Tag Archives: salvation

Christ the King – Shepherd Not Goatherd

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Sermon based on Matthew 25:31-46 preached on Sunday 22nd November 2020 for Christ the King

May I speak and may you hear through the grace of our Lord; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

Whenever, I’ve read the story of the separation of the sheep and the goats, I’ve always felt a little sorry for goats. After all, who hasn’t seen those delightful pygmy goats bouncing around in paddocks, on bales of hay? No less charming than gambolling lambs in the spring. This sympathy made me feel that the gospel writer had picked the wrong animal to cast as representing the accursed. That was until I met Roger…

Roger was a large, bug-eyed, short-haired, tan coloured goat, who was part of the animal petting area at the zoo. Inquisitive and bleating loudly, he made it very clear that he was entitled to monopolise the fodder that was on offer and woe betide the timid, young sheep who shared his pen, daring to approach. If he wasn’t getting fed quick enough, a few butts to the leg made sure you knew what was required, and if nothing was forthcoming then a large mouthful of your skirt would suffice!

I did manage to get most of my skirt back out of his mouth and I think they retired him from this specific zone soon afterwards.

But what, according to Jesus, is the difference between sheep and goats, after all in many middle eastern countries, sheep and goat are grazed together and isn’t Jesus described as the Good Shepherd? Indeed, yes, but he is the shepherd of sheep not goats, with many biblical references to this fact. From Psalm 95 for example, ‘For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.’

If you were also to look at the habits of each creature you can begin to distinguish the traits that help us to see why Jesus vilifies these particular cloven-hooved creatures

In some parts of the world sheep and goats can look almost identical, so it’s nothing to do with appearances. However, sheep graze, that is they prefer to eat grass as well as peas and pulses and clovers, things that grow close to the ground. They eat what is rich in nutrients and tend to be more selective in what they consume.

They also are more gregarious, preferring to stay together in large social groups; and should one become separated from its flock they will become very agitated and nervous, and as a result, may die. They need a pastor – hence the parable of the lost sheep.

Goats on the other hand like to eat the tender leaves of the tress, cutting off the tips and preventing their natural development. They eat the leaves, suckers, vines, stems and shrubs, even undergrowth – basically they eat it all – and can rise up on their hind legs to reach the highest vegetation, and although they are not discreet in their eating habits, which may seem like an advantage, it turns out to be a disadvantage because much of what they consume is low in nutrients

They are also very agile, independent, and very curious. They can survive entirely in freedom, adapting to the environment without real need of a shepherd.

‘For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.’
Psalm 95:7

So, having briefly outlined some of the habits and differences that exist between goats and sheep, it would be perfectly reasonable to consider whether, spiritually speaking, we are sheep or goats; a question that is not directly answered in this passage. However, we are told that the decision will ultimately be up to Jesus.

What is clear from the text is that neither the sheep nor the goats recognised the king at all when they were either doing, or refusing to do, the acts of kindness and compassion described. It would also seem that what distinguishes the sheep from the goats is not the capacity to discern Jesus in the person in need, but the willingness to do the deed despite this.

Which begs the question about how much of what was done to the people in need, was a conscious act, done to, or for, Jesus and how much was an instinctive action taken in response to need, however or whenever we encounter it . What appears to be more praiseworthy, is the instinctive response to human need and not the act done, or not done, on the basis of whether a person was deserving or not, nor even whether we were doing it consciously as our Christian duty. What matters is our openness to respond compassionately to human need.

Individually and corporately, we are called to help those in need, and we cannot ignore the plight of human beings suffering hunger, thirst, nakedness, homelessness, sickness, or imprisonment. We join with others to find ways to come alongside those who lack the basic necessities of life that we may take for granted. If Jesus’ words in this passage are taken seriously, more may hang on our charity than we realize.

But in the parable of the Sheep and the Goats, we are looking at humans being redeemed and saved, and humans being condemned and lost, and a casual reading appears to suggest that salvation is the result of good works – the sheep acted charitably, giving food, drink, and clothing to the needy which seemed to result in salvation, whilst the goats, who showed no charity are damned.

