Sermon at Midnight Eucharist, 24th December 2017

‘God has broken into our world. His light has dawned in our darkness. And we each have the opportunity to embrace the light and be part of it: for our lives to move in a radically different direction, from this hidden point of encounter and gift.’ This is one way of describing the amazing and utterly unique message of the opening verses of John’s Gospel, which frames the story of the incarnation – God becoming human in Jesus Christ. A truly good news story that is trustworthy and true, against all the fake news stories of our time. And what I want to do tonight is to meditate, for a few moments, on such a faith perspective (which goes against the grain of our contemporary culture), because I believe passionately that it’s true and it really works – and yet in a way that only makes sense if we put it into practise. For words or concepts, in a post-modern age, are never enough; only experience really counts: words becoming flesh. For what tonight’s Gospel is saying to us, as we pass over (in this midnight Eucharist) into the new dawn of Christmas, is as simple and profound as this: that God, the One who made the universe, the stars and all that is, the One who is wisdom, energy and life, comes to us. God comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ, and into a living faith through the Holy Spirit. His love, in other words, a love that is deeply personal, reaches out to us. We are not merely observers but part of the mystery. We are not alone in a lonely universe, but God-breathed creatures. And I want, tonight, to relate this faith perspective to three specific gifts that come to us, through the experience of faith in Christ: the gifts of light and joy and peace. For just as the three magi came from afar bearing gifts, in adoration of the Christ child (the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh), so too the gift of Christmas [God dwelling with us] brings – to those open to receive – profound and priceless gifts, which the world can never afford: light in our darkness, joy in our sorrow, and peace in our lives: unique gifts welling up within the heart of each one of us. So let us reflect, for a few moments, on each of these spiritual gifts. First, light in our darkness: The opening of the Gospel of John is quite clear that the coming of the word made flesh, Jesus Christ, brings light. Indeed it links the light of Christ with that light that dawned at the beginning of creation, when God said: ‘Let there be light!’ ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.’ Now much could be said about the links that cosmologists have made between the poetic wisdom of the Bible and the events of the Big Bang. But suffice it to say that the reality of God’s creative power brings light, and this light links directly to the coming of God in the person of Christ: whose light was evident for all to see. As many painters have shown, in their depictions of the nativity scene, it is light from the Christ child that suffuses the darkness of the stable and illuminates the world around it, with heavenly glow. And, in the same way, we need to get closer to that source of light – Christ, as we gaze on him – in order to be transfixed and to grow in our experience of God; into his image and likeness. And Christmas is just such a time for suspending our usual preoccupation with things that make for darkness, and allowing ourselves time to experience the wonder and blessing of the light. God’s light (the light of Jesus Christ) shining into our lives, and enlightening our thoughts and words and actions: as we come to share in that divine gift of goodness, truth and beauty. ‘The light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not does not overcome it.’ Are we ready, this Christmas, to gaze on that light and to receive (in all that comes to us, in nature, in beauty, in love and wisdom) the gift of God’s light? ‘The maker of the stars and sea, become a child on earth for me?’ Second there is the gift of joy in our sorrow. It is said that today’s world carries within it, for all our scientific advance and technological mastery, a profound sorrow. A sorrow that has the potential only to grow greater, as we begin to realise that over the big things in life - birth, sickness, old age and death - we really have no control. And yet the Christmas mystery (that which it describes) is full of joy. Joy in the news of God’s Kingdom being close at hand; joy in the announcement of the angels to the shepherds - ‘today I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people’ – and joy in the simple awareness that, in Christ, all is gift and God’s joy is an abundant blessing, for those who dare to trust all that God longs to pour forth into our hearts. For joy is about receiving the unexpected blessing of God’s presence, and stepping into the abundant reality of his kingdom, which is the one true reality – greater than all our lesser constructed realities – and endures forever. As Pope Francis writes:

‘The joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew.’ And I’m drawn, in reflecting on this gift, to its radical unexpectedness, as we are surprised by joy, as the magi were, in encountering this mystery. As the poem by U A Fanthorpe, BC – AD, puts it:

‘This was the moment when Before Turned into After, and the future’s Uninvited timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing Happened. Only dull peace Sprawled boringly over earth.

This was the moment when the energetic Romans Could find nothing better to do That counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment When a few farm workers and three Members of an obscure Persian sect

Walked haphazardly by starlight straight Into the kingdom of heaven.’

A Kingdom of joy which knows no bounds.

Then, having received light and joy, there is the third gift of Christmas, peace in our lives: perhaps the gift most needed of all, in our troubled and war-weary world. The prophets, whose words have echoed around Church during Advent and at our Carol service, have much to say about the gift of peace:

‘For a child has been born to us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named wonderful counsellor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace.’ Indeed in our first reading tonight we heard the prophecy of a time when peace will surely dawn:

‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation…’ And if we look at the life of Christ we discover that he does indeed bring peace – not an absence of conflict, necessarily, but the deep peace of knowing God, of loving our enemies, of working for peace on earth, and striving for values of God’s kingdom. As Jesus says, later in John’s Gospel, ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.’ So if peace is God’s gift, and part of the bundle of joy that comes to us, from the mystery of Christ, how then do we experience it – and put it into practise: deep peace from within our inmost depths, influencing events not only in our own circle, but in Syria, the Yemen and across the wider world? Christmas reminds us, as we listen to the story of the angels, the shepherds and the wise men, that Christ indeed brings peace, to those who open their hearts, who receive his presence, and who turn away from the violence of a war weary world. For His Peace involves seeing the good in others, recognising our need of them, and the possibility, together, of a building a new world, beyond our own shallow self-interest, of which the prophets dreamed... As the American Biblical scholar Walter Wink writes, “The 'peace' the gospel brings is [not] the absence of conflict, but an ineffable divine reassurance within the heart of conflict; a peace that surpasses understanding.”

‘God has broken into our world. His light has dawned in our darkness. And we each have the opportunity to embrace the light and be part of it: to receive God’s immeasurable gifts of light and joy and peace; gifts which our world so much needs.’ And this story has the potential to change our world for ever, if only we were to open our eyes, to see and believe. Trusting that, however challenging life may be we are able to live from a different perspective, and out of a deeper truth: the truth of God with us, his light scattering all darkness and drawing us into lasting relationship with Him. As W H Auden wrote, in his ‘Christmas Oratorio’:

‘To those who have seen The child, however dimly, however incredulously The time being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all. Remembering the stable where for once in our lives Everything became a you and nothing was an it.’