HIM DOWN HERE
A sermon preached at Midnight Mass 2019 in St.LUKE’S CHURCH, QUEEN'S PARK, BRIGHTON
Midnight Mass is very special. Our ranks are usually swelled (and tonight is no exception) by new or rare visitors and those who may be here as part of a seasonal family get-together or have turned up out of a warm/sentimental sense of occasion without being a week in-week out card-carrying believer.
I sense that I may be engaging (as I love to do) with people who feel, well, there must be some spiritual force at work somewhere or, well, there must be some thing or someone "up there".
Of course I hasten to assure them (well I would, wouldn't I?) that there is indeed someone up there. But what is much more to the point is that there was someone "down here", someone whose birthday we are celebrating tonight. God came down to earth in the form of a human being. Was born, lived and died.
The fact that, having been killed at the age of about 33 and buried in a tomb, He then rose again from the dead is not what we are focusing on right now. The whole point tonight is that Him up there became Him down here and that has seismic significance for us all.
If God Himself lived a human life like you and me, that gives us something that nothing else really can: ETERNAL HOPE.
Now when people say “Hope springs eternal!”, they're usually being ironic, or at least not really sure they mean it.
But I do mean it.
S.Luke's gospel says this: Through the tender mercy of Our God, the day-spring from on high has visited us. Spring means birth and Christ’s birth is from - and for - all eternity and it is also the dayspring. The first chink of the light of dawn in our lives.
But, where you have just a chink of light, that means the backdrop must inevitably be of darkness and it's true, isn't it? Our world does so often seem to be one of darkness and despair.
In O little town of Bethlehem we sing the words: “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight”
O little town of Bethlehem, these days how still do we see thee lie? Surrounded by a cordon of checkpoints and Israeli soldiers with a specific brief this year to keep out Christian worshippers from Gaza.
Then there's death and destruction in Idlib,Yemen and Lebanon. Little children slaughtered, not just by Herod in the bible, but by soldiers today. And threatening the whole planet, and already wreaking fiery havoc in Australia, the looming danger of climate change.
In England, lately we've had interminable rain and wind. Dark! Dark! Dark! Many of us have felt low this December for our own reasons, political or otherwise. We are probably “sad” cases in the medical sense: S.A.D = Seasonal Affective Disorder, too little sunlight.
And I'm seasonally affected by the nastiness on social media. And by the prevailing culture of victimhood and blame.
The word “justice” is bandied about a lot but the divine baby born tonight grew up into the God incarnate who teaches each us to “let go” of our rights and grievances and to heal ourselves of our anxiety, anger and desire for retribution in the warmth and light of His own life of love, compassion, self-sacrifice and forgiveness.
So tonight I say we celebrate a seasonal affective birth. Jesus Christ is our light and our hope. And that means doom and gloom are the perfect cue for Him to arrive.
We don’t know historically exactly what time of year He was born but making it December fits perfectly with our faith that He is our eternal hope, the light which shines in the darkness.
This light has come into the world and, according to tonight's gospel, if you read it in the old King James bible version, “the darkness comprehendeth it not”.
There’s a lovely double meaning there which is completely lost in modern translations: (a) The forces of darkness don’t understand the light, they don’t get it but also, more importantly, (b) they can’t cover it. They can’t ever smother it or snuff it out.
And the purpose of this light, this hope, someone up there becoming someone down here, is to reach, to touch and to rescue the life of every single human being in this world.
I once saw a priest, during the singing of Once in royal David's city, carry a live baby boy in his arms for the procession (although I'm pleased to say he didn’t then stick him in the crib for the rest of the service but handed him back to his mother).
I think Christ would have approved.
And I think Christ would have approved even more of something which happened at St.Martin-in-the-fields in Trafalgar Square.
They used to build an open, outside crib in the market area by the church and, one Christmas, they discovered in the morning that the baby Jesus doll had been turfed out during the night by an elderly homeless rough sleeper who wanted to curl up in the straw.
Warmth, compassion, light and hope springing eternal from the God who became someone down here.
A very Happy, hopeful Christmas to you all.
S