This is incorrect, because Scripture does not contradict itself, and the Bible clearly and repeatedly teaches that salvation is by faith through the grace of God and not by our good works. From St Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, ‘for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast’. In fact, Jesus himself makes it clear that the salvation of the sheep is not based on their works—their inheritance was theirs ‘from the foundation of the world’ long before they could ever do any good works!

Consequently, the good works mentioned in the parable are not the cause of salvation but the effect of salvation. As Christians, as we become more like Christ, the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control overflow into good works, which result from our relationship to the Shepherd.

Therefore, followers of Christ will treat others with love and kindness, serving them as if they were serving Christ himself. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was famous for being able to see Jesus in the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor, but she did not gain that awareness overnight. It took years of continuing to care for them until God gradually opened her eyes, and she saw it was literally true: She was caring for them not as if they were Jesus, but because they are Jesus, in whatever disguise it pleased him to assume.

Amen

Simeon’s Farewell

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This evening, the 5th Sunday of Easter, as part of our worship outside of church during the Coronavirus, Evening Prayer is offered in the style of Iona. Taking the Gospel reading for Evening Prayer, Luke 2:25-32 we can imagine that this moment was Simeon’s farewell. The whole service can be seen here, but a transcript of the mediation is below

Simeon’s Farewell

I am a firm believer that God accomplishes all things according to his will. Yet the one thing that we desire the most to be accomplished is that the Messiah will come to us. For surely when he comes this long-standing era of the law and the prophets will be complete and will pass away as a new era is ushered in, and we will rejoice!

Even so, my days are numbered, age wearies me, and my eyes are growing dim, so perhaps it is not to be in my lifetime. So many times, within these sacred walls have I felt the Spirit of the Lord surround me, like the swirls of incense burning on the altars, whispering promises in my ear that he is coming… he is coming. Still, like the smoke ascending to the heavens, it’s hard to grasp hold of the truth in that.

 Nonetheless, there is a frisson of expectation in the air. It’s not my usual day to visit the temple, but I felt compelled to come this morning. As usual the crowds are jostling and pushing through the gateway, some voices loud and demanding, others chattering excitedly, unsure where they should be going. It is then that I spot them. The young couple standing still in amongst all of this bustle and hubbub. The woman holding a young baby in her arms, close to her body as if this disturbance would wrestle her precious child away from her; surely their first-born.

 Before I could move, I realise that they have spotted me and are making their way deliberately in my direction. I stand still and wait. Without them saying a word the child is proffered to me and as I take this small bundle of humanity into my own arms I am struck by the firm unwavering gaze that connects us, young and old, wise and innocent, master and servant.

 

Then I feel something welling up inside of me and I hear my own voice bursting forth out of my mouth; people nearby stop at this unexpected exclamation,

 ‘Lord, today you have kept your promise to me that I would not die before the revelation of your chosen one, whom we have waited for with such longing. This child, born among us, comes unannounced to your temple, but his presence here shouts of salvation for us all, for Jew, for gentile, for the whole of humankind. Oh, that I have been blessed to know that through him you will bring glory to your chosen people, which leaves my heart and mind at ease so that there is nothing more needed in this your humble servant’s life but to wait for your calling me to the future eternal kingdom.’

 This verbal outpouring suddenly leaves me feeling exhausted and I am conscious of the full weight of the child, who still lays in my arms; a heaviness of soul within the lightness of his frame. This glimpse of sorrow would be nothing compared to what I perceive he will achieve and so I pass him back to his mother. Let our salvation begin today!

Reaping the Harvest

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This weekend had all the elements of a traditional Harvest Festival at church. The autumnal colours of the flowers; an altar groaning under the weight of tins and fresh produce brought as gifts for the local foodbank; children singing upbeat harvest songs with prayers and blessings for the abundance of God’s grace within his creation. Our sung Evensong lectionary, however, reminded us of a different harvest to come.

