Midnight Mass 2024 - Radical hope, joy, love and grace for you and them and everyone inbetween

 Christmas Eve Night Readings and Sermon 2024

John 1.1–14

The Gospel according to John

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being ⁴in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. ¹¹He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. ¹²But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

 

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you,    O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, it’s good to get my feet on holy ground, and tonight, we’re very glad to have more than the boys of the NYPD choir singing Galway Bay, in fact I’m sure when I look around, around, I sometimes see angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity, and want to say Amen! and Hallelujah! Which right now, feels very appropriate.

All of these words tell us stories and each hearer may recognise some, will interpret them differently, and respond individually. Which is all part of how we communicate, we bring so much with us from our lives and experiences, before we even begin to read or hear a message.

Then tonight, expecting to hear about a baby being born in a stable, we have John’s Gospel telling us, in the beginning was the word.

A word, which appears in the carol and it’s final verse only sung on Christmas Day, in O come all ye faithful, on the majestic chord, Word of the Father, Now in flesh appearing.

Which tells us more perhaps, than St John’s Gospel, where there is much which is not said,

given that today is Christmas Eve, and we are on the precipice of remembering that moment when God was born as a baby and the whole world changed.

John’s Gospel is certainly very grandiose, but doesn’t mention Mary or Joseph, instead, focusses on the place of God in the story of a people who had been reading their prophets very carefully, people like Isaiah and Jeremiah, who had all predicted the coming of a saviour. They had hoped for this messiah since Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians over 500 years ago, and now the promised land was under Roman occupation.

The people were looking for a hero, a messiah, the word, to become flesh, a word predicted and desperately needed.

However, John’s Gospel is very clear, telling us about John the Baptist and that a messiah is coming, but to fulfil God’s purpose and will, not to bow to the will of ordinary people.

This was a moment when all the hopes and fears of a desperate people would be made human in light and life and truth. A remarkable reminder that the power of God transcends everything our small human minds could possibly ever imagine, including whatever we may interpret from the prophets or even those who recorded what was about to happen.

So much of what took place on that Holy Night, is bound up in what we traditionally believe happened, which ironically, is often made up by people who weren’t there, to fill in the gaps.

The human word and our languages are powerful and amazing and also ill equipped, especially when there are people who would seek to further their own agenda from what happened back then. For example, church leaders who jostled and positioned themselves to ensure their narrative would become the overriding message, Roman Emporers and Popes through the years did the same.

For example, an early church father, Justin Martyr, in the year 150 decided that Jesus must have been born in a cave where sheep would have been kept in Bethlehem, this was agreed with by other elders and the Roman Emperor Constantine ratified it as holy in 335 AD. Constantine was famous for converting the whole Roman Empire to Christianity, having seen a flaming sign in the sky, but was it only from the sign or political expediency?

On the site of the cave was built the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, which until the recent terrible violence in the region, was visited by thousands of pilgrims every day.

Even if it wasn’t the exact place of Jesus birth, does it matter if millions of people have since visited that place and prayed there?

I always find it helpful to find out what I can about the time and place when things happened, so that, for example, it turns out that inns at that time were very rare, usually only found in remote regions between settlements. Like the one mentioned in the parable of the good Samaritan, meaning that there probably wasn’t an Inn in Bethlehem.

A few months ago I met up with some other priests for a retreat. One also teaches New Testament theology at Oxford and he could read it in the original Greek and pointed out that the word used in Luke chapter 22, for the place where the disciples had the last supper is katalyma, which is translated as guest room, which is the same word used in Luke chapter 2, when there was no room in the guest room, or katalyma.

In those days, travellers would stay in the home of a family who had space, which may just be a spot on the floor or even a roof.

It was busy so Jesus was born in a phatne, meaning manger, feeding trough or stall.

For me, knowing that two pivotal moments in the life of Jesus; his birth and the last supper, were dependent, upon whether he was welcomed as a guest, or not;

Events dependent on being outside a home, or being welcomed in,

these moments and the words used, say something about how we welcome people today, that we can be kind and generous, or say, there is no room for guests.

It’s easy to think we know these Bible stories well, until one digs beneath the surface to realise there is another truth being told in the Word of God.

Here are some ideas to consider:

It’s an unwed teenage woman who carries God.

