Derwent Valley Parishes

Christmas Night – Eucharist – 24.xii.2024

(Isaiah 9.2-7; Titus 2.11-14; Luke 2.1-20)

Social media can be bad for you. Nevertheless, I was glad to find these words posted on “X” (formerly known as Twitter):

Went back to my local church last night for Nine Lessons & Carols, exactly 2 years after resigning from ministry, leaving the church and attempting suicide. “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” Hope saves. I know. It’s still my Church of England.

How many people come back to church at Christmas? How many come to our Carol Service – just once a year and no other time? What is special about this service to you?

That social media post perhaps sums it up for many people. An ordained woman who had resigned her active ministry, who had actually given up on life due to whatever experiences and pressures she had encountered. But coming back in time for Christmas – finding that it’s a Christmas Carol which speaks to her: “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

The words are from the Carol, “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” We sang it at our Christingle Service earlier today. It’s to Bethlehem that we turn our attention today – and to the birth of that child, born to an unmarried mother, homeless that night, reliant on those who take her in to provide the most basic of facilities where an animal’s food trough has to serve for a crib.

How silently, how silently,

the wondrous gift is given!

So God imparts to human hearts

the blessings of his heaven.

No ear may hear his coming,

but in this world of sin,

where meek souls will receive him,

still the dear Christ enters in.

“In this world of sin” the dear Christ enters in – but we need hearts that are open: Christ is found “where meek souls will receive him.” In the darkness, the call to us is to recognise Jesus at his coming – the Light of the world.

There is no denying the darkness of the world. But there is hope. We need to be reminded of that hope, and to be able to grasp it.

Last weekend – as Advent was drawing to its close – the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, was given permission to travel to Gaza, where he celebrated Mass in the Church of the Holy Family. Christians are a beleaguered minority in Gaza. Hundreds have taken refuge in that church and its compound, others at the Orthodox Church of St. Porphyrios – the Anglican Church runs a hospital in the north of the territory. All have come under fire and bombardment in the year and a quarter since the terrible atrocities of October 7^th. So the visit of the Cardinal last Sunday was a sign that those Christians are not alone. As the Cardinal said in his sermon, not only is Christmas a sign of hope for them, but also the continuing witness of those Christians is important to the wider Church. Let me read from what he said:

You have become the light of our Church in the entire world.

At Christmas, we celebrate the light and ask: Where is this light? The light is here, in this church. The beginning of the light is Jesus Christ, who is the source of our life. If we are a light to the world, it is only because of Him. At Christmas, I pray that Jesus grants us this light.

We are living in a time filled with darkness, and there is no need to elaborate because you know it well. In these moments, we must first look to Jesus, for He gives us the strength to endure this dark time. Over the past year, we have learned that we cannot rely on humans. How many promises were made and never fulfilled? And how much violence and hatred arose because of people?

To remain steadfast in hope, we must be deeply rooted in Jesus. If we are connected to Him, we can look at one another in a different way.

I don’t know when or how this war will end, and every time we approach the end, it seems like we start anew. But sooner or later, the war will end, and we must not lose hope. When the war ends, we will rebuild everything: our schools, our hospitals, and our homes. We must remain resilient and full of strength.

And I repeat: We will never abandon you, and we will do everything we can to support and assist you.

But most importantly, we must not allow hatred to infiltrate our hearts. If you want to remain a light, we must make our hearts available for Jesus alone.

This year has been a significant challenge to our faith, for all of us, and especially for you. Sometimes, we asked, “Until when, O Lord?” Today, we answer with our will: “We want this situation to end soon, but we want to remain with You, O Lord.” Christ affirmed this by saying, “I am Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.”

We must remain steadfast in our faith, pray for the end of this war, and trust completely that with Christ, nothing can overcome us…

The war will end, and we will rebuild again, but we must guard our hearts to be capable of rebuilding. We love you, so never fear and never give up.

We must preserve our unity to keep the light of Christ here in Gaza, in our region, and in the world. We have a mission, and you must also give something, not just receive. The world that looks at you must see to whom you belong, whether you belong to the light or to darkness? Do you belong to Jesus, who gives his life, or another?

I conclude by saying: Thank you. May Christmas bring light to each of us. Do not be afraid, for no one can take Christ’s light from us. Continue to give the good testimony of the Christian faith. Merry Christmas!

Could we say, “Merry Christmas” in the conditions that people know in Gaza where over two million have seen their homes wrecked and so many lives destroyed? Or in the troubles which have spread through the West Bank? And beyond in Lebanon and Syria? We should not forget those still grieving for lives lost in Israel, or fearing for loved ones still held hostage, or who have had to leave their own homes on hostile borders. And so many people who live in fear or with lives blighted by war in countries from Ukraine to Sudan – or where terror reigns in Haiti and so much of Latin America and Africa.

I have been glad during the last fortnight to have been able to welcome hundreds of children and their families into our churches as they have celebrated Christmas. Whatever they did and sang, having them here was important. We can provide a space for them to share their understanding, singing and fun which they don’t find elsewhere – and perhaps they get a sense of the hospitality which we as a church seek to provide, and to notice something of how we celebrate.

Having the children here made me think of the last occasion when I visited Bethlehem at the beginning of 2020. I’d gone there partly because I wanted to go still further east – into the desert to visit the ancient monastery of Mar Saba – and we managed it thanks to a taxi driver who, when we declined his offer of a ride from the bus stop to Manger Square, persisted in reeling off all the places he could take us. When we’d first enquired about visiting the monastery, the American nun in the Christian Information Centre in Jerusalem had never heard of it and told us it was too dangerous even to visit Bethlehem – so we took the Arab bus from the Damascus Gate and went anyway. That’s where we found our taxi driver who took us from the bus out to the monastery and back. His car was a bit of a wreck – and several times we had to get out to give clearance over the road surface to the exhaust which was hanging barely attached underneath. He took us to the best vantage points, stopped to take our photograph with a view over the Kidron Valley, and cheerfully cursed the condition of the road as we drove along. Finally, as we came back into Bethlehem the schools were coming out – with crowds of children spilling out onto the narrow roads. He complained about them too - as they got in his way and slowed him down! But that was a special part of the journey as we came to the centre of Bethlehem. These were children doing what children do – full of life, chatting and shouting to each other, getting in the way, having finished their lessons and now happy to be on their way home. These were children the same as children we would want to find anywhere…

Two thousand years after the birth of Jesus, the Holy Child of Bethlehem, we find that city still in the news – normally for the wrong reasons. Gaza appears even earlier in the Bible – where Samson slew the Philistines (and we should be angered by his violent disregard for life). But both Bethlehem and Gaza may be signs of hope. Those besieged Christians in the Holy Family Church in Gaza turning out to meet their Cardinal. Those children and young people in Bethlehem, living hard up against a wall that separates them from their Israeli neighbours and surrounded by encroaching settlements – but still being children, full of life and laughter.

As Thomas Merton wrote:

Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it, because he is out of place in it, and yet he must be in it, his place is with those others who do not belong, who are rejected by power, because they are regarded as weak, those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world.

Christ is born, Emmanuel, “God with us.” This is why we can sing, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”