Based on the following readings: Revelation 14:14-20 and Philippians 4:4-9

May I speak and may you hear through the Grace of our Lord, Father, Son and Holy Spirit

Our passage from Revelation this evening, at first glance or first listening, fits beautifully with the theme of our Harvest Festival today, an almost idyllic image of the harvest being gathered in for all is ripe and ready, at its peak of maturity. But the passage itself is actually plucked from a whole series of chapters and verses describing the Battle of Armageddon… So this is not some John Constable ‘hay wain’ moment but an eschatological vision given to John on the island of Patmos

Here we have two distinct and opposite images; a reaping of the grain and a gathering of the grapes. The first is a positive one of Jesus as the Son of Man, as he foretold his disciples when they asked him in Matthew’s gospel about the signs of the end of the age, sitting on a cloud, surrounded by angels, coming to gather the elect. Those humans who through God’s grace, have been chosen because of their faithfulness, to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, a gathering of all who responded on earth to the Messianic message.

The second one a negative image of the judgement of the unrepentant nations and people. These grapes were not to become a wine of celebration, but to be gathered and then thrown into God’s winepress of wrath, a pressing that will produce rivers of blood ‘as high as a horse’s bridle for a distance of about 200 miles’, which was roughly the length of Palestine from north to south.

Here is Jesus in all his power and glory, revealing absolute dominion over all of the nations, represented by his golden crown, who with one swing of his sickle, a single action, ‘reaps the earth’ and gathers the people of God instantly into the Kingdom. This is an action that suggests there is no judgement involved. The people who are part of this special harvest are those who have lived in the light of God’s grace…For all the others, as I mentioned in the second image, there is the gathering and then the pressing – a time of judgment and divine retribution.

Thus the response to the proclamations of the angels is left open to two final possibilities; salvation or judgement.

Better then to hope to be in the elect than in those who have ‘the mark of the beast on their foreheads’ (Rev 13:16). The verses before this reading, vv1-5, speak of the Lamb and the 144,000, who will be saved. However, we don’t need to take this number literally otherwise we’re going to be very few in number, but numerology in the bible was important, and this number is based on twelves. The twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve apostles of Christ, now multiplied together a 1,000 times, symbolising the complete gathering of the faithful, from Israel and the Church, the ‘redeemed’.

Everyone, whom Christ has rescued from the power of sin and death by giving his life on the cross and who have committed themselves totally to him, living lives marked by self-control, honesty and a clear conscience.

For Paul, writing to the Christians in Philippi, a church he founded himself and who have always given him loving and generous support, he urges them to be united in their faith and to see Christ as the supreme goal of their life and mission. He writes this letter from prison, but his heart is free and full of joy, and this joy now breaks out.

He urges the Philippians (and indirectly all of us) to rejoice in the Lord, a joy that doesn’t depend on life always being good or feelings of happiness, but a much deeper satisfaction that comes from belonging to Christ and being united in his love and purpose. It is more fitting to be gentle, yet confident and prayerful as we await his coming. Anxiety must be turned into prayer; prayers of thanksgiving that God will return to us in the form of an amazing peace that comes when the love of Christ conquers and embraces all.

We are to fill our minds with good and beautiful ideals, that purify our imaginations and inspire our actions, so that we can live out the gospel in practical ways.

Paul speaks without arrogance, but as a true teacher – he practices what he preaches. If we then, follow his example, and have a perfect trust in God we can be assured that we too will find ourselves, not through our actions but through God’s grace, safely gathered, as part of the harvest, in heaven’s great garner store. Amen

Harvest Loaf

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

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A voice a calling out

A sermon for the third Sunday in Advent recalling John the Baptist as the ‘one calling out in the wilderness’, and the call to be that voice today.

Reading: John 1:6-8, 19-28

May I speak and may you hear through the grace of our Lord; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

I wonder how many of you will admit to watching ‘I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here’? Not that I’m saying there’s anything wrong if you do. I think we all have a natural curiosity to watch people who for one reason or another are deemed famous, doing things that are strange or unusual. I must admit that if I hear in the news that someone is proving to be a real character, I might flick over and catch part of an episode to see what all the fuss is about.

