Sermon for Holy Innocents

Although written three years ago, nothing has changed

A few days ago I received a circular letter from a Christian organisation with their Presidents message for the Christmas Season. I have to say I receive quite a number of such letters and pay little attention but something caught my eye in this letter, the sentiment of the opening paragraph. Without quoting exactly, it was ‘well what with the credit crunch and wars around the world I am finding it hard to get into the Christmas spirit’ - and I wonder how many people felt the same, but I found it a little disturbing. It was as if Christmas should be some sort of distraction from the real world, as if the message of Christmas was all about taking our minds off the reality of the world. And I found it disturbing because here was someone in a very senior position in a church organisation, who seemed to imagine this to be true - as if we needed Peace on Earth in order to celebrate Christmas -but the message of Christmas is that God does not wait for the world to get itself ready for his appearing, that global economic meltdown and wars and rumours of wars is the world into which God comes in Jesus.

Put another way - if we in our wisdom and power have got the world all sorted out  - well then a Saviour arriving on the scene isn’t good news, because we don’t need one, we’ve saved ourselves.

To paraphrase one Christian Writer, the message of Christmas is not that everything is fine - it’s far from fine, but in Jesus God has made a decisive start on putting things right and shows us a new way - but it is not an easy way, it is the way of Love. Not a romanticised Love - not the sort of Love often on the lips of Christians which ignores the reality of the world and blithely announces ‘I Love everybody’ - but the Love of Christ that sees the world as it is and then lays down it’s life for this cruel and broken world - greater Love. When Jesus appears on the scene we see Love in Reality - and so we see the World as it truly is.

As we do on this day - The feast of the Holy Innocents.  The slaughter of all the male children under two by Herod. A reminder of Pharaoh - his injunction that all the male Hebrew babies should be  killed at birth. Rather like the romantic view of Moses in the basket which clouds our imaginations to the wholesale slaughter of children around him - the birth of Jesus may be so romanticised that we forget Holy Innocents. We may wish to escape into a fantasy Christmas with words about ‘Christmas Spirit’ and familiar rituals and forget today’s Holy Innocents - we may choose to ignore the truth that that today’s rulers think the daily death of 36,000 children of malnutrition or from lack of clean water is a price worth paying for  'Progress', or 'National Security', or the greatest of all Idols, 'keeping the economy on track'. When the powers that be are disturbed the most vulnerable in society are always the victims - I do not need to tell you what will happen because we know - in the need to tighten our belts - the shamefully small aid budgets of the wealthy will be reduced even further. I gather that despite the credit crunch people have continues to spend on Christmas but at the same time charities are reporting sharp decreases in donations. When the rulers of this age be they ’the economy’ be they Pharaoh be they Herod - when they are threatened the weakest are sent to the wall as a price worth paying. And the weakest are the frail and elderly, and the children.

The Holy Innocents. Why do we use this word Innocent for children? Because they are powerless - they are wholly irresponsible for the way the world is - Who creates wars? Who creates violence? Who creates unjust economic orders? Who makes a mess of the world? Not children but adults. Here again is that strange revealing of the Nature of Love.

A child, uniquely amongst humanity embodies perfectly the human vocation - to be recipients of Love and to give love in return - it is only as we bring them up that they forget the way of Love. And we in our wisdom think we know how to bring children up, that their vocation is to become like us adults. But Jesus says the exact opposite -  ‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like children you shall not enter the Kingdom of God’. And when we think about becoming like children the true cost of Love is revealed - for we see what happens to children - what happens to the weak and the vulnerable in our society and across the World, we see what the World does to them, not only two thousand years ago around Bethlehem but today.

And we are frightened of that reality - why becoming like a child, eschewing control and power, entering into weakness and vulnerability. So we hedge ourselves round with reasons to ignore Jesus’ way of Love - ‘why, if we became like children we think’ - the world would go to pot! Well folks, take off the dark glasses - the world has gone to pot and only the children are innocent. Only the children are not responsible for the way the world is. Funny isn’t it - how we try to bring children up to be responsible . . .

