Pro-Cathedral, 24th December 2010
Introduction
We gather on this dark and cold night to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
The birth of a child brought light and comfort into the world, two
thousand years ago and still does today.
The
birth of that child in humility teaches us who God is. God is not one
who shows power for the sake of power, but one who shows us that the
deepest values in life and existence are about simplicity, goodness and
love.
We want to celebrate our Christmas
in that spirit. We confess our sinfulness and our self-centeredness and
we commit ourselves to being disciples of that light and that light
alone which comes from Jesus, Son of God, Saviour and Redeemer, God with
us.
Homily
We
have just heard once again Saint Luke’s narrative of the birth of
Jesus. It is a narrative that we have all heard many times and yet a
narrative that never fails, every time we hear it, to move us.
In
the midst of all the hardships, the hectic and the anxieties of life in
these days, as at so many other difficult moments throughout the
centuries, there is something unique about the Christmas message of the
birth of Jesus.
The message of Christmas can and indeed does change our
lives, even if only for one day.
The message of Christmas can make
wars cease; it can touch the hardest of hearts.
Many
have thought and continue to think that they could improve on that
message, with messages of commercialisation or consumerism. Others have
felt and continue to feel that they can obliterate the message of
Christmas through messages of cynicism or doubt.
There is, however,
something unrepeatable and that requires no explanation about the stark
simplicity of Saint Luke’s narrative. The story of the birth of Jesus
moved us as children and continues to move us today.
The
message of Christmas is a curious one. No matter how much we are
tempted by and exposed to the apparent sophistication of a consumerist
mentality, the reality of Christmas brings us back to simplicity. Even
in the cold, bleak winter we are enduring – climatically, economically
and socially - the message of the birth of Jesus engenders human warmth
that gives us hope of something better for us, for our lives, for our
children and for our world.
Christmas is a time when
generosity breaks out anew. There is the generosity that is shown in
gifts, signs which recognise our thankfulness to others or which
recognise the simple, dreamy innocence of children. There is the
generosity of supporting those in need through our financial
contribution and through the way in which in the Christmas season we
look out for those who are lonely or in need in a different way. No one
should feel abandoned at Christmas.
Christmas
changes the way we look at values. It recalls that there are more
important things that just looking after ourselves. It is a message
which in all simplicity recalls that there is still in our world
something called real goodness. The Christmas message recalls us to
remember that each of us is capable of living such real goodness and
that achieving a better world will only be attained through all of us
living that goodness. Every time we fail to radiate such goodness we
fail ourselves and ultimately we end up alienated from our true selves,
perhaps even hating ourselves for our thoughtlessness. There is no way
in which we can celebrate Christmas in rancour.
But
deep down the message of Christmas is not a message of momentary
emotion. It is not simply the message of a sentimental film; the
message of the birth of Jesus is something which changes reality in a
truly fundamental way.
Who is the one who is born
in the harsh simplicity of the stable, ignored by those who live in
security and influence? He is the one who Isaiah prophesied would come
as “Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and Prince of
Peace”. These are titles which seem to indicate someone of great
power. And this is true. The surprising thing is that the one who is
all-powerful, the God of power and might, chooses to appear in our midst
in a form that is the opposite of how we think of power and might: in
poverty and insecurity.
The security which marks the birth of Jesus is
not that of the instruments of power. The security which marks the
birth of Jesus is the simple goodness and fidelity that is represented
by the care of Mary and Joseph and the peace heralded by Angels who
represent the protection which comes from God alone. The birth of Jesus
and the message that it brings is a message about God’s work among us.
Where God is truly in our lives peace and harmony, love and goodness
abound. The child is entirely the fruit of God‘s loving action and he
brings God’s action into our world.
The message
of Christmas surprises us because it turns many accepted values
upside-down. Even if tomorrow we will go back to the old values of
everyday, the Christmas event allows us for a moment to see that
goodness is possible. The secret of celebrating Christmas is in
allowing that to happen in our lives. The message of the birth of Jesus
shocks us into surprise and we should allow that shock and surprise to
shape how we live.
Faith is the response to
surprise. It is the response to the surprise that God would take on
human flesh. It is response to our surprise at the humility within
which God reveals who he is. It is the response to our surprise at how
the revelation of God’s values shows the emptiness of our values.
The
moment in which we loose our sense of surprise at the message of Jesus
is the moment in which we loose contact with the logic of God and begin
to think that on our own we can create a better world than God’s. When
we as Christians loose the sense of surprise at the message of Jesus,
we drift away from God into personal smugness and self-satisfaction.
We may never come to say that we reject God, but like the majority of
those in Bethlehem that night, closed in the warmth and comfort of their
own thinking, we too may go on with our lives in total ignorance and
indifference to the fact that God is among us in a surprising way,
calling us to live in a different kind of security and peace.
Luke’s
narrative of the birth of Jesus places that birth in a historical
context. Luke tells us that Jesus’ birth took place at a particular
moment in history, when Caesar Augustus was emperor and Quirinius was
governor. The emperor was carrying out a census; he wanted detailed
data to demonstrate and celebrate the extent of his power. Jesus is
born into that time and into that world. His birth, however, is not
marked by any similar gesture of demonstrating and celebrating the
extent of his power. Jesus is born far away from the symbols of earthly
power. It is not just that there was no room for Jesus to be born, but
that he chose to be born marginalized, identifying himself with those
in any age for whom there is no room.
Jesus is
born into the world on the distant margins of earthly power. Who then
can recognise him? Only those who live the same distancing of
themselves from the symbols of power; only those who allow themselves to
be surprised by what they encounter.
When we as
Christians loose the sense of surprise at the message of Jesus, we drift
away from God into personal smugness and self-satisfaction. The same
can be said of the Church. Renewal in the Church is not simply about
structures and organization, no matter how important these can be.
Reform comes above all through allowing the message of Jesus to surprise
us. A Church which looses that ability becomes a tired, stale, smug
and self-serving Church and when the life style of the Church becomes
smug and self serving it looses its real source of life and is doomed to
wither. The horrific story of the recent scandals has shown us what
happens when the Church is tempted to be self-serving. In every
generation the Church has to renew itself and strip itself of false
symbols.
The message of Christmas gives us each
year a glimpse into what the Church as body of Christ in the world
should be like. It reminds us about how we should live as the community
of believers in the world of today. Luke reminds us of the particular
historical moment in history into which Jesus was born. He reminds us
that Jesus was born not just into that world, but for that world, even though the majority of those around him did not recognise him and lived indifferent to his birth.
The
message of Jesus and the witness of his Church continue today in our
world and for our world. Times are difficult for the Church. Many seem
to find the Church irrelevant and unattractive. Some are hostile, many
more indifferent. The story of the birth of Jesus into an indifferent
world should encourage us to realise that indifference and hostility do
not mean that the message of Jesus has in any way lost its vitality and
its validity. Indifference and hostility should rather shock us back
into recognition of where we ourselves have allowed the message of Jesus
to become stale in our lives. It should keep us alert in order not to
fall into any sense of compromise about the message of Jesus, but to
live it authentically and faithfully as did Mary and Joseph.
It
takes faith to recognise that the Christmas message is not just a nice
story, but that it is the message of a God who came into the world to
save us from the perennial temptations of pride, power-seeking and
self-centredness and to bring us his new life. On Christmas day we all
catch a glimpse in our hearts that the way shown by Jesus is the true
way and that it can be the way we live our lives.
SIC: ADD/IE