Blackburn Cathedral: Advent IV.
Sunday 20 December 2009.
In our gospel this morning, two pregnant women, related by marriage, meet and admire each
other as a prelude to the birth of Jesus. Little did they know on that day in Bethlehem that
Christians 2000 years later would be following the progress of these pregnancies and the lives
which issue from them. There is a timelessness and serenity about this encounter that is so
frequently associated with pregnant women. It is a serenity so easily lost during these days
immediately before Christmas at the start of the 21st century. More and more people seem to
be critical of this growing commercialisation of Christmas yet still find themselves seduced
by it. I speak as one who also has a love/hate relationship with Christmas preparations. But I
have to check myself, for the evidence from that first Christmas and the growth of the
Christian Tradition would suggest that the meaning of Christmas is to be found within all this
rush and razzmatazz we have to endure.
It is possible to identify at least 4 layers of Christmas:
Firstly, the layer of consumerism and commerce, with the jangle of tills and canned carol
music while we fight each other for the turkeys and trees which seem so indispensable for a
good Christmas. This layer is essential to the world of commerce for they rely upon it so
often to make the whole year come into profit. It has other positive elements too – partying
and a bonus if you’re lucky – but it can be marred so easily by excess. It is this level which is
so vulnerable to attack but I council caution here.
Secondly, there is the family Christmas. People journey across the world to join the rest of
their family for that meal which takes of sacramental significance at this level. Patients are
bundled out of hospital and all our emergency services are at minimum strength. Christmas
re-unites families at this level but for the lonely it can be a terrible experience. It is this level
which carries so much force in society today, characterised rather quaintly by a good friend of
the cathedral, an agnostic verging on belief, who introduced his Carol Service reading last
week by thanking everyone for coming at this ‘family time of the year’. Perhaps this family
level of Christmas celebration gathers its authority from the meeting of these two pregnant
women in our gospel today, rather than the experience of Christ’s refugee family crouched in
the manger. Charles Dickens summed it up by saying that, “Christmas is the one time in the
long calendar of the year when people open their shut-in hearts to one another.”
Thirdly, there is the level of sentimentality with which so many are content to celebrate
Christmas. This is the experience of the Nativity Play, the Borough Christmas tree, the crib
service or a production of Handel’s Messiah. There is something here which is so
characteristic of our nation and hints of proper Christmases many years ago in some romantic
golden age which was somehow ‘better’. It has a strong emotional resonance with folk
religion and can go to the very springs of the Incarnation story. I witnessed it myself last
week at the end of an unusual carol service as the choir processed all around the Cathedral
and disappeared down the Choir steps still singing. It was a very moving moment but did I
see Christ in it? I’m not sure I did.
This brings me to the 4th level, spirituality, or more precisely Incarnation. In our gospel
reading today, the pregnant women in Jesus’ family gather for a preliminary discussion about
the events to follow shortly. Christians have been doing exactly that for the last 2000 years.
They gather around that mystery of the Incarnation - as we also gather around that mystery of God enfleshing himself in human form to a poor family in difficult circumstances.
Whilst some folk like to draw a clear distinction between the 1st 3 levels of Christmas commerce, family and sentimentality – and this base level, I cannot do so quite so readily for
Christmas is all about the spiritual becoming material, God becoming Man, ‘the scandal of
particularity’. Christianity is the most materialistic of religions and that fact is difficult to
escape when we consider the core content of its two greatest feasts, Christmas and Easter.
To focus on a mystery is not a popular thing to do, especially in this sceptical age of ours,
post-enlightenment, when we like to have everything scientifically proven. And yet, the
Christian faith has never been so popular around the world, and even in the cynical west and
more particularly in our own diocese, the decline in Church going has now bottomed out.
The tantalising thing about this mystery is its challenge. It challenges us to accept the
mystery and relate it to the other three levels of celebration so common in the world today –
finding Christ in the market place, the home and the emotions for he is most certainly there.
Our training as Christians is to be watchmen, looking for and pointing out those moments in
life which are unmistakably Christian and fuelled by this incarnation.
So in terms of our first level, we might think of the commercialisation of Christmas through
the good will of traders to stay open longer hours to enable busy workers to buy what they
require, or the poor parents seeking those unusual presents so that all may celebrate.
Secondly, We might wonder at the strong forces which impel otherwise distant family
members to get back home for Christmas, or for troops on the Western Front to stop fighting
and join each other in no-mans land for some carol singing. Surely it cannot just be that
selfish gene that Richard Dawkins identifies which is crucial for our survival!
Thirdly, sentimentality encourages us to seek out those moments of idealism for which there
is no obvious explanation yet which ignites powerful emotions. These emotions are difficult
to map but I like to think of them associated with godly qualities implanted in us by our
creator not only for survival but also for worship as we search for those moments of
transcendence which draw us to that deeper mystery.
Elizabeth blesses Mary during our gospel visitation. Blessing means thanksgiving – God or
his ambassadors giving value to us. How important is that sense of being valued in this preChristmas rush when humanity is all but squeezed out of us and value seems to be driven by
secular standards! Like Mary, we are blessed when we recognise the work of God within us
and among us, however unspiritual the circumstances seem to be. Amen.