Here is my Christmas morning sermon. Judging by the rather excited reaction of some of the congregation I think I must have hit a spot there; however this might be more to do with some stuff that was going on in their lives on Christmas Day than being anything to do with my preaching. It was an eventful morning I must admit, but I wrote the sermon last Monday, before the eventful morning, and before the Pope said stuff about God being surprising, although its nice to see that other people think so too!
----
Well I usually start a sermon by reminding people of the themes of the day, but today needs no reminders, or announcements. Its impossible to avoid the fact that its Christmas.
But this presents an altogether different sort of problem. What do you say when so much has been said already? Maybe I should just give up and wheel in Tony Jordan, who, after working on Eastenders and Life on Mars brought a bit of angst into the story of the Nativity this week on the BBC - even if he did take a few little liberties with the biblcal text of the tale.
And what a tale! Sometimes it is so epic that it takes on the feel of a fairy story for us. Yet, although it might sometimes feel like a fairy story, the Christmas story is no Cinderella- style pantomine. It is the story of a birth of someone real.
“Christus” or Christ was mentioned by the Roman historians Tacitus, Pliny the younger. and Josephus as well as the bibical texts; Josephus (AD37-100) said. “About this time came Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it is appropriate to call him a man. For he was a performer of paradoxical feats, a teacher of people who accept the unusual with pleasure, and he won over many of the Jews and also many Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon the accusation of the first men amongst us, condemned him to be crucified, those who had formerly loved him did not cease to follow him, for he appeared to them on the third day, living again, as the divine prophets foretold, along with a myriad of other marvellous things concerning him. And the tribe of the Christians, so named after him, has not disappeared to this day.”
Tacitus is a little ruder, which makes it pretty obvious that he isn’t a believer himself .
“Christus, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out”
And yet despite the concretely historical nature of this birth, our familiarity with the gospel accounts of *how* Christ’s birth happened have blinded us to the utterly surprising nature of them! For God is a God of surprises.
The Jewish people had been on the lookout for their Messiah or Christ, their rescuer to be born for many years. Their scriptures contained numerous prophesies of what sort of person this messiah would be,and even where he would be born
“But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.”
And yet, when it actually happened, they still missed it.
If we strip away what we know of the story, and pretend we have never heard this tale what would we think?
Who would the son of God be born to?
Someone rich perhaps, married and respectably holy in society. Yet Mary and Joseph were so poor they could not afford to sacrifice a lamb at the temple to mark Christ’s presentation, and had to make do with two turtle doves.
And God did not wait until Mary was married to do his work which left mary looking rather un-respectable, despite her holiness.
Mary and Joseph were not of the holy priestly tribe either, but distant descendents of the kings of the tribe of Judah.
And when Christ was born where did it happen?
In a palace with physicians in attendance?
At home with the assistance of a midwife?
No. In a stable.
I expect Joseph had to do the delivery himself. The thought that Joseph might have been the one to deliver the child, struck me during the Abbey Grange carol service this year. One of the pupils wrote a piece which told of Joseph’s thoughts.
“I delivered him, and one day he will deliver me”.
That idea that the One who came to deliver or rescue our society from all the wrong that has infested it, himself needed to be delivered or rescued from suffocation or stillbirth, and was depending on someone else to cut his chord was quite a powerful one that still rings in my ears.
The utterly surprising extent of Christ’s powerlessness at that moment in time is quite mind boggling.
Yet after the baby is born the surprises continue. Who does the angel announce the good news to, so they can come and visit? Local dignataries?
Priests and Rabbis?
Minor celebritites?
Nope.
Shepherds, the local outcasts, who were frowned on for never going to Synagogue because they were too busy looking after their sheep. The ones who were regarded with the same sort of suspicion that drug addicts are these days. The smelly ones who never got an invitation to anybody’s party got an invite to this one.
And who else comes. Strange travelers from the Middle East , who aren’t even practicing Jews, who are involved in astrological predication which is frowned upon in the Jewish scriptures, and carrying the most bizarre presents.
If you were going to make it up, you wouldn’t make it up this way I’m sure!
And I’m sure Joseph and Mary never planned to have their child on the floor of the part of the house where the animals lived, and I think they probably planned to have a slightly better cradle than a cows feeding box!
There is a quote, atttributed to Woody Allen, which goes. “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans”
We can think we have our lives mapped out, and when God steps in some glorious chaos can ensue!
Yet, in the end we can see that the surprising Divine plan often comes out better than the one we came up with on our own. It can sometimes take a long time for that to become apparent though.
This awful snow and these ridiculous low temperatures have messed up lots of our plans, and I have certainly realised that the daily life I previously took for granted as being normal is a lot more fragile than I thought.
It takes humility though to admit our own powerlessness and let God in to run things instead.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote” "For the great and powerful of this world, there are only two places in which their courage fails them, of which they are afraid deep down in their souls... These are the manger and the cross of Jesus Christ.
No powerful person dares to approach the manger, and this even includes King Herod. For this is where thrones shake, the mighty fall, the prominent perish, because God is with the lowly.
Here the rich come to nothing, because God is with the poor and hungry, but the rich and satisfied he sends away empty.
Before Mary, the maid, before the manger of Christ, before God in lowliness, the powerful come to naught"
This is disturbing news for those who wish to be powerful, who wish to run everyone else’s lives who like to have it all organised.
But for the rest of us, those who want to belong to the next chapter of God’s story, it is good news indeed.
Let’s be brave and approach the manger and meet the Christ who is there. May that surprising wonderful Christ step into the poverty and spiritual hunger of all our lives this Christmas and bring new life and warmth and hope and a future! Amen.
