Sermon Archive
Christmas
Sermon preached by John McLuckie at the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve 2001
Spring-loaded space-hoppers, scented glasses frames, DIY amnesties, tax breaks for cyclists, sub-lets on clergy houses; just some of the great ideas which I predicted would make it big in 2001 and never did. I must say that I have almost no success at all as a predictor of what will capture the public imagination.
Christmas is, of course, an enduringly popular festival. A very recent poll in England suggests that more then 40% of the population there will attend a Christmas service of some sort and many more, of course, will sit down to a festive meal and exchange presents. This is not the time to get cynical about the commercial elements of all this. It's not that I don't think there's an issue to be addressed, but it seems to me that every level of our celebrations capture something very close to the spiritual heart of Christmas. There is an abundance, a generosity, and basic accessibility of the Christmas message: God is with us, God is for us, God, comes into the most ordinary human situations. God is a child, God is near, God's very being is love. It is in the human spirit to celebrate, both ritually and spontaneously, and what better occasion than Christmas to do so. We give gifts to remind us of the greatest Gift, we feast in celebration of the birth of hope and we do what we can to bridge our gaps and bury our grudges. There is even a pretty sound case to be made for a bit of excess at this season to reflect something of that uncontainable, magnanimous heart of the Creator.
And yet, in the midst of this celebrating comes a strange, awkward note; not the predictable note of the humbug merchants and party-poopers, but a rather different note of surprising sadness and rejection. In tonight's Gospel reading, we hear 'He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.' Alongside the public, up-front, open-to-all character of Christmas, we must also recognise a hidden, unfathomable and fragile character to the feast. In a way, we do this by celebrating in the deep of night as well as in the brightness of day. What is the reason for the rejection and hiddenness we see in the gospel accounts of the incarnation? What earthly reason could there be for rejecting such abundant, tender generosity? What earthly preoccupation could possibly bury the clear message of peace and reconciliation?
Let me venture a suggestion. Might it be that the generosity itself is threatening to some? Might there be, deep within us, a reluctance to see Christmas as good news for all if the 'all' includes our enemy or the one who has wounded us? Might it be that the vulnerable openness of God is just too dangerous? To look on the child in the manger is to look on something very powerful. It is to look on the irresistible attractiveness of our fragile shared humanity. It is to find ourselves thrown into mystical connection with all that lives and loves and breathes and dies. Sometimes that vision feels threatening because it can undermine our sense of solid independence. Quite understandably, we want to feel separate from all that seems vulnerable and weak, we want to put distance between us and our mortality. And yet, the Word made flesh inhabits that mortality and graces that vulnerability. So do not fear: the darkness cannot, ultimately, overcome that light. Do not fear the hiddenness, the vulnerability of God's coming, for in it is the gift of life itself.
'But to all who received him he gave power to become children of God.' If we embrace the radical openness of God's welcome to us in the Christ-child, we may find that things take on a different light. Our future is not under threat from our enemy, but from our isolation from our enemy. Our security is not compromised by our open doors, but by our battlements. And our humanity is not jeopardised by our dependence on one another, but by our self-centredness.
There is, in all love stories, a sadness born of risk. God risks all to be among us in love, and if that crazy, generous love is sometimes rejected, it will always come back with the same offer: 'Open your heart! Know that, if you become my child you will be the inheritor of very many sisters and brothers. They need you, and you need them, and among them, you will find one little brother who will give you much cause for celebration. In his light, all your darkness will lose its menace, in his home, there is room for everyone.'
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