Sermon at All Saint’s Church, Farley - Christmas Day Morning Communion – Sunday 25 December 2024
Luke 2:1-20
May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and may the
words which I speak be a blessing to all who hear them. Amen.
“Are
you all prepared for today’s celebration? Turkey in the oven, potatoes and
brussels pealed, presents opened already or under the tree waiting to be
unwrapped? Prosecco in the fridge chilling?
Do you know what films you will be watching after the King’s Speech or
games you will be playing?”
That is
how I started my Christmas Day sermon last year when I led the service here and
it is a great privilege to be back with you on this very special day.
Christmas
is a time of great joy, expectancy and celebration. Yet, all too often, we lose
ourselves in the preparations and miss the sacredness of the season. Why does
it matter? Because it’s this holiday on which we honour the birth of our
Saviour. It’s this time of year when people are open to the things of God. And
it’s precisely this season when Christians most often lose sight of what’s
available to them in Christ Jesus.
We are all
people created in God’s image. We have access to his presence and his promises.
So why all the strain and stress? Dare we ask ourselves what honestly matters
most to us this Christmas?
God invites us to push away the clutter, turn down the noise and offer him the sacred space in our lives so that the King of Glory may enter, take up residence and radically change us from the inside out. We can race through our holiday season more stressed than blessed or we can slow down, ponder the reality of Christ within us and respond to his miraculous work.
So why not step out of the hustle-bustle of the season. Find a quiet place during this busy time to rest and reflect. What comes to the surface for you? How have the
disappointments and detours of this past year impacted you? Are you mad? Sad?
Expectant and glad? Most of us tend to loosen our grip when we lose heart, yet
this is precisely the time to lean in, engage our faith and dare to believe
that our Saviour is also a healer.
At that first Christmas, God sent Jesus into the world as a Man, to be
God himself incarnate to dwell among us and after His, resurrection and
ascension Jesus went on to leave the Holy Spirit in each and everyone of us
willing to accept and acknowledge Him. To truly live within us.
In fact, it is good to remember that God sent Jesus into the world for all Human Kind not just the chosen. I was reminded, only a few days ago by a non-Christian fellow astronomer that whilst she wasn’t “religious”, as she put it, she fully believed that as all Humankind as far as we know will be found in only one place in the Cosmos, on this tiny planet Earth, we should all work together as a Team not divided by greed, envy, conflict, poverty, race, creed, colour or any of the other many things which separate us.
The one great message or result of Christmas, the coming of Christ, is
that it is meant to banish one word from our language, “them”. There should no
longer be “them and us” anymore. To
illustrate this, I would just like to share the following with you to reflect
upon over this next week:
The twentieth-century English mystic Caryll Houselander
(1901–1954) describes how an ordinary underground train journey in London
transformed into a powerful vision of Christ dwelling in all people:
“I was in an underground train, a crowded train in
which all sorts of people jostled together, sitting and strap-hanging—workers
of every description going home at the end of the day. Quite suddenly I saw
with my mind, but as vividly as a wonderful picture, Christ in them all. But I
saw more than that; not only was Christ in every one of them, living in them,
dying in them, rejoicing in them, sorrowing in them—but because He was in them,
and because they were here, the whole world was here too … all those people who
had lived in the past, and all those yet to come.
Houselander’s vision of the intimate presence of Christ
in each person continued as she walked along the city streets:
I came out into the street and walked for a long time in
the crowds. It was the same here, on every side, in every passer-by,
everywhere—Christ….
I saw too the reverence that everyone must have for a
sinner; instead of condoning [their] sin, which is in reality [their] utmost
sorrow, one must comfort Christ who is suffering in [them]. And this reverence
must be paid even to those sinners whose souls seem to be dead, because it is
Christ, who is the life of the soul, who is dead in them; they are His tombs,
and Christ in the tomb is potentially the risen Christ….
Christ is everywhere; in Him every kind of life has a
meaning and has an influence on every other kind of life…. Realization of our
oneness in Christ is the only cure for human loneliness. For me, too, it is the
only ultimate meaning of life, the only thing that gives meaning and purpose to
every life.
After a few days the “vision” faded. People looked the
same again, there was no longer the same shock of insight for me each time I
was face to face with another human being. Christ was hidden again; indeed,
through the years to come I would have to seek for Him, and usually I would
find Him in others—and still more in myself—only through a deliberate and blind
act of faith.”
This Christmas and New Year we see the world in chaos and the potential escalation of many local conflicts in the Middle East and Eastern Europe into a major war. We daily read in our newspapers, hear on our radios and see on our screens, the inhumanity of Humanity. We hear and view the dreadful news coming from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Ukraine and many other parts of the world and the triumph of brutal and tyrannical leaders.
The king
of the universe is not a tyrannical leader. He’s the saviour of the world.
Although we hear the Christmas story every year, again and again, it isn’t old
news. It’s good news. It’s now news!
Salvation isn’t just an addendum to the end of our life and Christmas isn’t
just a quaint little story with shepherds and wise men coming to a stable in
Bethlehem. When Jesus was born, God’s kingdom came to earth! so we ought to
celebrate with joy. Give meaningful gifts to those you love. Enjoy a good
party. But refuse to let the commercialism of Christmas quench
the true spirit of this earth-shaking holiday season. Jesus came, and he's coming again. Let us worship the king of glory, for he has done great things. Let us also worship him by the way we speak
and act towards others over this Christmas period.
Giving
gifts to the already rich is, well, fine. But offering gifts to those who
cannot repay you is sacred. In the period between Christmas and New Year why
not give generously and thoughtfully to someone who doesn’t expect a gift from
you. Perhaps somebody who hasn’t been kind to you during the year? Surprise
them with the goodness of God. Scripture reminds us that he’s good to everyone and by doing this you are
really showing God’s grace in action.
When we
set out to be a serious follower of Christ, we’ll often find a thousand excuses
to tend to temporary things as though they’re the most important things in the
world. But eternal rewards come from eternal priorities. We need to think
higher, see deeper. Repeatedly, Jesus urged people to open their eyes and see
the coming kingdom. See the story God is writing on the earth through us
because of Jesus. Our current season is packed with eternal possibilities to do
so.
We can and should change our focus, determine our pace, adjust our
priorities and this could be our most life-giving Christmas yet. Whether we
already walk intimately with Jesus or see him more like a distant relative, we
can be assured, as illustrated in Caryll
Houselander’s vision that he’s very near and that he came to redeem
every aspect of who we are. That was the greatest gift ever given at Christmas
– the birth of Jesus Christ, God Incarnated, in that humble stable in the Holy
Land. Let there be no more “them and us”
but just “us”.
Now that is really something to celebrate and reflect upon over these
coming days.
Have a great day, enjoy being with family and friends over this
holiday period, and yes do eat, drink and be merry in celebration but do use
this time also to tell somebody about the true meaning of Christmas and the
wonderful good news which is there for everyone and is the real reason for our
celebrations.
A very Happy Christmas to you all.
Susie Larson (who inspired this sermon through a daily devotional
piece written by her) is a bestselling author, speaker and host of Susie Larson
Live. She is the author of more than 20 books and devotionals, and her Daily
Blessings reach over half a million people each week on social media. She and
her husband, Kevin, have three children, a growing bunch of grandchildren and a
pit bull named Memphis.
Amen MFB/209/22122024
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