, to hold his hand.

As a grown man too Jesus needed companionship and had many friends: men, women and children.

He had an inner circle of close friends: James and John, and Peter - there with Jesus through the ups and downs of his ministry.

And there at the end of his short life in the Garden of Gethsemane - Jesus wanted them with him in his most agonising hour of decision. He goes off to pray, but keeps returning: “just checking that you are there”.

And some were there at his crucifixion: his best friend John, and his mother Mary, who had bought him into the world in that stable in Bethlehem.

So now, physically, he is with us on this planet no more. No hand to hold. But there is an even profounder reality of God’s continuing companionship. For Mary has conceived and born a son, and his name is Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.

He is with us because he lived here and shared our joys and sorrows; he can empathise with us in all that we go through. He is not distant and unmoved, but he is with us in all the richness and vagaries of our lives.

Sometimes at Christmas, they show that wonderful animated version of Oscar Wilde’s lovely story, The Selfish Giant. The Giant has been taught to share his garden with all the local children by the appearance of a mysterious little boy at a very low ebb in his life.

But although he searches for this child among the children throughout the rest of his long life, he never finds him, until one day he sees him in a tree in his garden.

Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, "Who hath dared to wound thee?"

For on the palms of the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.

"Who hath dared to wound thee?" cried the Giant; "tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him."

"Nay!" answered the child; "but these are the wounds of Love."

"Who art thou?" said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, "You let me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise."

By being among us Jesus has also taught us that all humans are made in his image, and are to be loved and cared for – another theme of Christmas and our compassion for the poor and needy.
This means that all our kinships and friendships are part of God’s being with us, being there.

We cannot hug God, but we can hold the hand of a friend, to check that they are there. And in our turn we can sit with friends and strangers, and by our physical presence assure them that God is there with them.

But companions leave us and Christmas is always a reminder, especially as we get older, of the empty seats around the table.

At the end of Matthew’s gospel, the disciples are filled with foreboding as they realise that Christ is leaving them, from the manger to the skies.

So the end of Matthew’s Gospel re-echos the beginning. He reassures them in his words of parting: “I am with you always, to the end of the age”. (Matt 28.20)

Here is an even deeper spiritual mystery. For it has been the experience of Christians through the ages, that by God’s Holy Spirit, they sense the loving presence of God; Emmanuel; he’s there, here, with us.

It’s of course very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that. Loving our partners and friends is very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that.

We started with the boy Christopher Robin, thought about the boy Jesus, and I end with a lesson from another little boy.

A while back I was in Stockholm with my good friends Stefan and Helena and their little boy Einar. We were in a flat he’d never been in before and at one point his parents left the room with our host.

He looked at me, said something in Swedish, then remembered I was that poor simple man who didn’t understand anything anyone said. So he came over, put his thumb in his mouth, and reached up and held my hand. Just checking I was there.

I hope you have a very happy Christmas, and a deepening sense in your life of the continual and reassuring presence of God.

"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us."

Emmanuel - St John the Apostle

"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us." Matt 1.23

And a reading from one of my Christmas presents from many years ago – from Winnie the Pooh:

“Pooh”, said Piglet taking his paw.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. I was just checking that you were there…” (The House at Pooh Corner)

Humans, like piglets, are social animals. We need the sense that someone is ‘there’. We are, for all of our lives, in some way dependent on others. It’s why especially at Christmas we hate to think that anyone will be ‘alone’.

You probably heard the huge response there was to the Today programme’s Christmas Eve interview with 89 year-old John Arthur who would be alone at Christmas. One listener even wanted to fly him over to Paris for the Christmas weekend.

God himself is a social being: Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the mystical, eternal intimacy of the Trinity.

And when he creates mankind in his own image, then he wishes to include them in the society of the Godhead. So Genesis tells us that he walks with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day in the Garden of Eden.

In our Old Testament lesson today we hear of his closeness to Moses; as Exodus puts it: “Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.”