Of course it’s easy for us nowadays, with satellite TV and catch up, to bring things that are happening ‘live’ into the comfort of our living rooms or on our mobile devices to satisfy our curiosity, but in Jesus’ day any apparent fame was broadcast by word of mouth and only those who were serious about finding our more would make the effort to travel long distances on the testimony of a friend or neighbour; and yet, we hear in Luke’s gospel that ‘the crowds’ were coming out to see John the Baptist; and today in John’s gospel we catch a sense that the strict traditionalists, the Pharisee’s, had got wind of a strange and curious man doing things that were unsettling and causing ripples in their neat and tidy well-ordered lives. Who was this man?

Obviously, not concerned enough to distance themselves from undertaking their strict religious observances in the temple in Jerusalem, but enough to send a contingent of representatives to find out more, just in case. What then did they find as they journeyed out into the wilderness around the River Jordan? The gospel writer tells us that the place they found John was at Bethany – not the village just east of Jerusalem, near the Mount of Olives, that was the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. No this Bethany, although nowadays not officially known, would have had to have been about 50 miles to the North of Jerusalem, in Jordan, and is thought to be modern day Al-Maghtas, an Arabic word for a site of baptism or immersion and which has been venerated as such since the Byzantine period.

That’s the place but what about the man? John, even by biblical standards, would have presented an eccentric appearance, dressed in camel hair clothing secured with a leather belt and a physique that was sculpted by a diet of locusts and wild honey, one can imagine his wild hair and austere demeanour were not the things that were attracting the people to him. He probably looked like an ancient prophet, if not smelt like an ancient prophet and his words echoed the prophecies of those Old Testament prophets who had gone before him. Perhaps his disregard for his own personal appearance confirmed his humble and self-effacing nature, but let’s be under no doubt, John was no shy wallflower, he knew what his role was and he was certain about the mission he was undertaking.

In answer to their attempts to guess his identify, he wasn’t the Messiah and he wasn’t the re-embodiment of the prophet Elijah, but he was the messenger that the prophet Isaiah had said would appear as a herald to prepare the way for the Messiah’s appearance; to make straight the paths, to smooth the way, to give people a chance to re-order their lives before it was too late. Yet Isaiah had mentioned nothing about the need to be baptised in order to repent of your sins and certainly this form of baptism was not something that the Jewish people would have seen as normal. Ritualistic washing, however had been practised since the time of Moses, through the Leviticus laws when a person needed to be cleansed and purified in order to be able to make sacrifices in the Temple.

This ritual was later expanded to taking a dip in a ‘mikveh’ or immersion pool, with steps leading down on one side and then up on the other, having passed through the pool of water; think of the pools of Siloam and Bethsaida, that were used for high days and holidays at the Temple site. And as with a lot of Jewish ritual law there are six different options that satisfy the requirements starting with pits, to cisterns refreshed by rainwater, custom-built ritual baths, then fountains, then flowing waters. But natural lakes and rivers were considered to be the best, so the ‘living waters’ of the River Jordan were definitely ideal.

But as John says this is only the preliminaries, water would give way to immersion in the Holy Spirit, and he was very, very clear of his unworthiness to carry out this form of baptism. There was another coming after him. Curiosity satisfied then for the Pharisees’ researchers, they would no doubt return to their leaders with more food for thought than reassurances. But that still leaves us with the question of why so many people were attracted to the message that John was voicing and what that means for us today. What was this baptism of repentance that he offered?

Like ourselves this Advent, the people had been watching and waiting, in fact they had been waiting for over 400 years. This period of seemingly divine silence is the name given to the period of time between the last of the Old Testament prophets and the arrival of Jesus in the New Testament. It had begun with Malachi’s prediction of Elijah’s return, ‘I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes,’ hence the Pharisee’s question and was now to end with its fulfilment in the coming of John the Baptist.

Silence however didn’t mean that the people had been living in limbo, because despite the lack of Scripture detailing this period, a great deal happened. The Jewish homeland had first of all been taken over from the Persians by the Greek Empire followed by an Egyptian occupation. Then halfway through the Syrians overtook Jerusalem, followed by the Greek king, Antiochus Epiphanes’ desecration of the Holy of Holies within the temple which led to a revolt, led by the Maccabee brothers to retake control of the Jerusalem, only to be conquered by the Roman Empire, the state the people found themselves in now.