Her fiancé becomes stepfather to God, having to believe what he is told and trusting his partner about the baby’s parentage.

It’s poor workers in the fields, shepherds, who hear from God, not priests in the temple.

It’s pagans from the East who recognise God, not priests, Romans or Temple leaders.

Afterwards, this young family become refugees, fleeing to Egypt.

To put this another way,

If we ignore teenage girls when they are in trouble

If we tell refugees to go home

If we reject wisdom from foreign cultures

If we tell the poorest workers they have less value than the wealthy,

Then are we really honest about being followers of Jesus?

Of course, as a church, especially as an institution, we have often failed to do the right thing, so can hardly point fingers. But there are many of us, who still try to do things well, to listen, to accept the difficult truths.

Life is very messy, and the older I get, the more truthful and messy life seems to get.

Life is tough, it doesn’t seem to get easier, just different.

Being a priest doesn’t mean having all the answers, if anything, accepting that many questions have more than one truthful answer is a hard truth to accept.

When I read topics around the Bible and Faith, I often find more to learn from people who are deconstructing their faith, or even people who declare they are atheist, not that I am one,

but because many of the things they say they don’t believe, I don’t believe either, like who gets to be saved, or if we’re born sinful, or everything happens for a reason.

All topics for another day, but I’m open minded, I invite questions and doubts and want to part of a church which welcomes questions and doubt.

Which questions people and their motives, which accepts people whose lives are a mess, which listens when difficult truths are shared, which acts justly, shows mercy, is compassionate and kindness, forgives and loves without exception. Because that is what Jesus would do.

And it’s that idea which gives me hope, a radical, earth-shattering hope, that at its core the Christian message is one of compassion, kindness, forgiveness and love without exception.

It doesn’t matter if you’re perfect or irredeemably sinful, whether your straight, or gay, male or female, or something in between, whether you’re young or old, lost or found, certain or uncertain, whether your perfectly normal,

whatever that is, or on a spectrum, and there are many remarkable spectrums to be a part of, all created and loved by God, like rainbows, or shafts of light in a prism, or breaking through the cracks in our broken lives, to let the light in,

whatever or whoever you are, in Jesus, there is a radical, rebellious hope of something better, just around the corner.

So, tonight, let’s be radical, with our hope, our joy, our openness to change, our acceptance of the other, our grace, our love, our welcome, our kindness, compassion and radical hope. Let’s start now, in the word made flesh, beginning again, in a manger, in fear and wonder, with a young mum and her ordinary, amazing child.

Amen.

 

https://biblehub.com/interlinear/luke/2-7.htm

https://biblehub.com/interlinear/luke/22-11.htm

https://www.salisburycathedral.org.uk/no-room-for-an-inn-what-the-bible-really-tells-us-about-jesus-birthplace/

Isaiah 52.7–10

⁷ How beautiful upon the mountains
   are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news,
   who announces salvation,
   who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’
⁸ Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices,
   together they sing for joy;
for in plain sight they see
   the return of the Lord to Zion.
⁹ Break forth together into singing,
   you ruins of Jerusalem;
for the Lord has comforted his people,
   he has redeemed Jerusalem.
¹⁰ The Lord has bared his holy arm
   before the eyes of all the nations;
and all the ends of the earth shall see
   the salvation of our God.

Psalm 98

1  Sing to the Lord a new song, ♦︎
   for he has done marvellous things.
2  His own right hand and his holy arm ♦︎
   have won for him the victory.
3  The Lord has made known his salvation; ♦︎
   his deliverance has he openly shown in the sight of the nations.
4  He has remembered his mercy and faithfulness
      towards the house of Israel, ♦︎
   and all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
5  Sound praises to the Lord, all the earth; ♦︎
   break into singing and make music.
6  Make music to the Lord with the lyre, ♦︎
   with the lyre and the voice of melody.
7  With trumpets and the sound of the horn ♦︎
   sound praises before the Lord, the King.
8  Let the sea thunder and all that fills it, ♦︎
   the world and all that dwell upon it.
9  Let the rivers clap their hands ♦︎
   and let the hills ring out together before the Lord,
      for he comes to judge the earth.
10  In righteousness shall he judge the world ♦︎
   and the peoples with equity.