The Christmas journey - sermon for Midnight Mass at Holy Trinity, Coventry

This is what I said at Midnight Mass....The following Sunday someone came up to me after the Cathedral Eucharist to say "thank you"...She had suffered a heart attack some years ago, had felt betrayed by her body until someone suggested that the place where her heart had been "broken" was the place where God was lodging to heal and restore. She found my sermon confirming that sense - and in sharing her story, she blessed me hugely. 

Light looked down and beheld darkness

I will go there, said Light

That’s the most important journey, of course…the journey we are preparing to celebrate…the journey that makes all the difference to everything….

But St Luke’s account of the nativity is full of journeys.

Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem,

The angels come from heaven to the shepherds

Just after they’ve heard the angelic chorus, the shepherds hurry to the manger.

Even at the moment of his birth Jesus is intent on stirring us up, on moving us out of our familiar ways, taking us out beyond our comfort zones.

Ironic, then, that we’ve transformed our celebrations of his birth into the epitome of traditions. We dream of Christmasses “just like the ones we used to know” and exclaim in distress if an “essential” carol somehow gets missed from the Midnight Service or too many features of our own ideal festivities are altered without permission.

Ironic because that baby is born to challenge and to change us…

The shepherds went on their journey – they saw the good news story with their own eyes – and then they had to go home and demonstrate that the baby’s birth really was good news for the whole world. Once the angels had stopped singing and gone on their way, the good news depended on them. Who would have believed their wild stories of a sky filled with angels if the events of that night had not changed the shepherds so that they began to live a new kind of life?

They turned from people who had been on the receiving end of good news, - who had heard it and seen it, - to people who were good news themselves.

And now we are invited on the same journey…called to travel even to Bethlehem

We’re not there just to see, marvel and return home to the status quo.

We go, like so many before us, just as we are, because we have no other option.

We go empty handed, because the Christ child needs nothing except our hearts.

Let me make a confession. Please be kind to me!

I spend far too much time that I don’t really have online...and sometimes I even get drawn in to utterly pointless quizes. I’m sure that none of you would ever be so silly...but there we go. That’s me.

And so it was that earlier this week I established, thanks to Classic fm, that if I were a Christmas carol, I’d be Harold Darke’s wonderful setting of “In the bleak midwinter”. That made me very happy, actually, as it’s one of my favourites, with its last verse that encourages us to give our hearts to the infant King.

It sounds so beautiful, a precious gift on this night of wonders...– but sometimes, you know, our hearts aren’t all they might be.

If we’re honest, - and there’s no point in being anything else - we’ll know that the gift of our hearts isn’t really that amazing.

There are probably some patches of selfishness, of un-forgiveness…of intolerance or prejudice…of anger or pride...and all of those parts of ourselves of which we are least proud are nonetheless wrapped up in our offering of ourselves to that baby.

Still, we travel as we are, because that‘s the only way that we can go.

No possibility of white-wash or self-deception here, since the One we go to visit is our God, our creator, a helpless baby swaddled against the night air.

But though we are all of us welcome just as we are…we are invited there to be transformed.

There’s another journey that we must make…from self interest to love, from anger to peace, from despair to hope…

As we stoop to enter the stable, that cramped space that contains Someone greater than the world and all that is in it, we are invited to change….to offer our poverty, our inadequacy, our disappointment, our fear and to receive back riches, strength, comfort beyond all expectation.

We come as we are and are changed till we are as He is….

That’s the point of it all, as Ireneaus recognised so many centuries ago, when he proclaimed:

“God became what we are, so that we might become what God is.”

And God, of course, is love.

Imagine if everyone in this packed church went out into the world to live every day by the light of God’s love.

Imagine how our city might look then.

A sudden outbreak of love, joy, peace and reconciliation transforming everything.

And that’s our invitation, as we come face to face with Jesus, the one who can transform us tonight…

Jesus born in a stable, but present for us in one another, in God’s word and in the Sacrament of bread and wine.

LIGHT looked down and beheld darkness.

‘I will go there,’ said Light.

Peace looked down and beheld war.

‘I will go there,’ said Peace.

Love looked down and beheld hate.

I will go there’ said Love.

So light came, and shone.

So peace came, and gave rest.

So love came, and gave light.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.