You can understand, therefore, when the strange and unusual figure of John appeared in the wilderness, calling people to repent, to turn back to God , then they were ready and curious enough to seek him out. There were some, like the Pharisees, who came to the Jordan to observe John’s ministry but who had no desire to step into the water themselves. However, even those who did wade into the river, it wasn’t enough to be ritually purified, John’s baptism was more than that – it was a symbolic representation of changing one’s mind and going a new direction – a direction that pointed toward Jesus. His was the voice calling as we are called to be that voice.

On a personal level, I have always been reminded that this task has been passed on to us each time I say out loud the Benedictus during Morning Prayer. The second half of the canticle is an address by Zechariah to his own son, John the Baptist,

‘You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.’

You, my child… that you is directed at each and everyone one of us to be the voice, offering the knowledge that points people toward Christ. With John’s baptism, a person repented of sin, acknowledged their need for salvation, and was therefore ready to place their faith in Jesus Christ. It foreshadowed what Jesus would, did and still does accomplish, as the Benedictus goes on to say

‘In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.’

John the Baptist wasn’t a B-list celebrity in the jungle or wilderness, someone you think you’ve heard of but you’re not sure you recognise them – he was definitely A-list, but he wasn’t the main attraction. His baptism was a purification ceremony meant to ready the peoples’ hearts to receive their Saviour. In this season of Advent we too are watching and waiting to receive once again with joy our Saviour. It’s an event worth calling out about…

Amen

John_The_Baptist

Day Three – Part 2 – The Holocaust & The Christian World

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IMG_7376

Street Art in the centre of Jerusalem

In Shoah and Genocide I wrote about Professor Yuhuda Bauer’s insights into why the Shoah or Holocaust was unprecedented. However, for any genocide to occur there has to be a history behind it. Dr Jesper Svartvik* suggests that however painful it might be we have to recognise the part that Christian anti-Semitism had to play in it. So what was the history of this anti-Semitism?

He suggests that this can be explained as a sevenfold process:

  1. SIBLINGS (Mark) In the beginning Judaism and Early Christianity had something in common. However, like most families where there are siblings, although they have a common origin that can be very different in character
  2. RIVALRY (Marcion) For more than 100 years, Christians had been using the Old Testament as Christian Scripture, and even the most sacred documents of Christians referred to and relied heavily on, the Old Testament. The solution for Marcion, a second century theologian, was to completely reject the Old Testament and establish a canon that de-emphasized Christianity’s Old Testament and Jewish roots as much as possible, to move from the LAW to GRACE. Although his solution was rejected it did cause the early Church Father to do some re-evaluation, after all they were reading it through Christian spectacles
  3. NECESSARY (Augustine) Despite speaking out against the Jews, he did not consider Judaism a problem, in fact he is quoted as saying that Jewish scripture was vital to the Christian faith, “If any adversary should say you have forged these prophecies, let the Jewish books be produced. They are our librarians.” But he did not consider the survival of Jews as necessary, after all they were the ones that had said ‘no’ to the Messiah and had therefore been relieved of God’s promises (replacement theology).
  4. OPPOSITE (Luther) Martin Luther believed that there is no valid way of being a Christian that will make you Jewish, it could be agreed that they had the right texts but they were doing the wrong thing with them. At first Luther wanted to convert the Jews to Christianity, it had been done before because Christ himself was a Jew, but when this failed he said ‘Away with them’. As he grew older this attitude became more and more polemic, using the rudest and vilest scatological language, perhaps the politest example being ‘throw sow dung at him . . . and chase him away’. The effect though of this is that defendants in the Nuremberg trials after the war were able to quote from his treatise, On the Jews and Their Lies, written in 1543, as justification