Then in his incarnation which we celebrate this Christmastide, God became a tiny dependent baby, mewling for his mother’s milk and subject to Mary and Joseph. The boy Jesus, God enfleshed, needed them to be there.

As a grown man too he needed companionship and had many friends: men, women and children.

He had an inner circle of close friends: James and John, and Peter - there with Jesus for the transfiguration; there in the Garden of Gethsemane - Jesus wanted them with him in his most agonising hour of decision. He goes off to pray, but keeps returning: “just checking that you are there”.

And they were there at his crucifixion: his best friend John, and his mother Mary, who had bought him into the world in that stable in Bethlehem – [point to Rood Screen] there are John and Mary, at the foot of his cross as they are in churches throughout the world.

Today in the church’s calendar we remember that Apostle John. He wrote the most reflected and mystical account of the life of Jesus and although his authorship of the fourth Gospel, the three epistles and the mysterious book often known as the Revelation of St John the Divine, is much debated, there is certainly a corpus of literature that can be called Johannine.

John Keble draws from all those sources in our final hymn today. (See below)

The other disciples were obviously slightly miffed that John had such a special place in the affections of Jesus, especially the Apostle Peter. The verse before today’s Gospel reads:

“Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper.” (John 21.20)

And then the recommissioned Peter goes on to ask the resurrected Jesus, who was telling them that he would be leaving them soon, “so what’s going to happen to John? Is he going with you?”

It’s a fascinating passage, but I don’t want to discuss it now, so on to the present day.

Jesus was born – we continue to celebrate that over the 40 days of Christmas and epiphany; and Jesus has died and risen again and is now ascended back to the Father. Physically, he is with us no more. No hand to hold. No one for John to lean against.

But hinted at in today’s Gospel there is an even profounder reality of God’s continuing companionship with John and with all of us.

For Mary has conceived and born a son, and his name is Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.

He is with us because he shared our joys and sorrows; he can empathise with us in all that we go through. He is not distant and unmoved, but he is with us in all the richness and vagaries of our lives.

And he has taught us that all humans are made in his image, and are to be loved and cared for. So all our kinships and friendships are part of God’s being with us.

We cannot hug God, but we can hold the hand of a friend, to ‘check that they are there’.

And in our turn we can sit with friends and strangers, and by our physical presence assure them that God is with them.

But companions leave us and Christmas is always a reminder, especially as we get older, of the empty seats around the table.

At the end of Matthew’s gospel, the disciples are filled with foreboding as they realise that Christ is leaving them, from the manger to the skies.

So the end of Matthew’s Gospel echoes the beginning where our text is written: “they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.” At the end of the Gospel he reassures them in his words of parting: “I am with you always, to the end of the age”. (Matt 28.20)

Here is an even deeper spiritual mystery. For it has been the experience of Christians through the ages, that by God’s Holy Spirit, they sense the loving presence of God: Emmanuel - he’s here, with us.

It’s of course very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that. Loving our partners and friends is very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that.

A while back I was in Stockholm with my good friends Stefan and Helena and their third child, a young boy, Einar. We were in a flat he’d never been in before and at one point his parents left the room with our host.

He looked at me, said something in Swedish, then remembered I was that poor simple man who didn’t understand anything. So he came over, put his thumb in his mouth, and held my hand. Just checking I was there.

"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us."

Hymn by John Keble (1792-1866) for St John the Apostle's Day

Word Supreme, before creation

Born of God eternally,

Who didst will for our salvation

To be born on earth and die,

Well Thy saints have kept their station,

Watching till Thine hour drew nigh.

Now 'tis come and faith espies Thee;

Like an eagle in the morn

John in steadfast worship eyes Thee,

Thy belov’d, Thy latest born.

In Thy glory he descries Thee

Reigning from the Tree of scorn.

Much he asked in loving wonder,

On Thy bosom leaning, Lord.

In that secret place of thunder

Answer kind didst Thou accord,

Wisdom for Thy Church to ponder

Till the day of dread award.

