The words of real life
John 1: 1-14
Christ Church midnight Mass,
December 24th 2000
Funnily enough, my children are
pretty obsessed with what they are getting for
Christmas. And not being very aware
of the value of money, they tend to be quite ambitious in their requests. I am glad to say that the British ambassador
in Canada is not quite so grasping.
Because in
the weeks before Christmas he received a phone call from the CBC (CBC is the
Canadian Broadcasting Company, a Canadian TV station). The CBC representative on the other end of
the line thanked the ambassador for his prompt arrival at interviews etc., and
for a generally good year. The
ambassador returned the thanks. The CBC
representative then asked the ambassador what he wanted for Christmas. Thinking that it might be inappropriate for
him to accept a gift, the ambassador said that he didn't think that it was a
very good idea. However, The CBC
representative insisted, and in the end the ambassador said that he wanted a
pair of socks.
The
CBC representative seemed a little puzzled at this answer, but they ended the
conversation and the ambassador thought nothing more of it. Later that month, on Boxing Day, the
ambassador was sitting in watching the news on TV with his family when he was
treated to this item at the end: "Before Christmas, we asked three foreign
ambassadors what they wanted for Christmas. The French ambassador said that he
wanted world peace and an end to suffering, the German ambassador said that he
wanted a cure for cancer, and the British ambassador said that he wanted a pair
of socks...."
Quite
a modest thing to hope for! In
contrast, listen to this statistic. A
man needs about 3000 calories a day, a woman needs about 2 1/2 thousand
calories a day. On Christmas Day the
average number of calories consumed by each person is 9000. Well, it's a miracle we can get up at the
end of the day.
We
all know we need food to live, we need drink, we need air, we need warmth. In this respect, we are just like the
animals. But we are also different,
because we need things which do not just keep us alive, but enable us to have
life. Having life is a completely
different thing to just being alive.
What do we really want this Christmas?
Do we just want something to keep us alive, even if it does ruin our
figures, or do we want something more?
I think we are driven to
come here and think about Christmas because we want to know how to have
life. We don't want to settle for a life
which just goes through the motions.
Someone said this: "I would rather be ashes than dust. I would
rather that my spark should bum out in a brilliant blaze than it be stifled by
dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent
glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. A proper function of a [person] is to
live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them; I
shall use my time."
When my first child was born about five years ago, I remember standing holding him at the window of the hospital looking out over Bristol as all the fireworks were set off on November the fifth. There was something really intimate and close about that moment. I could see things in him which reminded me of myself, but at the same time there was a big mystery there. I looked at his face and I thought, "Who are you?" And as he gets older and becomes more independent I still think the same. Sometimes, even though I have seen every moment of his life so far, I haven't a clue who he really is. Maybe you have had that experience with a close friend or a partner. You think you can know them, but then you know there is so much more. Because we know that we are more than just the sum of our atoms, or our job, or our image. There is something in us that drives us to find out who we really are. We know our children need more than food and drink, more even than what we can give them. We need the thing that really gives us life. Real life. What makes it all worthwhile.
So where do people
think the answer to all this is? A
survey was done this year by the programme on BBC called Soul of Britain. It makes interesting reading. Only 26% of us now believe in a personal God, 62% of us do
not believe that Jesus was the Son of God and only 27 % would call themselves
religious. On the other hand, 69% of us think we have a soul and only about 8%
of us would want to call ourselves atheists.
Most people would resist being described as unspiritual. So most people may come here with
very little knowledge or understanding of God, they may feel really inadequate
when they talk about religion, they may not even feel very religious. But they know that they have a little pilot
light somewhere inside, flickering away and hoping to the first spark that
might set the flame going. Most of us
don't want to be puffed out in a brief moment of nothingness.
But we come
here because we also know that we cannot summon up the answers to who we are or
what gives us live just from ourselves.
