Isaiah 63.7-9, Matthew 2.13-23
The Second Sunday of Christmas, 1 January 2023, Eldroth
On Christmas Eve at Austwick I spoke about how the Christmas story reinforces what we know from our lives: that good news can be terrifying. We thought of the couple feeling both thrilled and thoroughly and completely unprepared to be parents for the first time; of the young woman given a promotion to a senior post she’d not previously dared to dream of holding; of the family having just bought their first house, their hearts sinking thinking about the mortgage, but at the same time jumping with the thrill of starting this new adventure together.
We tried to imagine the mixture of joy and relief, and fear and anxiety, which someone who has lived on the streets for years might feel, when told that they have been found a starter home; or of an asylum-seeker when granted permanent residence in a new country, which they now have to adapt to, and whose welcome they know is tempered by hostility. [1]
Good news can be terrifying. And in the Christmas story, we know that, besides filling the shepherds with fear and trembling on the hillside, the good news also terrified Mary and Joseph at first, and brought the Wise Men both overwhelming joy, on finding the newborn king, and anxious fear, in knowing that Herod was on their trail.
And Herod is, of course, the archetype for every holder of power and wealth who fears good news breaking into the world, where ‘good news’ for the majority of people looks like ‘bad news’ for the Herods, as it is likely to involve them having to give away some of their power, having to share more fairly their wealth, having to tread more lightly on the earth.
Any kind of news which makes us realise we need to change, can feel like bad news at first. For change often starts with uncertainty and vulnerability and discomfort, things which none of us find easy to embrace. And the Herods of our world will go to extreme lengths to resist any change which challenges their superiority. Theirs is the secular power - the power of governments, corporations and institutions - which seems to rule our world, and when it is threatened, then these rulers will enforce their power through threat and fear and terror.
Whilst the Herods will thus always treat the masses contemptuously, the Christmas story teaches us that there is something else going on in this world we occupy. It is the sure and certain activity of a different power altogether, a power which is all for our good, which is entirely committed to our well-being, and completely devoted to our peace.
It’s a gentle power, often kept in check by the machinations of the secular powers; but if we reach out for it we can find it. Maybe this is why we open our hearts towards this Christmas story every year, because we’re searching for signs of this power and the transformation we sense it can bring.
Le me call it the power of God; who sometimes reaches out to us, as he did to Mary, whose celebrated song of praise shows how deeply she understood that this power was one which would ‘lift up the lowly’ - folk like her, who she understood were most valued by the King of Heaven. Her intuition that the world which this power creates is a world turned upside-down has inspired ordinary folk worldwide, throughout history, to come together in movements which have forced transformations in society for the common good.
From the pacifist early Christians refusing to take up arms for the Roman Empire, through Wesleyan Methodist Societies whose members contributed a penny a week to help the poor and needy; from the Christian activists who initiated and organised the abolitionist movement to those who are campaigning on issues of food poverty today.
This strain of Christianity works from the grassroots to extinguish the suffering and distress of common people. It is in contrast to institutional strands of Christianity which have held on to the coat tails of the secular powers and have thus been willingly complicit in the evils of colonialism, nationalism and chauvinism they have pursued for worldly gain.
But the Christmas story invites the wondrous thought that even the Herods of this world can share in the good news too; for though the good news may begin with needing to embrace uncertainty and vulnerability and discomfort, it will then lead to new and joyous experiences, in which we forge new kinships never previously imagined. Think of Good King Wenceslas and his sage, for instance, the famous carol being drawn from the life of the real Wenceslaus, a tenth-century Duke of Bohemia, who became known as ‘the father of all the wretched’ because of his generous acts towards the poor and distressed. The narrator of the carol ends it with the moral of the tale, as we sing: ‘ Therefore, Christian men, be sure, wealth or rank possessing, Ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.’ [2]
It doesn’t always seem this way but this gentle power, which I call the power of God, is the greatest power there is. It is even now at work, overcoming and redeeming the fearful powers of our broken world.
The good news is that all the hungry people of the world can be fed - if the over-indulged allow the discomfort of eating less; the good news is that the planet can be saved from global warming - if those who over-consume accept living with the uncertainties of changing-down the way we live; the good news is that the manufacture of all weapons of mass destruction can cease - if we allow ourselves the vulnerability of divesting from arms to invest in more and better health and other social provisions.
The Christmas story shows us that just as much as we’ll find Jesus safe beneath the steeple, or cosy in a crib beside the font, we will also find him with the millions of displaced people, on their long road of weariness and want. As we see his family travelling that same road, fleeing the wrath of Herod’s rage, we know with heavy hearts that this year lambs will again be slaughtered by men of power, and death squads will spread their curse across the world. [3]
So let us be every bit as certain that this year, if we lift our eyes from the carnage, then we can train ourselves to see the other power at work in the world - the power of God to inspire goodness, well-being, and peace.
And let us be among those who are prepared to put our fears of change aside and to work, like we pray - unceasingly - for the well-being of all with whom we share this wondrous earth we’re given. For in working to turn the world upside-down we shall ourselves find blessing.
Notes
[1] Christmas: good news can be terrifying #1 preached at Austwick, Christmas Eve (Midnight) 2022.
[2] Wikipedia: Good King Wenceslas.
[3] This paragraph is a paraphrase of a poem by Malcolm Guite: Refugee.
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