Lo, heaven's doors lift up, revealing

How thy judgements earthward move;

Scrolls unfolded, trumpets pealing,

Wine-cups from the wrath above;

Yet o'er all a soft voice stealing,

"Little children, trust and love."

Christmas Fact & Faith, Advent 4

Christmas Fact & Faith

Advent 4: Isaiah 7.10-16; Romans 1.1-7; Matt 1.18-25

“I am with you always, to the end of the age”. (Matt 28.20)

How do we know this boy was born on Christmas Day? Well, here, I have my birth certificate! I was born on 25th December 1949 to Stanley George Mercer and Betty Mercer (nee Steele), at 160 Old Shoreham Road.

So how do we know that the man who bought enlightenment to the world was born on Christmas Day? Well, it’s there in the church registers: Isaac Newton was born on 25th December 1642.

As Alexander Pope wrote: "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, 'Let Newton be!' and there was light."

Well I could go on listing Christmas babies, but one infant that would certainly not appear is Jesus ben Joseph of Nazareth.

As the Archbishop of Canterbury said recently, the only thing we can be sure of from the Bible is that Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem. No other historical facts are clear.

Luke’s Gospel gives a number of clues which help to guess at Jesus’ birthday. I won’t bore you with the details, but the best and commonest guess is around mid September in 3BC. Or it could have been May, which would allow you to sing:

God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,
Remember, Christ, our Saviour, was born sometime in May.

The early church was never really concerned with the historical details of Christ’s birth. As we saw in today’s Epistle, Paul was convinced of the historical Jesus, who was born of Mary, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and rose again for us.

Christians were Easter people for three hundred and fifty years before they first had a Midnight Mass to celebrate the nativity of our Lord, on a date which was chosen to coincide with a number of midwinter festivals.

The Gospel writers were historical, but they were always more concerned with the theology of Jesus, than with setting out some short biographical sketch.

So Isaiah’s prophecy about ‘a young woman’ in today’s OT reading, is slightly re-interpreted by Matthew as he translates Isaiah’s Hebrew into ‘the Virgin’. The predominant tradition in the Early Church, made explicit by Luke’s Gospel, was that Mary was a virgin.

There was a certain theological symmetry in this. If Jesus was truly God and truly man, then it made sense that he would be born of a woman, but conceived by the Holy Spirit. (It wouldn’t work the other way round of course!)

And then Jesus’ human lineage is important, as he must be born of King David’s line if he is to fulfil prophecy.

Curiously, it is Joseph who is shown earlier in Matthew’s first chapter to be a direct descendant of King David.

So the connection is through a foster father - there is no direct blood line through Mary (unless you understand Luke 3 as giving a genealogy of Mary rather than Joseph - as a few do).

Here’s another interesting little Gospel detail, that on the three occasions an angel appeared to Joseph, it was always in a dream. Mary met them face-to-face.

It is to Joseph’s eternal credit, that he believed what the angel said in his dream. Most men would require the real thing: a ten foot angel, wings and all, writing in flame on a wall, before they believed that their virgin fiancée was pregnant with a divine child.

Matthew doesn’t labour the point, (if you’ll pardon the pun) because he is again making a theological statement about the nature of this Son of God: Joseph is to name him Jesus, Saviour; and others will recognise him as Emmanuel, God with us.

But Matthew, like all the Gospel writers, wants to take us deeper than history or even theology.

I’m sure you remember that little vignette from Winnie the Pooh?

“Pooh”, said Piglet taking his paw.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just checking that you were there…”
(The House at Pooh Corner)

Humans, like piglets, are social animals. We need the sense that someone is ‘there’. We are, for all of our lives, in some way dependent on others.

God himself is a social being: Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the mystical, eternal intimacy of the Trinity. And through the incarnation, he draws us into that divine circle of love.

For Mary has conceived and born a son, and his name is Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.

He is with us because he shared our joys and sorrows and so he can empathise with us in all that we go through. He is not distant and unmoved, but he is with us in all the richness and vagaries of our lives.

Then he has taught us that all humans are made in his image, and are to be loved and cared for. So all our kinships and friendships are part of God’s being 'with' us.