Martin Luther

Martin Luther

5. UNNECESSARY (Enlightenment). You would have thought that the Age of Enlightenment in the Eighteenth century, with its metaphorical image of light, would mean that these differences would disappear. However, when you become a minority, marked by your religious symbols and customs, these are seen as making you more religious, rather than part of the establishment . Therefore, religious attachment becomes a problem.
6. POISON (Nazi Germany) Christianity remained the dominant religion in Germany through the Nazi period. That Nazi ideology was able to come to the fore was due in part to the social and economic situation between 1918 and 1933. However, the Nazi’s didn’t even consider Jews as human and started talking about them as ‘rats’, a natural pest to be destroyed. Using a Christian perspective it was considered that there could be no salvation without the defeat of the Jews. The commandment to ‘love your neighbours’ was interpreted as ‘they live next door to us, but they are not my neighbours’.
7. SACRAMENTUM (Nostra Aetate) The Nosta Aetate is the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council and repudiated anti-Semitism and the charge that Jews were collectively guilty for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It said that we were all children of Abraham and that Christians and Jews were a blessing to the world. It also drew on Romans 11, the fact that ‘they are our brothers’.

This seems to bring the seven points in full circle – from Siblings to Sacramentum because Early Christianity and Judaism were so similar, but that Christianity had stepped out of the ashes of the 2nd Temple’s destruction. Christianity being the word that became flesh whilst Judaism was the flesh that became Word.

Jewish and Christian Thinking

Dr Jesper Svartvik
Dr Jesper Svartvik since 2009 is the holder of Krister Stendahl’s professor of religious theology at the Center for Theology and Religious Studies at Lund University and the Swedish Theological Institute in Jerusalem. Between 2005 and 2009, he was chairman of the Swedish Committee against Anti-Semitism

 

A Glimpse of Heaven’s Glory

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the-heavens-are-telling-the-glory-of-god

Based on the following readings: Luke 2:1-14 and Isaiah 9:2-7

Another Christmas and what a wonderful time this Advent and lead up to Christmas has been this year. Over the last few weeks at St James’ we have shared the nativity story with various groups of pre-school children; carolled our way through several nursing homes; taken part in a sheep-filled Knitivity before the culmination of Christmas Eve Crib and Christingle services and the pinnacle of Midnight Mass. It was my privilege to be able to preach at this first service of Christmas on what was a very special night…

Make I speak and may you hear through the grace of the Lord; Father, Son and Holy Spirit

How’s everyone’s Christmas going? Got everything prepared?  –  I hope so, because you know gentlemen, I think even the late night petrol stations are closed now… But, of course you’re all prepared, and what better way to begin our Christmas Day celebrations [looking at watch] – well it’s not quite morning yet but it will be by the time I stop talking – than to gather here together to hear again the timeless story of Jesus’ birth. And there is something rather special about being here, at this time and in this place, and you must admit that the church does look rather wonderful, full of light and mystery.

However busy we’ve been, all the rushing around trying to find the perfect presents; making sure we’ve stocked up on plenty of food and drink; and those little treats we can indulge ourselves with; despite all of that, something calls to us to take a moment, this moment, to remember what Christmas is really all about. We hear the story of a young teenage woman about to give birth; the reluctant fiancé whose done the right thing; the outcasts and rejected members of society in the persons of the shepherds privileged to hear the good news first… of a baby born in an animal shed, yet destined to change the world… all heralded by angelic messengers descending – to bring heaven so tantalising close to earth.

Tonight we’ve come together in what I believe the Celts would have called ‘a thin place’. They had a saying that ‘heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places that distance is even smaller’. A thin place is where the veil that separates heaven and earth is lifted and one is able to receive a glimpse of the glory of God. Perhaps that’s why we’re here tonight, hoping to catch a glimpse of heaven’s glory

Indeed, there’s something about that story that seems to call to something deep within us, to draw us in so that just for a while we believe that all will be well with the world. A story that speaks of things so long ago and so far away and what wouldn’t we give for it to be happening right now; maybe like me you sometimes, just sometimes, wonder why it  doesn’t appear to be doing so nowadays. After all it’s good news of great joy for all people.

“”I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people”

What then was that good news that the angels spoke of to the shepherds, and how is it good news for us today?  Because let’s be honest, the news that’s beamed into our homes and phones and splashed across the newspapers doesn’t exactly fill us with confidence and hope that humanity has a common goal of seeking respect, harmony and love.

