So, this is Christmas

 Midnight Mass 2023: Isaiah 52, 7-10, Hebrews 1, 1-12 and  John 1, 1-14

+ Today, in between the hospital and the crib service, this song came on the car radio:

So this is Christmas

And what have you done?

Our hopes might lie with John and Yoko: having fun with our nearest and dearest, the old and the young.

And so this is Christmas

For weak and for strong

For rich and the poor ones [but]

The world is so wrong

Tonight, the  atmosphere in Bethlehem is heavy with absence. 

A smaller celebration this year. No tourists or pilgrims filling the Manger Square; no carols or market stalls.  The city is empty from happiness, from joy.

There is a nativity scene: with the newborn Jesus surrounded by rocks and barbed wire.  

A Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem, the Munther Isaac, says: ‘the birthplace of Christmas is the place in most need of peace, justice and equality’. 

The holy child is birthed amidst the rubble of Gaza; birthed in the rubble of the kibbutzim too.

The Dean of Jerusalem reminds us that  Jesus was born in Bethlehem at a time of ‘terrifyingly brutal’ occupation by Rome and their ‘tyrannical client king, Herod’. He was born of a woman, born under the law, born a Jew.

Image of Bethlehem Nativity from Newsweek

In the words of Hebrews, the one who ‘sustains all things’ by a ‘powerful word’ comes to us in solidarity with pain and brokenness: the Word becomes flesh in a wordless infant.

God’s very being is with us in weakness and vulnerability. Not known or accepted - and yet in this new life the impossible is made possible. In the most unpromising circumstances a glorious light dawns in our world. 

For John - the Evangelist rather than Lennon - this is Christmas: ‘light shines in the darkness: and the darkness does not overcome it’.

Fearful times demand defiant acts of faith: to scan the skies for a glimmer of light, however faint and flickering, which might just be enough to form the basis of hope. 

The words we hear tonight are that spark; that fragile flame. It’s a story that invites us to let go of nagging fears, forgives old hurts and remakes our hearts and minds. 

Writing in the diary column of the New Statesman, Jeanette Winterson acknowledges our struggle to live in and carry this light but she says ‘that doesn’t mean the light is not there or that we are not drawn to it’.  

Dare we lay aside false gods - power that coerces, wealth that consumes, selfishness that makes life unsustainable? Dare we ask for what we need this Christmas - for comfort in grief, friendship in loneliness, acceptance that we are loved? 

The story of this night in all its beauty and mystery offers us new life in our fears and hopes.

It invites us to be messengers announcing peace, good news, salvation, healing - the reign of God with us. It invites us to sing - for comfort in ruins, for redemption in cities, for all nations to see the peace that is the salvation of God.

A few nights ago, Noa and Mira Awad - a Palestinian Israeli and a Yemenite Jewish Israeli - performed together at the Berlin Philharmonic Concert Hall.  They sang the words Think of Others by  the poet Mahmoud Darwish in Hebrew, Arabic and English with the refrain ‘if only I were a candle in the dark’.

The poem asks that in the midst of wars, we do not forget those who seek peace; that as we return home, we do not forget the people of the camps; as we sleep, that we think of those with nowhere to sleep; as we liberate ourselves, to think of those who’ve lost the right to speak.

Being a stubborn candle in the dark.

So this is Christmas

The fullness of God’s love in an infant - in a world such as this - drawing out of us a depth of solidarity, transforming us and stirring us to loving action. 

So this is Christmas

The fullness of that same love in fragile bread, in rich wine, in words of blessing: Christ’s body given for us in our brokenness,  calling us into solidarity - knowing the power of our voices, as messengers of peace, holding onto the light. Being a stubborn candle in the dark. This is Christmas.  Amen.

© Julie Gittoes 2023

Break forth into singing

 Midnight Mass 2021: Isaiah 52: 7-10, Hebrews 1:1-12, John 1:1-14

Break forth together into singing, your ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people.

There is something instinctive about singing.

Something so powerful about the human voice expressing itself in song: taking up a melody, holding the harmonies, daring to improvise, moving towards resolution.

In the notes and pauses, in the breath itself, the unsayable is made known

We find comfort in coming in breaking forth into singing together: and how much we’ve missed it.

Last year, we couldn’t sing carols in churches; we couldn’t sing along to Slade in the pub.

This year, new songs are competing for our attention to be a Christmas classic alongside Mariah Carey, Chris Rea, The Pogues and Kirsty McCall. 

Kelly Clarkson wikimedia

Ed Shreen and Elton John try to name the ways in which we’ve had to carry on with the love we’ve known and the ones we’ve lost. Kelly Clarkson’s sings that Christmas isn’t cancelled - even when places and favourite things are tinged with sadness at the memories of those we’ve loved.

She describes her song writing as something that can: “breathe hope into one’s life and let possibility wander”. 

And may be that’s what this night is about: breathing hope into life.

That hope is breathed into life as light shines in the darkness.

The darkness does not overcome it.

The hope is breathed into life as God’s very self becomes flesh and dwells with us.

Mary’s labour brings God’s Word of love to birth.

Our carols give breath to this hope; our voices make possibility wander.

Erland Sibuea, Nativity (2008)

We break forth together into singing: singing carols that name the “ruins” of a  ‘weary world’ that has ‘suffered long’; yet which invite us to ‘hush the noise’ and hear ‘the love song’ that angels sing.

We break forth together into singing: singing carols which name the “comfort” offered by the one who comes with ‘healing in his wings’; a newborn king born who ‘feeleth for our sadness’ and ‘shareth in our gladness’.

We break forth together into singing: singing on this ‘silent’ and ‘holy night’ of the child who is ‘of the Father’s love begotten’; the one ‘born this happy morning’ bringing  ‘light and life’.

This is the love song that gives breath to hope: the one who created all things in and for love - for relationship and tenderness, for community and trust.

This love song continued when our hearts are broken by grief and fear:  for the one who created all things in and for love, reached out to us through the prophets, who called us back to ways of compassion and mercy.

The Word of this song was breathed as life and hope in flesh and blood: Jesus took on the very stuff of life that makes us vulnerable.

From that starting point, this love song begins to open up new possibilities: for community and forgiveness, for intimacy and understanding, for purpose and joy.

We’re all in different places emotionally this Christmas: delight at time with family and friends, or longing to be away from pressures of work; rebuilding the habits of life we’ve lost; disappointment at what’s been postponed; the grief, anxiety, uncertainty and loneliness are real - co-existing alongside the laughter, comfort, opportunities and loves.

But today we celebrate the way in which God speaks to us by a Word, a Son: the fullness of life and love and light became like us.

Who shares the joys and the sorrows: who says, in the darkest hours, I’ll be with you. 

However hard it feels to live well - with the struggles, laughter, hopes and loves; with our longing for healing, peace, joy and comfort - there is a promise. 

A new song: I am with you. 

This love will win, even over death; this light will shine and not be overcome. 

This love opens up for us new possibilities: in the intimacy of a blessing received, in the joy of bread shared.

May the love brought to birth in our world through Jesus, be breathe hope into our life.

May the way we share that love with others, bring to birth new possibilities for our life together. 

May our lives echo God’s love song. Amen.

© Julie Gittoes 2021