We cannot hug God, but we can hold the hand of a friend, to check that they are there. And in our turn we can sit with friends and strangers, and by our physical presence assure them that God is with them.

But companions leave us and Christmas is always a reminder, especially as we get older, of the empty seats around the table.

And this is why I chose my text from the end of Matthew’s gospel.

The disciples are filled with foreboding as they realise that Christ is leaving them, from the manger to the skies. So the end of the Gospel re-echoes the beginning: he reassures them in his words of parting: “I am with you always, to the end of the age”. (Matt 28.20)

Here is an even deeper spiritual mystery. For it has been the experience of Christians through the ages, that by God’s Holy Spirit, they sense the loving presence of God; Emmanuel; he’s there, with us.

It’s of course very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that. Loving our partners and friends is very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that.

So the Christmas Gospels are not concerned to answer all the factual questions we have about dates and stars and kings and stables.

And they are not even primarily concerned to set forth sound incarnational theology.

But in the words of John’s Gospel “ these things are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20.31)

In the end, it is in believing that we discover the truth of the incarnation, and come to grasp the fullness of life in the fullness of Christ.

Another Christmas baby, 300 years ago on 18th December 1707, was Charles Wesley. Let me finish by reading you one of his short hymns, ‘Celebrate Immanuel’s name’ which brings together the theology of today’s Gospel, with the warm experience of God’s love and presence in our lives.

Celebrate Immanuel's Name, the Prince of life and peace.
God with us, our lips proclaim, our faithful hearts confess.
God is in our flesh revealed; Heav'n and earth in Jesus join.
Mortal with Immortal filled, and human with Divine.

Fullness of the Deity in Jesus' body dwells,
Dwells in all His saints and me when God His Son reveals.
Father, manifest Thy Son; breathe the true incarnate Word.
In our inmost souls make known the presence of the Lord.

Let the Spirit of our Head through every member flow;
By our Lord inhabited, we then Immanuel know.
Then He doth His Name express; God in us we truly prove,
Find with all the life of grace and all the power of love.

Adolescent Christ

The Adolescent Christ

“And Jesus grew in wisdom and maturity, and in favour with God and men.” Luke 2.52

I was sitting with old friends this week discussing their children. I remember each of the five being born and have seen the two oldest married. The fifth child, a precocious twelve year old, had come to London this week to see the spectacular new production of Much Ado with her parents.

But our conversation was taken up with the fourth child; an unusual child, now a teenager; his parents describe him as ‘special’. There’s nothing as far as anyone knows ‘wrong’ with him, but since 11 or 12, he has been a strange boy, completely unlike his four siblings.

As parents, they are mystified. His upbringing was no different to the others and yet they wonder how this delicate soul will cope in the world as he grows older and hopefully more independent.

Most parents experience a degree of wonder, bewilderment and sometimes anxiety, as they watch their children pass through adolescence. Where will it all end?

Ten years ago I visited Nazareth, and climbed the 250 steps up to the Church of Jesus the Adolescent. Although it’s French Gothic in style, its foundation stone was laid just 100 years ago. It affords a wonderful view over Nazareth’s rooftops and the Galilean hills.
It is the chapel of a trade school, run by the Salesians of Don Bosco, where teenage Palestinians are trained, some still to be carpenters – a church dedicated to a boy their own age – the adolescent Jesus.

We can visualize the baby Jesus (although cannot grasp exactly how he is God). We have a mental image of the man Christ Jesus, although almost invariably framed by those blue-eyed, blond Jesuses around the Sunday School walls and in our confirmation bibles.

But an adolescent Saviour? - gawky and spotty with a voice that can’t make up its mind – it’s difficult to imagine. And as for a ‘sinless’ teenager – it makes us redefine our understanding of the sinlessness of Christ.

The Bible is remarkably silent about the years between Christ’s birth and his final three years of public ministry.

