MIDNIGHT MASS SERMON

Three men die on Christmas Eve and are met by St Peter at the pearly gates.

"In honour of this holy season," says Saint Peter, "You must each possess something that symbolises Christmas to get into heaven."

The first man goes through his pockets and pulls out a lighter, flicks it on, saying, "It represents a candle."
"You may pass through the pearly gates," says St Peter.

The second man pulls out a set of keys, shakes them and says, "They're bells." St Peter lets him pass.

The third man looks desperate and finally pulls a pair of women’s knickers from his pocket. St. Peter looks quizzical and asks, "Just how do those symbolise Christmas?"

The man replies, "They're Carol’s."

I wonder whether we’ve become so anaesthetised to Christmas that we’ve missed the shock value of the whole event.

We like Christmas - there’s a feel good factor about it (apart from shopping at Tesco’s, family arguments, her parents - or his... the expense...) We love the partying and the food, the camaraderie, the carols and even some of the Churchy bits...

But I wonder if we’ve missed the scandal of Christmas. What did God think he was up to? Christmas is a very peculiar story about God.

Christmas is a profound story of weakness and vulnerability. God stepped into our world as a baby - not as a full grown man. Not as a politician, or as a military general, or a diplomat, or as an immune cocooned alien in a protective bubble... but as a baby. It’s not the way we’d do things.

Can you imagine what the briefing room in heaven was like? God and his angels are talking about the state of the world... It all started off so well.. fantastic scenery... beautiful balance to everything... fish were a good thing.. and how about mountains and fjords? and wasn’t the creation of people top banana? But it’s all gone a bit pear shaped - people have turned their back on the Creator.. there’s selfishness on a huge scale... there’s violence and war, there are weapons and guns and bombs and stuff... nasty diseases because of the way those humans have messed about with creation’s working without really thinking it through. What creation needs is a thorough sorting out - there’s a broken relationship at the heart of the problems: Creation - including the humans - are out of step with God. So how do we put it right?

And by the now the angels are thinking about thousands of angelic troops buzzing round sorting things out... What about a programme of re-education? What about soul-scrubbing parties? What about clean clothes for everybody, what about an enforced dose of love? What about wiping it all out and starting again?

And God says: no - I’m going there myself.

And the angels say: wooaah! That’s serious! How many legions of angels do you want? you want the heavens torn apart, the skies ablaze, the mountains to shake to their very foundations, the whole earth to sit up and take note of the Creator visiting his world?

And God says: no - I’m going as a baby.

And the angels say: you can’t do that! What if you get poorly? What if you have an accident? What is something happens? What if nobody listens to you? Listen if you’re serious about this at least go for the very best high ranking family, with lots of medical help, the lowest odds for fatalities...

And God says: no - I’ll be born in an outhouse, far from home, friends and family to an unmarried couple in the middle of a census, and we’ll then have to flee for our lives to a foreign country while a crazy king is after my head...

And the angels say: what are the Health & Safety Committee going to say about this...?

What did God think he was doing? He came in utter weakness, 100% reliant on human beings for his nurture. He literally stepped into our shoes and experienced life as we experience it. It’s not the way we would have done things. God’s ways are topsy turvey to ours. We would have gone in all guns blazing and made human beings sit up and take notice. We would have knocked some heads together... we would have kicked some ass....

Which of course should make us think that either God’s way is wrong... or maybe - just maybe - our way is wrong...

St Paul wrote saying that God’s power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12.9) and that the weakness of God is stronger than human strength (1 Cor 1.25).

Christmas is a scandal of weakness. But’s also a scandal of strength. God took us so much more seriously than we take ourselves. He came and listened. He came and experienced what we experience so that he could mend that fractured relationship.

And the result of God’s intervention is peace and love. Not guilt and a damn good telling off. Not resentment and belittling. And the even more incredible thing is that God doesn’t do all this for us and present us with shiny effortless perfection; he wants to work alongside us - to empower us to work with him to bring the kingdom to fruition in our lives, in our communities and in his world... to equip and mature us to make decisions, not to have our brains taken out and our wills squashed, but to work along side him.. with the poor of the world, to manage our resources, to choose what to do...

Christmas is not about a steamroller God knocking heads together; but about a truly loving Creator, stepping into the Creation in person to help us become the people he made us to be. That is the scandal of Christmas.

Light looked down and saw darkness.
“I will go there” said Light.

Peace looked down and saw war.
“I will go there” said Peace.

Love looked down and saw hatred.
“I will go there” said Love.

So he,
the Lord of Light
the Prince of Peace
the King of Love,
came down
and crept in
beside us.

Fr. Andrew Perry
Rector, St John the Evangelist, Pevensey Rd, St Leonards on Sea