Christmas Day
Good to see you here again in such great numbers to mark this, the most wonderful and moving feast of the year. Christmas is a powerful feast. It exercises great power in our lives. For most of us, I guess, the earliest childhood memories we have are associated with Christmas: who could forget that magical moment of being brought for the first time, to visit the Christmas crib in the local Church, or indeed the first visit of Santa. Those who reared us and loved us made sure that we had a whole treasury of these memories. Today is a day for gratitude. We give thanks this morning for the many people in our own families, who, perhaps in difficult times, got their priorities right and made sure that children were centre stage for that one day at least. The challenge for the rest of us now is to pass on that tradition, to behave in such a way today that our own children and grandchildren will have equally warm memories to pass on to the next generation when their turn comes.
You may well say: but what has all that to do with the Christ-child? Is that not reducing this great feast to a humanist splurge? Through concentrating on Santa, and the sentimentalisation of childhood, have we not emptied the feast of its religious content? The 17th century Puritans in England certainly thought so. Christmas wasn't being treated with sufficient gravity, so they banned it! In the 1657 Parliament Nativity scenes were banned as the worship of idols. Indeed, even the word Christmas was frowned upon as taking the Lord's name in vain. Their fellow Puritans in the States followed their example, and Christmas was banned in some parts of the States for 22 years. It had become too human, too happy!
But the whole point of the feast we celebrate today is the incarnation, God taking on a vulnerable human form. Those who criticize the exuberant celebration of Christmas have also missed the Good news. As Isaiah puts it in our first reading: How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the one who brings Good News, who heralds peace, brings happiness, and tells Zion 'Your God is king!' The good news is that God has become one of us. In this act, he has brought us into the centre of the mystery, the wonder of his own life.
As we see Luke's gospel, the first to recognize him and to worship him are the shepherds. Luke is here making a point which largely escapes us in the 21st century: the shepherds were the rejects of society. They weren't allowed approach the temple, since they were regarded as ritually impure. All the professional theologians and spiritual gurus missed the message. It fell to those who had nothing to recognize the saviour. Even from the very beginning, Christmas was a feast of the common people.
Christmas is a time when we celebrate our humanity. Many of you have come back to your families for the festival. You will have a great few days. In celebrating with your families you are truly celebrating your humanity. Humanity cannot be celebrated in the abstract; it not an idea; it is an experience, primarily. Christmas can only be celebrated properly in your own Bethlehem, among your own people, with the people who formed and fashioned you, who made you what you are (for good or for ill)!
Christmas is not all cheer and happy memories. For those of you who lost family members during the year, this is a sad painful time. But that too, unfortunately, is part of the human experience, part of the human condition. All that connects us to them now is memory, and the memories of the Christmases we shared.
I'm sure I have quoted John Betjeman's poem, Christmas, here before. In this lovely, light poem, Betjeman pokes gentle fun at some of the silly things we do at this festival:
- loving fingers tying strings
around those tissued fripperies,
the sweet and silly Christmas things,
bath salts and inexpensive scent
and hideous tie so kindly meant.
But in the middle of the poem he asks this startling question:
And is it true? And is it true,
this most tremendous tale of all
seen in a stained-glass window's hue
a baby in an ox's stall?
The maker of the stars and sea
become a child on earth for me?
What difference might it make if it were true? Instead of being somehow aloof from the human condition, God enters into it without reserve. He becomes a child on earth for me.
This is why we have reason to celebrate today. Shepherds and stables, the ox and the ass, stars and wise men all enrich the story, but at its heart is the child in whom God chooses to live among us - to teach us by word and example, and to die for us.
Betjeman concludes his poem:
No love that in a family dwells,
no carolling in frosty air,
nor all the steeple shaking bells
can with this single truth compare -
that God was man in Palestine
and lives today in Bread and Wine.
The poet brings us back to the Eucharist which we celebrate today and in which we receive Jesus Christ in bread and wine. For if this most tremendous tale of all really is true, then it isn't just a tale of long, long ago, but a story which impacts on how we live day by day. God who was man in Palestine has taught us that love for God and neighbour sums up all that religion or philosophy can hope to teach us about being human. Such a simple message! Yet it challenges us every day of our lives. Because it is a challenge that will never exhaust itself or go stale, Christmas itself will never go stale for us. Have a lovely, happy Christmas.