There is just this one incident recorded, which Luke introduces with the verse before today’s Gospel: "the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him." (40) This is to look back on the previous 12 years. Then Luke finishes the story by looking forward to the adolescent years and early adulthood: "Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour". (52)

Perhaps the purpose of the story is to remind us that the incarnation was a reality at every stage of the human life of Christ, from conception to death on a cross. He was as we are, and yet always lived in perfect harmony with his heavenly Father.

I wonder what his self-understanding was as a 12 year old? We all dreamed then, didn’t we, that we were someone special; we were somehow different; our thoughts were somehow more profound than others’. We had a destiny. And when we discovered what sex was, we knew we must have been adopted, for our parents could never have done anything like that!

Jesus must have had such thoughts and shared them with close friends on the hillsides around Galilee. He wondered who he would marry, or if he would marry.

And here in the Temple, as he approaches his thirteenth birthday and official Jewish manhood, he is caught up in the spiritual and religious discussions of the day.

Luke’s account mirrors the story of the boy Samuel. Interestingly, throughout world literature, you will find endless stories of precocious 12 year olds discovering their destiny. We were thinking of Harry Potter and the more recent Eragon at Midnight Mass, but there are parallels in Moses, Cyrus, Alexander, Apollonius, Si Osiris and Buddha, to name but a few.

There is nothing supernatural here in Luke’s account however, and although the boy discusses well what he would have been taught in school, he is not ‘teaching the teachers’. You only find that in the apocryphal writings such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Arabic Infancy Gospel.

Jesus is simply growing in his spiritual awareness and understanding of the grown up world.
A point John Pridmore makes in the Church times this week when he writes: “There is a life in relationship to God appropriate to the years when the child is becoming an adult. It’s good news for Year 7s.”

Jesus tells his parents, who have been so desperately looking for him, that he must be "about his father’s business", or “in my father’s house” – the Greek is impenetrable here, but either translation gives the right flavour.

Mary and Joseph are not the first parents of adolescents who are baffled by their behaviour and their answers. Jesus is not the first teenager who doesn’t know what his mother is so worried about. It happens again in his adult life when she is worried that he isn’t eating well. He is possible the only creator of the universe who has ever been told by his mother to put a vest on because it’s cold out!

All parents must go through the pain of letting their children grow away from them. They must know how gradually to let go. For if they hold on too long or too tightly, there will be tears before bedtime and probably years of therapy.

We don’t know what Jesus meant by this strange reply. Had he at this age grasped that he was in some unique relationship with God? He knew the village gossip about his own birth. The other boys at school must have made jokes about his mother.

But it would not seem possibly for a 12 year old even to entertain the possibility that he was God made human. On the other hand, maybe it was easier for a 12 year old than a 33 year old?

Whatever, it is evident that he had at this age a clear sense of vocation, even if it was as yet unclear as to what this would mean.

As we pray for those around us who are ‘growing up’ we should remember that early aspirations are often correct indications of where they are heading.

I’m just reading John Cornwell’s fascinating memoir, A Seminary Boy (Fourth Estate, 2006), which is a deeply moving account both of a child’s powerful sense of vocation and of the bewilderment of perplexed and sometimes angry parents failing to make sense of it.

So as we continue to keep the Christmas Feast of the Incarnation – God as baby, boy and man;
as we stand at the door of the 2007th Year of grace;
let us pray for and nurture the adolescents among our families and friends;
some of them ‘special’, like my friends’ son;
and let us pray for ourselves, that as the years go by, it may be said of us as it was said of our Lord:

“And Jesus grew in wisdom and maturity, and in favour with God and men.” Luke 2.52

Midnight Mass 2007

Christmas Midnight Mass Incarnation

“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.” John 1.14

Like 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– 1880
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

And 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.

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,
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.

May you have the happiest of Chrismasses and sense the extraordinary presence of Christ in your own lives.

“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.” John 1.14

Emmanuel, Midnight Mass 2005

Midnight Mass – Emmanuel

"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us." Matt 1.23

And a reading from one of my Christmas presents from many years ago – from Winnie the Pooh:

“Pooh”, said Piglet taking his paw.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just checking that you were there…” (The House at Pooh Corner)

Humans, like piglets, are social animals. We need the sense that someone is ‘there’. We are, for all of our lives, in some way dependent on others.

