The Word became flesh, and lived among us... (a sermon for Midnight Mass)

This is my sermon for Midnight Mass in my Benefice this year (2023). It’s my first Christmas sermon (eeeeeek) and my readings were Isaiah 52.7-10; Hebrews 1.1-4; and John 1. 1-4.

“How beautiful… are the feet of the messenger who announces peace… for the Lord has comforted his people… and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.”

And how beautiful are these words from Isaiah, heard again at the end of a year that has been so turbulent for so many and that closes with the Holy Land again engulfed in war, devastation and grief. They were first heard some the years after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, and the exile of thousands of its people: a source of hope, confirmation of ongoing God’s love and a promise of future salvation.

As we hear them again tonight, this promise of peace and salvation offers a different word of comfort to us, here, than it did to its first hearers. And indeed, it offers a different word of comfort to us here, now, than it will to others in different parts of the globe. For one of the wonders of Christmas is that the good news of Christ’s birth comes to all people, in all times and all places, speaking into hearts and lives of each.

What, I wonder, does the story of the incarnation, in which we believe we see the salvation of our God, say to us tonight? 

The writers of the letter to the Hebrews and the gospel of John do not, perhaps, offer the cosy comfort we often want to associate with Christmas. There are no festive jumpers, dinners or puddings, no log fires. Tonight, as Christmas Eve turns to Christmas day we hear not of stable and crib; nor of worshipping shepherds and an adoring mother; nor of wondering visitors from afar and terrified kings lashing out in fear for their security. Well, perhaps this last is not so cosy—but there is a particular kind of comfort to be found in the stories that reminds us that in Jesus God has an intimate, lived, knowledge of what our human lives are like: our vulnerabilities, our fears, our needs. It is a comfort found in solidarity, as we know again the importance and value of own our lives and are called back to a recognition of the value of all created life.

And yet tonight, instead of that familiar nativity, we have these soaring passages: some of the purest theology and most glorious language in the Bible. God, “has spoken to us by a Son… through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustain all things by his powerful word.”  …  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being…”

This is the stuff that inspires cathedrals and oratorios. It reaches back in time and in scripture, to “the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth… [and] a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.”  It reminds us of the bigger reality within which the nativity story takes place: the reality of the existence, the power, and the love of God—without which nothing in the whole cosmos that is would be.

During our Advent Bible Study we discussed the carol, Of the Father’s Heart Begotten, which in its opening verse describes Jesus as “Alpha and Omega… he the source, the ending he… evermore and evermore.” In describing their response to the carol, one member of our group used the word ~adoration~ to identify the feeling it prompted. The story sung in that carol is that of the openings of Hebrews and John, and they all draw us in to its scale and its wonder, calling us to worship the creator of all things, the source of life and light. And as we step into this space, we start to understand who we are and to find comfort in this cosmic story, too.

 In her writings, now known as Revelations of Divine Love, the 14th Century anchorite Julian of Norwich describes a divine vision that she experienced in which, she says, God shows her, “a little thing, the size of a hazelnut in the palm of my hand…” It is, she realises, “all that is made… [and that] it lasts and will last for ever because God loves it; and everything exists in the same way by the love of God.” And as she continues to consider the meaning of this vision Julian emphasises the perspective that she finds in it: a sense of the ‘little-ness’ of creation in the hands of God. In feeling this difference in scale between herself and God, Julian finds humility—but importantly not humiliation. The littleness is of size, not of value, for she sees that God made us, loves us, and cares for us. She understands that through this vision and the sensations it prompts, God means to teach our souls to cling to his goodness.[1]  We recognise that we are not the centre of the universe and see our dependence on the wider creation, each other, and most of all, on God. It has the potential to be unnerving, terrifying even. We are so tiny. And yet, we find that as we behold our maker and rest in his care, we can come to know peace—even amidst all the turmoil of the world (and remember, Julian lived through the Black Death!).

And yet, as Julian points out, we are so often caught up in our own lives that, “We never seek God until… he shows himself to us.”[2]  We feel tiny in a universe we cannot control, and we become so busy working out how to sustain our own lives that we end up looking in unhelpful, unsustainable directions for comfort. There’s a beautiful story in Julian’s work, in which she describes humanity as stuck in the mud of creation, unable to turn around and look at God. For us to see God and to know God’s love, true peace and comfort amidst the chaos and pain of this world, God must join us here on earth in our human state.

Julian describes the way that humans bear the imprint of God in the core our very being, in our ‘essence’: quite often unrealised, forgotten or dormant. But, in the presence of Jesus’ revelation of God’s glory—for he is the reflection of God’s glory—and of God’s love in the incarnation, the Spirit moves, sparking our realisation of this image in ourselves—perhaps for the first time, perhaps for the fortieth. And I think it’s important to remember that Jesus’ incarnation isn’t some kind of emergency rescue plan: it is, somehow, unfathomably, always a part of God’s plan. In the almost incomprehensible relation between human time and the eternity of God, the Word is always ordained to become flesh,[3]and by sharing in our humanity to bind us, body and soul, into God’s life and God into ours.

On this day, then, when the Word that spoke in the beginning comes into the world to speak to us and to draw us into his light and life, we come to know ourselves, through him, as children of God—beloved and made to love with God’s own love, however tiny we might feel. As a revelation it is humbling and the greatest comfort we can know.

There are ways that this revelation should form us—and will if we let it. There are ways of being in the world that it will call us to, as we come know this truth not just of ourselves as individuals but of all humanity, and as we look again at the world in which we live in the light of God’s love for it. But one of these ways of being is a worshipping way, in which we take the time to behold the Word made flesh, to worship him, and to open ourselves up to his love afresh as we do so. At Christmas, as we greet the Word made flesh, we have the chance to “rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing” [as we sang in It Came Upon a Midnight Clear] and to find ourselves in this bigger reality once again. 

Here in Kew, we are privileged to be able to do so in safety, relatively free of such evils and terrors as war and oppression. It can sometimes feel uncomfortable to take this moment to rejoice when others cannot. We might feel that it would be preferable or better to find practical ways in which we can do our bit to bring comfort others and announce God’s peace. And we should not ignore this feeling but bring it with us as we come to behold the incarnate Christ, humbly offering it to him to work with as he forms us, so that we may bear witness to the light of the world. For we can only hope for comfort and seek for peace for the world as we follow Jesus in the world, seeing it with his eyes and loving it with his love. Always trusting in and comforted by the deep truth that all life is held in the sustaining power and love of God’s Word.

“The Word became flesh and lived among us.”

Come, let us adore him: Christ the Lord.

Amen.

[1] Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, The Long Text #5-8.

[2] #10

[3] #57