Diocesan News
The Bishop of Cork's Christmas sermon, 2007
‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God ....’ (John 1.1)
‘Where is God in the middle of all this?’ ‘What is the meaning of this?’
These are questions that even people of faith ask and, indeed, are entitled to ask throughout their lives. Paradoxically, questions like this are very often the stuff and fodder of a strong faith. They are profoundly theological and philosophical questions, but for most of us they are very human cries for understanding or help.
I don’t know whether or not you have been following this year’s X Factor competition on television. If some newspapers are to be believed, Prime Minister Gordon Brown in England has been following X Factor and the follow-up controversies.
I‘ve always had an interest in the world of popular culture and music and so I’ve an inevitable curiosity about which song will make the Christmas No 1 spot. This year Leon Jackson was the underdog winner who knocked the favourite Rhydian from the top spot in the X Factor show. Following the pattern of other X Factor winners over the previous two years Leon was, it seems, virtually guaranteed the number 1 Christmas spot.
This was the cause of much debate in the popular music world in recent days. ‘Why should an X Factor winner always be guaranteed that number 1 spot?’ ‘It’s ruining the race for the number 1 music placing at Christmas’, some said. ‘Besides,’ said others, ‘Leon Jackson’s song When you believe is not even Christmassy!’
Now that begs a question – what does the world of popular music think is Christmassy and what is not? Bob the Builder singing the 2000 No 1 Can we fix it? Girls Aloud with Sounds of the Underground? Mr Blobby of 1993? It can’t always be Cliff Richard singing Saviour’s Day. Nor can we bring back Harry Belafonte year after year with his 1957 hit Mary’s Boy Child.
So, to this year! The song given to Leon to sing is more Christmassy than we might think. It’s a conversation – a profound one between two women – Tzipporah (the wife of Moses) and Miriam (the woman who had hidden Moses in the basket on the River Nile) were remembering tough times – times that made them question their faith. They have prayed night after night to God, but those prayers seem to have been unanswered. They wonder if they are wasting their time.
‘Where is God in the middle of all this?’ ‘What is the meaning of it all?’
And so they sing a song – an award winning song for the film Prince of Egypt - which tells the story of the book of Exodus: the life of Moses from his birth, through his childhood as a prince of Egypt and finally to his ultimate destiny to lead the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt. Wrestling with the ‘where is God now?’ question - the presence of God - the absence of God - they sing their song:
Many nights we prayed
With no proof anyone could hear
In our hearts a hope for a song
We barely understood
Now we are not afraid
Although we know there’s much to fear
We were moving mountains
Long before we knew we could.
There can be miracles
When you believe
Though hope is frail
It’s hard to kill.
... These are the words of this year’s Christmas number 1.
‘Where is God?’ ‘What is the meaning of it all?’ - The absence and presence of God.
These are Christmas-time questions – which are raised and answered in the Christmas-time readings we heard today.
Centuries after the days of Moses, the Prince of Egypt, the same nation of people had their temple destroyed; many were taken captive and deported to Mesopotamia. They lived in exile there for nearly 50 years. Isaiah describes the ruined remnant of the city of Jerusalem - parts of its walls barely standing – on which watchmen have been stationed. Then they start jumping up and down and singing. They shout out that can see a messenger running towards them.
He is running in such an excitable, energetic and enthusiastic way – whatever way he is running - they can tell that the news he is bringing is good news: ‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion “Your God reigns.”’ (Isaiah 52.7) They see it as the return of the Lord.
But this raises an uncomfortable question: if they perceive that the Lord is returning - present; there must also have been a time when they sensed that he was away – absent! ‘Where is God?’
We all have our ‘where is God?’ times: desolate times that follow a bereavement; the diagnosis of a serious illness; watching a loved-one suffering; the ending of a marriage or a relationship; dashed hopes or unattained ambitions; or a dejected malaise about how our life is going. In terms of our society there are always questions about how to tackle the seemingly impossible: they are rehearsed by us all to the point of cliché in recent weeks - so clichéd and we feel so helpless - that we may become complacent about. I think, for example, not least of the much publicised criminal violence underpinned and nourished by a drug culture.
‘Where is God?’ According to yesterday’s Irish Times the Samaritans say that between 10 p.m. tonight and 2 a.m. tomorrow morning the Samaritans will deal with one call every 6 or 7 seconds.
These are the waste places – the ruins of Jerusalem – to which the messenger brings good news; and to which God himself comes. This is where God rolls up his sleeves: ‘The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; all the ends of the earth see the salvation of our God.’ (Isaiah 52.10)
As the Lord was in his Holy City following those terrible days of exile, now we move on another 540 years to that first Christmas.
‘While they were in Bethlehem, the time came for Mary to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.’
As Saint John put it: ‘And the word became flesh and lived among us ...’
The Christmas message is the ultimate affirmation and proclamation of the presence of God: the baby in the manger is ‘Immanuel’: ‘God with us’.
In our lives also there are times when we know and encounter in inexpressible ways this down to earth, saving presence of God, sharing with us the joy and pain of our humanity. ‘That was divine, special beautiful, wonderful, lovely’, we say: times of human bonding, of personal triumph, overcoming an obstacle, of great elation, of quiet solace and contemplation when we feel that all is well and secure; or when, after a time of darkness, we sense a glimmer of hope and brightening of the path ahead.
There’s a wonderful moment in the irreverent TV comedy series Father Ted: in the Christmas Special. Day by day the insightfully dopey Father Dougal has been itching to open too many windows on his Advent Calendar. Each time he is either nonplussed or puzzled by the picture behind the closed window. The big day arrives: he opens the last one, turns to Father Ted and says: ‘Ah brilliant! A load of people in a stable, Ted! It’s the one thing I didn’t expect!’
God’s presence as a vulnerable child – in a dirty wasted place of rejection; surrounded by outcasts as well as the well-heeled in society, forced into exile – self-emptying vulnerability such as this, let’s face it is not our obvious idea of God. It’s the one thing we didn’t expect. It is not how we imagine God.
This is why we kneel in remembrance today seeking the presence of God: seeking again and again his real presence in his word proclaimed and in his body and blood given to us in bread and wine.
The transcendent God – the sort of God who invites us to lift our hearts to in worship and who makes us bend down in awe and holy fear – is also the God who came among us, who comes among us, who was the baby in that stable. Like the returning captives to the ruined city of Jerusalem the message is one of peace and good news and salvation because God is with us. God is with us – that is his name – Immanuel – and we need not be afraid any longer.
This, dear friends, is where God is: in the middle of it all, sleeves rolled up, bringing peace, good news and salvation.
‘And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth’ (John 1.14)