God himself is a social being: Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the mystical, eternal intimacy of the Trinity.

Then in his incarnation which we celebrate this Christmas night, God became a tiny dependent baby, mewling for his mother’s milk and subject to Mary and Joseph. The boy Jesus needed them to be there.

As a grown man too he needed companionship and had many friends: men, women and children.

He had an inner circle of close friends: James and John, and Peter - there with Jesus for the transfiguration; there in the Garden of Gethsemane - Jesus wanted them with him in his most agonising hour of decision. He goes off to pray, but keeps returning: “just checking that you are there”.

And they were there at his crucifixion: his best friend John, and his mother Mary, who had bought him into the world in that stable in Bethlehem – (Rood Screen) there are John and Mary, at the foot of his cross as they are in churches throughout the world.

So now, physically, he is with us no more. No hand to hold. No Lion to hug.

But there is an even profounder reality of God’s continuing companionship.

For Mary has conceived and born a son, and his name is Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.

He is with us because he shared our joys and sorrows, he can empathise with us in all that we go through. He is not distant and unmoved, but he is with us in all the richness and vagaries of our lives.

Then he has taught us that all humans are made in his image, and are to be loved and cared for. So all our kinships and friendships are part of God’s being with us.

We cannot hug God, but we can hold the hand of a friend, to check that they are there. And in our turn we can sit with friends and strangers, and by our physical presence assure them that God is with them.

But companions leave us and Christmas is always a reminder, especially as we get older, of the empty seats around the table.

At the end of Matthew’s gospel, the disciples are filled with foreboding as they realise that Christ is leaving them, from the manger to the skies. So the end of Matthew’s Gospel re-echos the beginning: he reassures them in his words of parting: “I am with you always, to the end of the age”. (Matt 28.20)

Here is an even deeper spiritual mystery. For it has been the experience of Christians through the ages, that by God’s Holy Spirit, they sense the loving presence of God; Emmanuel; he’s there.

It’s of course very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that. Loving our partners and friends is very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that.

Last weekend I was in Stockholm with my good friends Stefan and Helena and their little boy Eynar. We were in a flat he’d never been in before and at one point his parents left the room with our host. He looked at me, said something in Swedish, then remembered I was that poor simple man who didn’t understand anything. So he came over, put his thumb in his mouth, and held my hand. Just checking I was there.

"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us."

I hope you have a very happy Christmas, and a deepening sense in your life of the continual and reassuring presence of God.

Love Actually, Carol Service 2005

Love Actually

I was given an Early Christmas present the other day – Love Actually (DVD) - an improvement on last year's gift from the same person – 'Life’s Little Deconstruction Book – self-help for the post-hip'.

The film is indirectly connected with Christmas because the interwoven stories come to some sort of dénouement on Christmas Eve: the prime minister (played by Hugh Grant) falls for a down-to-earth domestic help with chubby thighs - from south of the river! A little boy feels the pain of unrequited love; a smitten novelist falls in love with his Portuguese cleaner but they don’t speak the same language.

The film has a curious title - Love Actually - but it comes from the words in the opening sequence of the film which shows people hugging and greeting one another in the airport arrivals lounge. The narrator says:

“General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed - but I don't see that - seems to me that love is everywhere.
Igniting laughter, wreaking havoc, breaking hearts, daring commitments, forcing choices, catapulting spirits, forging inroads, creating risks - ecstatic, exciting, unexpected, unwelcome, inconvenient, inexplicable, inelegant, unequalled.
Love actually is all around.”

It’s a common enough sentiment. It was the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death the other day and we were reminded again that ‘All you need is love’. But at a deeper theological level as well as at ordinary human level, love actually is all around. It’s part of the deeper meaning of Christmas.

