Christmas Eve Sermon 2023.

Reading: John 1.1-14

The reading we have just heard, is , I think, the most beautiful for any service on Christmas Eve evening, when it’s dark and chilly outside, maybe snowy, maybe rainy, maybe howling a gale, but always dark. And that is because of all these wonderful references to light.

‘In Him was life, and that life was the light of all humankind’.

‘John was not the light, but he came as a witness to the light’.

‘The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world’

‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it’. 

Lots of light. It is mentioned seven times in the 14 short verses that open John’s Gospel. And of course, there are lots of lights to be seen at this time of year too, aren’t there? I drove Sophia down one of the roads off Chesterfield, Moorside Road, the one with all the Christmas lights strung across, and she said ‘WOW, ‘MAZING!’.

She may not be a big fan of the Big Man In Red, but she does love all the twinklies about, as do I! All this light though, I wonder if in the back of your mind, you may be finding the glitter and sparkle of Christmas a bit uncomfortable this year more than others?

Every year, there are things on the news to make us despair – that is not new. This year though, for me anyway, it has been a particularly tough watch. All those displaced, hurting, broken people on the news.To quote Band Aid: do they know it’s Christmas?

Regular to All Saints with St Frideswyde will know that this service, happening at 8pm rather than 11 or 11.30, is new for us. I have known of other churches making the decision to switch to an earlier service for several reasons. Generally, it seems that the late night services are less popular than they once were. But there is another reason for choosing this time in particular to have a service.

When we have a service on Christmas Eve nearer to midnight, we know that it is Christmas day by the time we are coming out of church and wishing each other goodnight. For our service, now, when we come out of church at the end it will be nearly Christmas Day in Bethlehem, in the Holy Land, in Palestine, in Gaza. At least if I get my timings right, it will be, anyway!

So, we could call this service ‘Bethlehem Communion’, because it will shortly be Christmas Day in Bethlehem, in the place where Jesus was born.Good news for those of us who are happy to get an early night!

Again, though, Bethlehem Communion services are taking on a different meaning this year. Take that song, O Little Town Of Bethlehem. How still we do not see thee lie. It is not peaceful, quiet, shiny, sparkly of twinkly for the people of Gaza or the West Bank or Bethlehem tonight. How I wish it were.

But that is why we chose to sing the alternative words to that carol. I could not bring myself to sing of that place like we would do in any other year, when this year is significantly different to any other year for them.

I wonder, though, if you have seen the image online of Jesus lying in the rubble?

We have all seen, I think, pictures of destroyed buildings, and in a church in Bethlehem, in the middle of such rubble, somebody played a statue of the baby Jesus. Because, as John says, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not over come it. I have a copy of this picture for each of you this evening.

It is a powerful and striking image, isn’t it? These cards are yours to keep and by all means look at them throughout the rest of the service.

When we say ‘Jesus shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it’, it is not merely a well-meaning, soppy platitude. It is a steadfast refusal of Jesus’s not to leave us, not any of us, alone in the darkness, no matter how horrifying that darkness may be. In the darkness, in the rubble, the light shines.

In the Bible reading, we heard how John the Baptist pointed to the light. He himself was not the light, but he pointed to, witnessed to and directed people to the light. And I think, in 2023, as we move into 2024, that is what we can do, as people of faith. We can point people to the light too.

We don’t have to see the light ourselves. We do not have to look at the scenes from Gaza and say ‘look, it’s fine because he’s there’. I do not mean that at all.

But we can choose, and faith is a choice, to believe John’s words, that where there is darkness, Jesus shines. And that the darkness is not too dark,has never been too dark, and will never be too dark, to put out the light that it is Jesus.

In the rubble, in the darkness, in the hospitals, in the refugee camps, and in the awful, awful places of the world.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not, will not, and cannot overcome it. Amen.

We then sung this:

O troubled town of Bethlehem,
with conflict still you lie.
Above your deep but restless sleep
indifferent stars go by;
yet in your dark streets may you find
resilient, endless light:
for hopes and fears of all the years
were borne in you one night.

For Mary’s child was born, and cried,
unnerving powers-above,
whilst God of Life who shares our strife
en-couraged hope and love.
O morning stars, now sniper-fire
obscures such hopeful births;
but mothers sing of everything –
their prayer still ‘peace on earth.’

How silently, how violently,
your wondrous gift was given;
while God is grace for every race,
your streets with fear are riven.
As Jesus came amongst the poor
(confronting powers-that-be),
through risen will and faith he still
invites us ‘Set them free.’

O daring child of Bethlehem,
empower us all, we pray,
to work for peace that wars may cease
and love be born today.
With all the nations’ angels
proclaiming we shall tell:
“Heal Bethlehem, join ‘us’ with ‘them’” –
Amen, Immanuel!
© Graham Adams