This is why the freedom which Jesus brought was rejected and continues to be rejected to this day both by those inside and outside of the church - because freedom means vulnerability and we prefer life trapped by the walls we’ve built for ourselves to defend ourselves than accept the offer of freedom and vulnerability which Jesus brings. We see what happens to the weak and are trapped by the Herod’s and Pharaoh’s of this age. But the way of the Holy Innocents is also the way of The Holy Innocent - The Archbishop of Canterbury in his Christmas address says the following “Human beings, left to themselves, have imagined God in all sorts of shapes; but it took Christianity to introduce the world to the idea of God in the form of a baby: in the form of complete dependence and fragility, without power or control.” In the birth of Jesus we see the Life of Jesus - born in weakness and vulnerability, living in weakness and vulnerability and dying in weakness and vulnerability - and so revealing the truth about the World and the Truth about Love. Upon the Cross St Paul reminds us - Jesus unmasks and dethrones the powers and authorities of this world - it is only as the world is confronted with something alien and strange to itself that its true nature is revealed.

The Holy Innocent’s don’t fight back - the cruelty of the world is revealed - Jesus unlike so many failed Messiah’s does not come into Jerusalem with an army - he is the only Messiah we remember because Jesus alone did not answer the world’s violence with violence and so hide the truth about the world, rather he confronted it with Love and so unmasked the world’s truth.

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one* might boast in the presence of God.

Christmas is truly about children, it’s about learning from children, it’s about relearning our humanity from children because as Christians we believe that God comes to us as a vulnerable child and he calls us to follow his way -  the way of vulnerability, the way of weakness, the way of Love, which is the power of God.

A few thoughts for Christmas on the Nativity Ikon

Christmas Sermon

The Ox, The Ass and the Shepherds

I just want to speak for a few minutes this morning about two elements of the Nativity Ikon – The Ox and Ass and the Shepherds. Now of course we may well say that there is no Ox and Ass in Luke’s account of the birth – indeed it is only in the 8^th Century after the birth of Christ that we find any account of the birth of Jesus which includes them – but they were present much earlier in ikons of the birth of Jesus – So why are they there??

All through Advent I’ve emphasized our need to know the Old Testament texts if we are to understand Jesus’ birth – you see we may say it is all to do with the humility of Christ and there is no doubt something of that in this, but if we know the old testament then we will know that at the beginning of the Prophet Isaiah we hear these words ‘The Ox knows its owner and the donkey its masters crib but Israel does not know, my people do not understand’ – unlike his people, the Ox and the Donkey get it! He came to his own and his own knew him not . . . but the Ox and the Ass do

There is perhaps a little more here too though, for the word for Ox in Hebrew is similar to the word for Prince and the word for Donkey is similar to the word for Priest – The ox and the ass were Present at the birth of the newborn King, but the priests and princes of Israel weren’t

But what about the shepherds?? Again we may well think that they are there as a representation of Christ coming to the outsiders – shepherds were of no account in Palestine – but they weren’t meant to be – The word Shepherd was used of Kings and again Priests – God had called people to Shepherd his people Israel and they had been found wanting as all the prophets record over and over again – and of course we think again as we have been through advent about King David who was a . . . Shepherd

Ox and ass were present to him – the shepherds hearing the glad tidings of the angels, Ran to be present to him

But the Princes and Priests, the kings were not present to welcome their true King, the Lord and Saviour – the Christ

And what of us? Christmas it seems is one of those real Martha and Mary times – do you know what I mean? Martha distracted by her many tasks . . . oh there is So Much to do – we are SO excited – there is so much to look forward to! But are we Present to Him.

I used the illustration recently of the Christ child being at the eye of a storm – all of Bethlehem, indeed the whole Roman Empire is stirred into a great Storm of activity. And Christmas can seem just like that storm - And at the eye of the storm? A child is born “who is Christ the Lord, and this will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger” And so the shepherds hurried to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in a manger – the Prince of Peace at the eye of the storm. The shepherds, who are interestingly not caught up in all the census goings on – free to come and worship.

So where are we this Christmas time – distracted by many tasks – distracted by the excitement of it all – or in the eye of it present to the one who comes into the World, thought the world does not know him, to die on a cross and to be raised again and to be eternally Present. ‘The Lord is Here’ we will say in a few minutes. Are we?

Let us be quiet for a few moments, still our thoughts, even out thoughts of what we’ve just heard – for a holy miracle has taken place

Oh come let us adore him, Christ the Lord