Christmas Day Children's Mass: 25 December, 1999
The Rev'd Dr John Davis, Vicar, St Peter's Eastern Hill
On a day such as this, we remember. Christmas is a time for memories. Consequently, for some it
is a sad time. Because of the nature of this festival we like to be with people we love, or, if we
are away from them, to make contact. We receive and send cards and letters. We make telephone
calls, we exchange gifts or e-mails.
For me as a priest, Christmas has been celebrated in a succession of parishes, moving on over the
years. They have each been quite different. They are all in my thoughts and prayers today. You
too will have these thoughts and recollections.
The faith and the simple response of ordinary people is at the heart of Christmas. People like
shepherds and little children; uncomplicated people like the very old and the very young. These
people show most clearly that much-needed quality of openness to God.
The Christmas message is of the coming of Jesus Christ, truly God and truly human, to be alongside
us in this world. This is a message of great hope and great joy. It is a message that encourages
us to extend our own love and our own concern to one another and to those in great need.
The first Christmas Day was, according to some ways of counting, two thousand years ago today.
Today certainly begins a whole year of millennial celebrations. Today we still reflect on what it
is all about and try to live out its implications. It could be said that we have not come far.
Hared, violence, injustice, disease, famine - and most of it preventable; it all sounds much as it
was two thousand years ago. These things have not disappeared. There are certainly modern day
King Herods.
Partly because there seems to be so little that we as individuals can do when faced with such
seemingly overwhelming problems and besetting difficulties, we find ourselves becoming hardened.
And it seems all too true that in many of the trouble spots in our world, otherwise perfectly
ordinary people commit the most appalling atrocities on fellow human beings (but especially on the
vulnerable and the defenceless), in the name of misplaced ethnic, ideological or religious causes.
Just as in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago with the slaughter of the innocents, so today and every day
human lives are thought to be of no consequence: pain and grief - nothing.
It is sad and chilling for us to acknowledge the fact that this is our world. These dreadful
things do go on, but they go on alongside acts of the greatest self-sacrifice, compassion and care.
There is basic decency and goodness. It exists side by side with the bad. We see it in ourselves.
We see it in others.
We know that we do not have to travel beyond our own city to find the whole breadth of the human
condition. Domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, crimes against property exist side by side
with daily countless acts of outreaching care by individuals and groups. It is all mixed in there
together.
This is our world.
So, how then does this great Christian festival speak to us in this context? Today, we have an
alternative approach shown to us. It is a clear alternative to so much that goes on in our world.
Today we hear again that God himself entered our human situation, born of a woman like each of us.
He came to bring peace and love: to show the way of salvation. The true message of Christmas is
one, which rises above, and the bustle and all the parties. God's peace and God's love are the
most precious gifts we can receive. The real answer to the world's problems rests on the broad
reception of this message. Peace and fulfilment, not only for ourselves, but also for the whole
human family, can be found in the Christmas good news.
The words of the one who was born in Bethlehem still speak to us today. There are words of hope:
"Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me."
There are words of love: A new commandment I give unto you; that you love one another, as I have
loved you."
There are words of peace: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you."
These words continue to ring out wherever Christians gather together to celebrate the Lord's
presence in their lives and in their world.
No doubt, these words will continue to fall on some deaf ears. There will as always be those who
are hostile or indifferent as well as those who are ready to hear and respond. This is the world
we live in. But our joy and our task as Christians is to be faithful to this message and command.
We are to be seen to be people of faith, hope, love and peace.
So, we return again On Christmas Day to hear the familiar story once again. It has not changed.
It continues to declare its message of reassurance and hope. It is above all in our own hearts
that the Christ Child seeks to find a place. And that is the Christmas gospel: God is with us.
May the Christ be born in each one of us.
May his presence enable each one of us to live out his message of peace and goodwill.
The Lord be with you.
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