A theme that runs through the film is communication between people in love; and between people who simply love one another in the bonds of friendship -

For the joy of human love,
brother, sister, parent, child,
friends on earth and friends above...

Christmas signals God’s supreme communication of love; a communication of his very self for God is love and so ‘Love came down at Christmas’.

In the words of the Bible: “God so loved the world…”

We give Christmas presents as tokens of love for one another, because God first gave us, on that first Christmas, his supreme gift of love: the gift of Jesus.

The late John Betjeman muses on the meaning of these Christmas presents and how they relate to G0d’s surprising gift to mankind:

And is it true? For if it is,
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.

The Bread and the Wine remind us, as do many of the carols, of the cost of God’s Christmas gift of love. True love is not about a sentimental feeling or costly gifts. It is about giving ourselves in love to God and then to others.

May you have a very happy Christmas and experience the mixed blessing of God’s love:

Igniting laughter, wreaking havoc, breaking hearts, daring commitments, forcing choices, catapulting spirits, forging inroads, creating risks - ecstatic, exciting, unexpected, unwelcome, inconvenient, inexplicable, inelegant, unequalled.

Light of Christ - Midnight Mass 2002

The Light of Christ

From tonight’s OT reading:

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light” Is 9.2

The midwife arrived in the middle of the night to find an anxious husband and his wife, due at any moment with their first child. Just as it all began to happen, there was a power cut, but the midwife calmed the husband and gave him a torch to hold. ‘Don’t worry’ she said, ‘I’ve done this lots o times before.’

Soon there was a cry, and the midwife was about to show the husband his first-born, when she stopped and said ‘hold on a moment - yes - it’s twins’. They were overjoyed, but suddenly the midwife said, ‘No, hold on, it’s triplets!’ All went pitch black. ‘What’s happened’ said the midwife to the husband. ‘I turned it off’ the man said, ‘I think the light’s attracting them!’

And the Light still does attract them.

Despite all the darkness in our world - and the media never miss an opportunity to remind us of it - most men and women are attracted to the light. They recognise goodness wherever they see it. They appreciate acts of kindness.

The light enables them to see how they should behave, with mercy and self-giving love. (We’ve just collected £600 for Crisis by carol singing around the parish - you can add to that tonight as you leave.) And the greatest light that has ever come into the world is Jesus Christ our Saviour, whose birth we celebrate symbolically at this dark midnight hour, in a church ablaze with light.

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.”

Or as we shall read in John’s Gospel later this morning:

“The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it... The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.” (John 1.5, 9)

In his careful use of language here, John is countering the theological position called dualism: the idea that there are two equally opposed forces at work in the universe: good and evil; light and darkness.

John asserts with the Jewish-Christian tradition of more than three thousand years, that darkness is only an absence of light; evil is but an aberration of good.

Light is our native home.

We are attracted by the light. Yes we are fascinated with evil, and often beguiled by it. But it is not our homeland. It is but a journey to far country.

The light recalls us to our senses. It reveals and shows true colours. It allows us to recognise and love our friends. It reveals the painful path ahead in loving our enemies. It is our hope in life’s dark hours.

And all this is encapsulated in this baby. In this Great Little One, who comes from his dwelling in unapproachable light to our dark world, that has always been shot through with his light, but has never really understood it.

And although we do not now fully understand it. We may not even know just why we came to church tonight. Yet we are attracted by this mysterious and compelling light.

Scripture asserts three things about the essence of God:
God is Spirit
God is Light and
God is Love.

And this is why we celebrate this baby’s birthday by commemorating his deathday and his glorious resurrection. Because the darkness was not able to overcome the light. Hate and malice cannot defeat love.

Remember tonight’s collect at the beginning of the mass:
“O God, who hast made this most holy night to shine with the brightness of the true light: grant we beseech thee, that we, who have known the mysteries of his light on earth, may also attain to the fruition of his joys in heaven.”

The joys of heaven have touched earth in this wonderful birth, so that light and love are inextricably bound up in this baby. Love came down at Christmas.

