Sermon preached by Mark Wakefield on 6th January 2008
Isaiah 60:1-6, Psalm 72:10-15, Ephesians 3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-12

I don’t know about you but for me this particular time of year is always tinged with a hint of sadness and let down. I don’t think I’ve ever quite lost the sense of disappointment that I had as a boy that after so much eager anticipation Christmas was over and the return to humdrum normality – which meant getting up early for school on dark, frosty mornings – was now unavoidable. And of course, ours being a traditional household – although not a churchgoing one – the 5th of January (or twelfth night) was always marked by the taking down of the Christmas tree and the packing away of the lights and decorations for another year.

It is, of course, something of a cliché that Christmas is a time for families.  I've always found this observation rather trite and irritating, Christmas being so much more than that, but I must say that the truth of it has struck me with real force for the first time this year.

The reason is simple - my son started his university course back in October, so we didn't see him for the best part of three months.  It's been just great having him back with us over Christmas, even if it has meant being woken up in the early hours by him and his friends stumbling into the house and settling down to watch DVDs.  But tomorrow he heads back to Bristol and the house is going to seem empty and strangely quiet again.  

All this makes me think back with some guilt at how glad my mum and dad were to see me at Christmas and how sad they were to see me go as I headed all too quickly back to my exciting life in London.

This sense of let-down, of deflation, of absence - whether it be of light in the gloom of January or of friends and family - contrasts starkly with all the wonderful promise of Christmas.  One of the great excitements for me this year was performing the role of deacon for the first time which meant reading those thrilling words from the first chapter of John's gospel - "In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and was God...in him was life and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it."

Those words have always sent shivers up my spine but as we return to our day-to-day, post-Christmas lives they can be so hard to believe, as we shoulder not only our own burdens but look out on our broken, suffering world, so full of fear and apprehension for the New Year.  

Well, if you're feeling like this, don't worry: it's normal and what's more, the bible tells us so.  The bible is all too often seen simply as a collection of books that tell of God's mighty deeds, of his active presence in the world and his interventions in the affairs of men and women.  Of course it does tell of such things and today's readings are good examples of this.  In our gospel, for instance, we have the wonderful picture of the paranoid, tyrannical King Herod quaking in his boots at the thought of this tiny child, born in a stable, yet destined to be the messiah.  And yet for all his evil scheming and trickery, God's plans for mankind are not to be thwarted.  

But there's another, very important side to the bible and it's one that speaks of the pain we feel when God seems absent from our lives and of how careless he can seem about human suffering.  How about these lines from Psalm 10 for instance:

"Why O Lord, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
In arrogance the wicked persecute the poor -
Let them be caught in the schemes they have devised"

Or how about this from Psalm 42:

"My tears have been my food
day and night
while people say to me continually:
‘Where is your God?'"

There are countless examples like these in the bible and not just in the Psalms, the most remarkable of all of which is probably the Book of Job and which if you haven't read

I strongly recommend to you.  It tells the story of a good and just man who suffers a series of calamities - he's struck down with disease and illness, his children die, he loses his home and all his wealth, all for no apparent reason. 

It's the kind of story that we've all of us come across in our own lives in one way or another.  But Job, a god-fearing man, steadfastly refuses to accept that he's done anything to deserve what's happened to him and angrily protests his innocence before God, whilst bitterly complaining about the injustice of the world.  And yet at the end of the story God isn't angry with Job - on the contrary, he commends him for speaking so passionately of what is just and right.

In fact the only people God is angry with are Job's so-called friends, who dodge all the hard questions raised by his misfortune by simply telling him that he must have done something wrong.

Stories like Job's and the bleaker psalms don't get us any nearer to understanding why God can seem so absent from our world, why his ways can seem so inscrutable or why evil can so often seem to triumph but they do powerfully affirm our right to question and to feel both pain and anger when we see injustice.  And it's precisely in our being stirred up in this way that we are spurred into action because - unbelievable as it may sound - God needs and wants our help. 

To understand the truth of this you need look no further than the Christmas story itself and the Angel Gabriel's visit to Mary.  At first she's understandably perplexed and afraid when the Angel tells her about the role that God wants her to play in bringing his Son into the world.  But then, despite her fear and puzzlement she says: "Here am I; I am the Lord's servant; let it be to me as you have said."

In Mary we see someone saying "yes" to God and his plans.  She wasn't a mere instrument to be picked and used by Him as if she had no integrity of her own.  She could have said no but instead chose to become an active participant in the story because we are, as St Paul reminds us in his first letter to the Corinthians, God's fellow-workers. 

The God of the bible is nothing less than a God who makes space for humanity to get involved in the work of his creation and that means that we have a real share in the responsibility for bringing light to this often dark and gloomy world. 

All this can seem extraordinarily daunting, just as it did to Mary and can leave us feeling that things will be asked of us that are beyond our powers.  But while it's true - thank God - that there are those who answer the call to do something remarkable and courageous and in so doing advance the cause of peace and justice in ways that makes the whole world sit up and take notice, God also asks us in all sorts of small and seemingly unremarkable ways to be bringers of light. 

It may be no more than a word of encouragement to the down-hearted or an act of generosity to a neighbour in need but the cumulative effect of such goodness really does change the world for the better.  As the Victorian novelist George Eliot put it in the closing lines of her great novel "Middlemarch":

"....the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

So, even in this bleak midwinter, look around you and you really will see that the light shines in the darkness and that the darkness will never overcome it.

Amen