Christmas Day

Sermon preached by the Revd Anna Matthews 

For someone who barely knew her phone had a video function back in February, this year has brought quite a lot of learning. Who knew that by March the parish would have a YouTube channel and a SoundCloud account, or that part of the weekly round of ministry would be editing and rendering videos for online services? 

It’s changed my habits of attention, as well as my working practices, all this video editing. Nothing now goes unphotographed: I look at the world not just to observe what’s going on, but mentally to see how I can frame scenes; what will work to illustrate a passage of scripture or a prayer; whether I can just tweak things a bit to make for a better photo. 

And I can edit reality. The bucolic scene I video, ready to put into the Sunday service, spoilt by a loud motorbike? ‘I’ll edit it out’, I think. The recycling lorry arriving to empty all the bins at the pub opposite while I’m recording a sermon? I can do a second take. 

This year has brought learning for us all, in different ways, some of it bitter and hard. I suspect too we can all think of ways we’d like to edit reality, if we got the chance – to banish the virus, to hug loved ones closer, to get a second chance to act, or react, or make decisions. 

There has been a lot of reality to bear, this year: the virus and the path it’s torn through our common life, of course; the spike in unemployment and poverty; the wars that break out but barely make the news because of the litany of other woes; the poisoning of truth in public and civic discourse; the forced detention of Uighur Muslims in China; the systemic racism that cries out for justice; the climate crisis that threatens further devastation and havoc… And there are the personal woes, too: the griefs and sorrows compounded by loneliness and isolation; the sadnesses which have become habitual; the weariness and anxiety and fear which play out in hundreds of thousands of households. 

This is the world in which we celebrate Christmas. ‘O that you would rend the heavens and come down!’ is the Advent refrain. And Christmas is God’s answer to that prayer. God comes into our reality, comes alongside us, is born as one of us. Not in a pillar of fire, or with thunder, or wreathed in smoke; not coming in glory with the clouds at his first Advent: God comes as a baby. What was announced to the shepherds on the Bethlehem hillside all those years ago is announced too to us: ‘to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord.’ 

And perhaps one of the things we have learnt more fully this year is that we need a Saviour. That against death and sin and fear and loneliness and injustice even our best efforts can’t save us. But God can. And he saves us not by lifting us up out of the world onto some elevated spiritual plane but by coming to join us here, in our humanness, to make of our lives the place of his dwelling. 

He’s born into vulnerability – this tiny dependent baby, his face tickled by straw, and his body warmed by animals’ breath, born in an outhouse because there was no place in the inn. This is God’s descent to earth, his response to our cry for salvation. He comes all the way down, into flesh, into dangerous politics and fragile peace and a world that doesn’t want to know him. 

He comes to save us. And he does it by entering our human life, making our humanity his home, descending here to the stable, as later he will descend yet further to the grave, taking on not just our life but our death, so that death can no longer keep us from sharing his life. This is what it means that Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. He’s with us through everything, all the way down. God is not God ‘out there’, far removed from our reality, and indifferent to our lot. God is right here in it with us. 

And he does this, he comes to share our life, because he wants us to share his. That’s God’s purpose in creation. His desire in making us is that we might share in the perfect love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

And here, in the stable, we get a taste of what that’s like. The shepherds arrive, trailing mud and the cold night air, come to Bethlehem to see this thing that has come to pass, that the Lord has made known to them. And we follow in their steps. The stable, the place of Christ’s birth because there was no room at the inn, is spacious enough for us all – the wise men show us that, when they show up at Epiphany, representing the whole world God made. 

And what do we see, in this thing that has come to pass? A baby – newborn, still wrinkled and crumpled from the womb, his head impossibly small and delicate against the cupped and calloused hand of the shepherd who reaches out to hold him. This Saviour calls forth hope and tenderness, love and delight. He slips into the world, past our clever schemes and our well-maintained defences with his trust and his vulnerability. Kneeling at the manger we remember that we are made for love: that God gives himself to us in love, and calls forth an answering love in us. Here, at the manger, we are gentle, tender-hearted, this baby cradled in our arms reminding us of the fragility of human life, of its innocence, and our innocence lost, of life’s beauty, and its pain. 

These are not always comfortable feelings to have. The world, and we ourselves, do not always recognise them as gifts. And perhaps this year especially, we might want to avoid them, or dull them: the love that is felt in absence and separation.  The disappointments we swallow without words because they seem small in the grander scheme of things, but which hurt nonetheless. The loneliness that hollows us out. The fears that crowd our nights. Our powerlessness, and our need. But this is what Christ is born into. This is where he makes his home. 

In this bleak midwinter, the carol bids us give our hearts to this child. And whether your heart is full of love and praise, or it’s heavy with fear and tiredness, or broken with sorrow, or you’ve numbed it in self-protection, this is what Christ wants: to make his home in you, to share your life so that you know how much, and how faithfully he loves you. So come with the shepherds to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place. Let his love stir in you, bearing fruit in the hope, the kindness, and the gentleness our world so badly needs. May the Christ-child find a home in your heart, blessing you with his goodness, delighting you with his love, and making of this strangest of times a joyful Christmas.