This Christmas night, receive the light and love of Christ in the sacrament set before you. Here is the mystery of the Christian faith enacted before you. Let the light of Christ draw you ever deeper into his love, as you receive this simple Christmas Presents of Bread and Wine.

Listen to the late John Betjeman:

And is it true? For if it is,
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.
(Last 2 stanza of ‘Christmas’ shortened)

“The people walking in darkness have seen a great light” Is 9.2

Emmanuel - Christmas Day 2001

Emmanuel

"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us." Matt 1.23

“Pooh”, said Piglet taking his paw.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just checking that you were there…” (The House at Pooh Corner)

I did a project on piglets when I was an undergraduate. It was really my room-mate, Andrew’s project - he was an applied biologist.

We weaned 6 piglets at two weeks, 4 weeks and six weeks. Then we jogged out to the university farm before breakfast each morning and weighed the 18 little piggies (easier said than done), each alone in their own snug little sty. The experiment was to see how early they could be safely weaned.

Sadly, our main finding was that piglets have little piggy nervous breakdowns when they are separated too early from the litter. They are social animals, and integral to their health and well-being is companionship, the warmth of others.

Piglet needed Pooh to be there.

Most mammals are social, and humans are no exception. We were not created to be alone, and we only sustain aloneness with some difficulty.

In the first chapters of the Bible we read of Adam naming the animals and finding none suitable for the companionship he longed for. But then Eve is created: bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh; a companion.

God himself is also a social being: Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the mystical, eternal society. And so it was natural for God to enjoy friendship with his creation. He walked in the garden with the man and woman, in the cool breezes of the evening.

Then in his incarnation, he became a tiny dependent baby, mewling for his mother’s milk and subject to Mary and Joseph for half of his life.

As a grown man too he needed friends. Jesus was fully human. He had many friends: men and women; he loved children and had presumably watched many grow up in his wider family and had doubtless played with the children of some of his disciples.

But he had an inner circle of close friends: James and John, and Peter - there with Jesus for the transfiguration; there in the Garden of Gethsemane - Jesus wanted them with him in his most agonising hour of decision. He goes off to pray, but keeps returning: “just checking that you are there, and preferably awake”. And they were there, after the women, at the resurrection. Of the three, Jesus had a Best Friend - John, who stands by his mother at the cross.

Now there is no more God, walking with us in the cool of the day. There is no more physical Jesus, ready to sit and chat, and share a drink.

But there is a profounder reality of God’s companionship.

For the virgin has conceived and born a son, and his name is Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.

He is with us in a number of ways.

Since he lived here on earth, and shared our joys and sorrows, he can empathise with us in all that we go through. He is not distant and unmoved, but he is with us in all the richness and vagaries of our lives.

Then he has taught us that all humans are made in his image, and are to be loved, second only to God. So all our kinships and friendships are part of God’s being with us.

We cannot hug God, but we can hold the hand of a friend to check that they are there. And in our turn we can sit with friends and strangers, and by our physical presence assure them that God is with them.

And if through the birth of this baby, Emmanuel, God is with us; then as St Paul says, God is for us and who can be against us? Christmas dispels any superstition that God is somehow out to get us; ready at the least excuse to consign us to hell!

The manger scene is charged with love and a self-giving God who longs still for the companionship of his creation.

But companions leave us and Christmas is always a reminder of the empty seats around the table. The disciples were filled with foreboding as they realised that Christ was leaving them, from the manger to the skies.
So he reassures them in his words of parting: “I am with you always, to the end of the age”. (Matt 28.20)

Here is an even deeper spiritual mystery. For it has been the experience of Christians through the ages, that by God’s Holy Spirit, they sense the loving presence of God; Emmanuel, closer than the breath on our lips.

It is of course very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that. Loving our partners and friends is very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that.

And what of Emmanuel, God with us, beyond the close of the age?

This has been a year with not a little grief and anguish. John the Divine lived in more uncertain and turbulent times than ours and in his vision, Emmanuel gives the ultimate reassurance of his presence and Being:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away." (Rev 21.1-4)

"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us."