We are not gods. We did not
create the universe. We did not bring
love and justice into being. We are not
perfectly wise. So we need to hear who
we are from outside, we need someone to tell us. Hearing the right words are so important to us. This is why we hang onto some of the words
that have been said about us, whether they have been for good or ill. Who does not remember a really good or
really terrible report they had at school?
Maybe you were told when you were young by someone you respected,
"You'll go far!" or
"Well done!" Or perhaps you
heard, "You’re good for nothing," or "Why do I bother with
you?" The words we hear about
ourselves can build us up or they can pull us down. They can give us life or they can take it away. Some people never shake off the effect of
words they heard when they were three all of their lives.
At Christmas,
we celebrate this baby because he is described as the word. He is unique, because in baby talk he can
tell us who we are, why we are here, what will give us life, what will make it
worthwhile. If I felt weird looking at
my own child and asking who he was in that Bristol hospital, imagine how Mary
felt when she looked at Jesus. Jesus
has the word on us. 2000 years is not a
long time if you compare it to the whole of history. In fact if history is 24 hours, then 2000 years is the last
second of the last minute of the day.
But this baby is described as the word.
The word that was around before his own mother was born, before his own
people were created, before the first human beings knew God, before the
dinosaurs, before the soup of atoms and molecules formed into our planet,
before the big Bang or however you think of creation. In that silence, in that love at the heart and beginning of
history, this baby was alive. And his
were the words that gave life. He said
“Let there be light, let there be sea and land, let there be animals, let there
be human beings, let there be me and you.”
And he saw us and said, “It is good. He is good. She is worth something.” This baby is equal with God.
Words bring
things into being. The word of God, the
baby Jesus, brings life to me and to you.
Now that is some baby. And he
says words to us just by the act of being born on earth that can tell us who we
are, that can give us real life, that can take our flickering pilot light and
inflame our lives. He tells us this:
you are loved. No matter what other
people think of you, no matter what you think of yourself, no matter what words
have battered you or raised you up in the past, you are loved. Whether you are a stinking Shepherd or think
yourself a wise man. I love you. I think you are worth being born in a stable
for, being a refugee for, being homeless for, being persecuted for, being
nailed to a piece of wood for.
Two young boys were spending the night at
their grandparents. At bedtime, the two boys knelt beside their beds to say
their prayers when the youngest one began praying at the top of his lungs,
"I PRAY FOR A NEW BICYCLE. I PRAY FOR A NEW NINTENDO. I PRAY FOR A NEW VCR..." His older brother leaned over and nudged the
younger brother and said, "Why are you shouting your prayers? God
isn't deaf." To which the little
brother replied, "No, but Grandad is!"
A lot of people
think God is like a deaf old granddad who hardly ever hears us, hardly ever
wants to hear us, and when we do try and draw near to him is only half-glad to
see us, some of the time. But the truth
is a million miles from that. God’s
love for us is like that of a baby born in the stillness of the night. It's difficult to resist a baby or a child’s
love. No matter what kind of person you
are they always remain open to you, they will always forgive and want to be
with you again. They are unconditional. You can ignore them, you can treat them as
though they are not special, you can not take good care of them, and they will
still be delighted when you show them a bit of love. God is like that. As we
open our presents today, all he wants is for us to open ourselves, to open
ourselves to the love he has to give, to let what is spiritual in us find our
home in him.
Do you feel
loved? Do you feel welcomed here? Do you feel you have real life? John says that letting God love us is like
letting light in. But sometimes we find
it difficult to let the light in. We
are scared of what it might do. In
February 1998 there was a solar eclipse in Haiti. Some people in Haiti hold the superstition that if any light
reaches you immediately before or after the eclipse you will be blinded or
killed. One particular family of four
blocked up all the windows in their house and took sleeping pills to get rid of
their worry. They were scared of the
light. The next morning they were all
found dead from accidental poisoning.
Resisting the light had taken life from them. But God is the light who brings life. Not existence, but life.
He won’t kill us or scare us or make us feel like we are worthless. Precisely the opposite. This is the light of a child’s love which
can turn our nights into days, our surviving into living.