St Mary’s, Reed

Christmas Eve 2006

Isaiah 9.2-7; Titus 2.11-14; Luke 2.1-14 

How did last Christmas change your life?   We have all come here this evening to sing some carols, say some prayers, to hear the story of the first Christmas and, above all, to celebrate the birth of Christ. 

What does that celebration mean for us? If we are truly celebrating Christmas, our celebrations need to go on beyond Twelfth Night. Carrying the message of Christmas into our lives the rest of the year is one way in showing that our celebrations are real and not just an excuse for a family-get-together, eating and drinking too much and a few days off work.  There’s a story about a young girl who went with a group of her family and friends to see the Christmas lights in London. At one church, they stopped and went inside to look more closely at a beautiful nativity scene.  “Isn’t that beautiful?” said the little girl’s grandmother. “Look at all the animals, Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus.”   “Yes, Grandma,” replied the granddaughter. “It is really nice. But there is only one thing that bothers me. Isn’t baby Jesus ever going to grow up? He’s the same size he was last year.” Is baby Jesus for us the same size as last year or have we allowed our understanding and our love for him to grow over the past year? One of the wonderful messages of Christmas is that of God’s grace. But sadly it’s a message that gets distorted time and time again.

We often hear parents telling their children how Father Christmas won’t come unless they’re good.  I remember talking to the parent of a two year-old in my last parish, a two year-old with whom there had been lots of dinner-table battles. But Father Christmas had worked wonders this dad said, we just tell her that he won’t come if she doesn’t eat her food. She’s never eaten so well, he said. 

And sometimes this idea gets put on to Jesus too. The idea that Jesus is only for good people. There’s a story about a little boy called Sam. It was coming up to Christmas, and Sam asked his mum if he could have a new bike. She told him that the best idea would be to write to Father Christmas. But Sam, with his school nativity play in mind, said he’d prefer to write to the baby Jesus.  

Sam went to his room and wrote: “Dear Jesus, I have been a very good boy this year and I would like to have a bike for Christmas.”  But he wasn’t very happy when he read it again. Something wasn’t quite right.

So he decided to try again. This time he wrote: “Dear Jesus, I’m a good boy most of the time, and I would like a bike for Christmas.”  He read it but still wasn’t happy.

So, he tried a third version: “Dear Jesus, I could be a good boy if I tried hard, and especially if I had a new bike.”   He read that one too, but he still wasn’t satisfied.So, he decided to go out for a walk while he thought about a better approach. After a short time he passed a house with a small statue of the Virgin Mary in the front garden. He crept in, stuffed the statue under his coat, hurried home and hid it under the bed.  

Then he wrote this letter: “Dear Jesus, if you want to see your mother again, you’d better send me a new bike.” 

It’s so easy to put our human values on God. Sam clearly linked being good with Jesus. But God didn’t say: “I’ll send my Son when the world is good enough or when enough people worship me.” God didn’t say “I’ll start loving them when I see some evidence that they love me.” God saw that people didn’t love so God loved them even more.  

I was talking to a teacher this past week about how different attitudes about learning exist. There was a time when it was important in schools to tell children what they were getting wrong - and there are some people who will always point out the wrong things, either things other people have not got right or they themselves - but not to praise them when they did well, in case they became too big-headed. The theory is that we learn through having our mistakes pointed out to us. Nowadays, schools are much more keen to accentuate the positive in children. Teachers will praise what has been done well before they point out what needs putting right. There is a sense that all children are good at something and that those who are not academically bright can still shine in other ways.  I think we probably need a bit of both - we do learn from our mistakes, but a child who is only castigated for getting things wrong and never encouraged will not grow or learn happily. 

Many people seem to categorise God as being of the first type only - the sort of person, if we can call God a person, who will lay down hard and fast rules and castigate us when we get it wrong.   And over the years the Church has perpetuated this myth that we can only be acceptable to God, if we do the right things and live the right sort of life. 

But, if we look more closely at Christ, we see that God’s love is not confined to those who have got it right. Think of the circumstances of that first Christmas.   Where was Jesus born? Certainly not in a royal palace but in a humble stable. Who were his first visitors? Humble, dirty, probably smelly, shepherds, not the faithful religious people who knew they had it right. 

It’s so easy to impose our human values on God. If we’re honest, we want God to approve of the people of whom we approve and not of the others. We know what God ought to do and then we give up on God when that doesn’t happen. 

A baby in a manger is cute and cuddly but if we leave the baby there, the same size as he was last Christmas, we’re missing something vital about God’s love. We’re missing the fact that God’s love is big enough for us all: rich and poor, good and bad.  I think one good thing to have come out of the tragedy of the murdered women in
Suffolk is that people have had to face the fact that they are not just nameless prostitutes whom we can ignore or write off as bad women, but real people, people who have families and friends, people who have worth.  Yes, perhaps their lives have become rather distorted, often because of the grip of drug addiction, yes, perhaps their values are far removed from our own, but the message of God is that they are not worthless. 

“The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright and godly” - words from our epistle reading.  

But, look where those words start - with the grace of God. It doesn’t say that God’s grace will come once people are pious and self-controlled, but that God’s grace will transform people. 

So, I challenge you - and myself - this Christmas to let our vision of the Christ-child grow that little bit bigger so that next year we can say our Christmas celebrations had an effect on us well beyond Twelfth Night.