Respect, harmony and love, three key element of Jesus’ message for the world into which he was born…  and the world in which we live today; a message that is good news for us but also requires us to be good news to others; a message that allows us to glimpse heaven’s glory.

For Mary and Joseph their lives had been turned upside down and the baby that was now sleeping in the manger brought them joy as any new-born child would, despite the distance they had travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem and the circumstances they found themselves in. Yet the fact is within two years they would be fleeing for their lives, trying to keep one step ahead of Herod’s henchman who would indiscriminately slaughter thousands of innocent children and bring misery to countless families; families who likes Joseph’s were valuable member of society, and who now had to rely on the country to which they fled to offer them security and compassion, to recognise and respect who they were.

Sounds a bit like a scenario that’s been happening around the world more and more lately? That even today there are people having to flee from their homes, seeking that same sort of asylum, escaping from violence and conflict. Do we recognised their value and treat them with respect? How do we welcome the stranger and alien in our land or into our homes? Do they hear good news from us?

So tonight, on this special night, it would be good to remember all those who are far from the country of their birth, who are missing the comfort of their own home and their families, and pray that with our help they too can envisage a future that allows them and us to catch a glimpse of heaven’s glory

We hear too in the story that the birth of Jesus was a herald of peace on earth and our reading from Isaiah confirms that the one who was coming would be known as the Prince of Peace. It was a peace that would come about not only through meekness and tolerance but through seeking justice and reconciliation in a land dominated by a foreign power and then through the ultimate sacrifice.

“Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”

Most recently I believe we too are weary of a world in which violence and hatred seems to dominate, where mistrust and selfish power struggles offers discord rather than harmony, where acts of violence leave men, women and children in fear for their lives. How it jars with Jesus’ message of peace and how we so often feel powerless to do anything to bring about that peace?

Surely though it just needs to start with us, to be at peace with ourselves, our families and our neighbours, to reject hatred and discrimination and to stamp on injustice. So tonight, on this special night, let us be resolved to seek everything that speaks of harmony rather than conflict, not just in words, but in actions, so that we and the whole world might catch a glimpse of heaven’s glory.

Back to the story then; those shepherds were just the first example of Jesus’ determination that every single person would be valued, respected and loved. Throughout his ministry he actively sought out the poor, the homeless, the excluded – those rejected by a society that saw them as failures, inconveniences, worthless. He didn’t treat them as charity cases or patronise them in order to make himself feel better – he genuinely loved them. And he calls us to do the same.

Not just to love those who are lovable but those whom we consider unlovable. It’s too easy to create exclusive groups around us rather than to love inclusively. Perhaps though tonight, on this special night we can determine to open our hearts to love, to receive love and to give love so that all may catch a glimpse of heaven’s glory

As I said earlier, tonight we hear again in the Christmas story those three key elements of Jesus’ message for the world – respect, harmony and love, but there’s one more important thing that Jesus’ birth has to offer us – his death. It wasn’t until just over 300 year after his death that Christians began to remember and celebrate his birth. Up until then the good news had centred on the message of the cross.

A message of forgiveness, redemption and salvation for the world as a whole and for us as individuals; but we do recognise that as part of the Christmas message as well. When, later on we come to sing ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ the last verse has these words, “Born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons (and daughters of cause) of earth, born to give them second birth”. So tonight, on this special night, we can believe that heaven really has come close to give us a glimpse of heaven’s glory.

“…born to give them second birth”

 

But the truth is we can’t just leave it there – the Christmas story cannot be just that, a story in history. You may have come this evening because it’s simply part of a family tradition, or maybe you’ve been coming for years, or perhaps you haven’t been for a while – and that’s okay, all are welcome here… or maybe something stirs deep within and calls to a discovery that his story is also your story, my story, our story.

 

Isaiah prophesied all those years ago that ‘the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.’ Tonight, on this special night, we can be certain that that light still shines brightly, dispelling the darkness and allowing us all a glimpse of heaven’s glory.

 

Love came down at Christmas, and may that same love come down and enter our hearts both tonight, this morning and for evermore. Amen

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