What I actually preached at Midnight Mass

The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light.

It’s always better if you are an optimist!  If you can, and you must try hard, you must be the eternal optimist…

Now you’re thinking either…

1. Oh I don’t know about that!  He’s so unrealistic! Or

2. Oh, go on, I’ve had a few sherry’s today, I’m going to look on the bright side.

But, it’s Christmas!  And we are called to have hope, especially at Christmas…We are hearing the story a peoples journey with GOD, trusting that ONE DAY, God would put things right.  They were called to be a people of hope and not of despair!

And GOD brought it about in the most extraordinary way possible!  When his Son was born to a young woman in a far off land, in a stable indeed!…we all know the event, and because of that, we are called to have hope, we are called to live in the light and not in the darkness. 

The great reading we have at Midnight Mass, is obligatory each Christmas at one of the services, it is the prologue to John’s Gospel.  The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light.

It is presented in Greek, and is a mystical reflection on the divinity and incarnation of Christ. The Logos the Word Made Flesh and it is one of the most theologically significant passages in the Bible.  It begins and ends in eternity and has God interrupting our human history.

It tells of a light that has been lit in the darkness, a light that will never be extinguished.  It tells us to

·     Build on the foundations of the past. 

·     Look to the future with expectation, and

·     Live with hope in the present!

I can identify with the idea of Jesus bringing light to the darkest of places.  And just a few days after the shortest day midwinter, it is easy to take comfort from that image of Jesus being the light of the world.

At baptisms, as we pass over the candle to the godparents, or the newly baptised, we talk about Jesus the light of the world.  “Walk in the faith, and keep the flame of faith alive in your heart, so when the Lord comes again you may be ready to greet Him.”  These words are the commission for the newly baptised (and us all) not to have a private faith that is held in secret, not to run luke-warm with your faith, not to be a nominal Christian….but this is the call to light up the world with  Christian Hope and optimism.

Optimism!

JOKE

A family had twin boys whose only resemblance to each other was their looks. If one felt it was too hot, the other thought it was too cold. If one said the TV was too loud, the other claimed the volume needed to be turned up. Opposite in every way, one was an eternal optimist, the other a doom & gloom pessimist.

Just to see what would happen, at Christmas their father loaded the pessimist's room with every imaginable toy and game. The optimist's room he loaded with horse manure.

That morning the father passed by the pessimist's room and found him sitting amid his new gifts crying bitterly.

"Why are you crying?" the father asked.

"Because my friends will be jealous, I'll have to read all these instructions before I can do anything with this stuff, I'll constantly need batteries, and my toys will eventually get broken." answered the pessimist twin.

Passing the optimist twin's room, the father found him dancing for joy in the pile of manure. "What are you so happy about?" he asked.

To which his optimist twin replied, "There's got to be a pony in here somewhere!"

Now that’s optimism – that is hope!

Well, Christmas Day is really the start of the New Year for me.  I like to think that we can start to think about what next year will bring, but also to thank God for all he has given us this year.

This year has been sad, as we have lost some really good people, who have gone to be with God, and we are building on their legacy here. 

But it has also been a year that I have witnessed wonderful things, random acts of kindness and thoughtfulness that make this church such a wonderful place to be.  I have seen people keeping hope alive and living the Christmas spirit.

And, tonight is a celebration of that, it is the day that we thank God for giving us the courage and patience and hope and optimism, to take that light to the people around us.

It’s not easy. It’s nowhere near easy, to speak about hope when the future is sometimes bleak…

When we leave here tonight, I pray that we will all be filled with the Spirit of Christmas, that Christmas Hope, to live each day as if it were still Christmas Day, with a vision for the future, and a commitment to work in the present that comes with it.

I rarely quote Helen Steiner Rice, but she once wrote;

“Peace on earth will come to stay,
When we live Christmas every day.”

You might be saying to yourself, “Well, he says that, but that doesn’t really apply to me”, but it does!  The Christmas Spirit is what it is!

The Author Garrison Keillor, writes;

A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together. 

And here we are….in the middle of the night.  We must be mad!  Well, either mad, or we believe in Christmas.  The hope of a better tomorrow, a reason to work for good, and a belief that the story of the birth of a baby 2,000 years ago still has something to say to us today.

Over the last few weeks, people have asked me what I wanted for Christmas.  I said two things – world peace and a day off.  They always laughed – but that is the optimism, the Christian Hope to which we are called.