Carol service
Luke 2:1-20
St Barbara’s; 22.12.2024
Rev Jeremy Bevan
Thirty-eight years, two months, and 12 days. That’s precisely how long I spent working as a civil servant for the UK government until I retired last week. Now no longer at the centre of things, privy to what government ministers are thinking and crafting responses to them, I’m adjusting to the feeling of suddenly being on the margins, an outsider. But as I’ve read and re-read our four Bible passages for this evening’s service, my changed circumstances have helped me see afresh just how much of the Christmas story unfolds far from the centre of things, far from the corridors of power, far from the people who matter, or like to think they do.
The first of our two readings from Luke’s Gospel this evening told us how Joseph and Mary, at the decree of Rome’s distant emperor, headed off to be counted for a census. To Bethlehem, a town even one of Israel’s prophets called the least among the towns of Judah. All so the emperor can tax the empire’s far-flung margins to fund building projects in Rome. On the edge of empire, the edge of hygiene among the animals, the edge of respectability, Mary gives birth to the one through whom God will bring down the mighty and lift up the lowly.
The reading we heard from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah spoke to people on whom a great light shone even as they dwelt in the darkness of exile and oppression under the Babylonian empire, centuries before Jesus’s birth: people who no doubt wondered whether God had forgotten them. The second of our readings from Luke’s Gospel reminded us that that the dazzling light of God’s angelic messenger came with the good news of a saviour, Israel’s long-awaited Messiah. And who did it come to? To overlooked but now favoured shepherds in the dark, tending sheep destined for slaughter in the Jerusalem temple, from whose festival celebrations they as shepherds were excluded.
That last reading from Matthew’s Gospel told how Jesus’s family became refugees, fleeing the murderous intent of Herod, Rome’s client king. The magi from the distant (and in Rome’s view, rather suspect) east, having incurred Herod’s wrath, were obliged to journey home via the backroads. Although clearly familiar with the corridors of power, they were suddenly outsiders themselves, outlaws with a price on their heads as the empire strikes back and Herod’s henchmen hunt them out.
The events of that first Christmas, then, thrust the centre – power, privilege, positions of influence – to the edge of things. The centre becomes mere backdrop as the spotlight falls on the powerless, the unprivileged, those in no position to wield influence. In God’s realigned reality, the edge of things matters. What, I wonder, does that have to say to us; to do with us? Let me suggest three possibilities.
Firstly, a challenge: do we expect to find God there at the edge of things today, just as God was then? In places the world might call godforsaken, in the faces of the godforsaken? Our unchanging, merciful God never gives up on the people who dwell in darkness. God’s light shines on the refugee camps of Chad and Sudan, where civil war rages and rape is a routine weapon of war. It shines in Gaza. Closer to home, it shines on the lives of the lonely; those in debt; those struggling to make ends meet; it shines perhaps in your darkness of whatever kind? Like those shepherds, let us be watchful, then; hopeful; and look out for God popping up in surprising places, among surprising people, bringing not mere sentiment and commiseration, but light, compassion and genuine hope.
Secondly, a choice: are we called to respond to God now, even if it means risking a shift in our life’s centre of gravity? Mary endured the discomfort of pregnancy, the disturbance and upheaval of travelling to Bethlehem so close to her due date. The shepherds couldn’t wait to check out the good news of a saviour. The magi leave positions of wealth, power and influence, risking a long, long journey of discovery to find this new king. In our hectic lives, it can be all too easy, can’t it, to put off coming face to face with God until we’ve finished this project, sorted out that problem with the house, or tended to a family member’s crisis? It must have been hugely disruptive for Mary, the shepherds and the magi. But if we could ask them, “Was it worth it?”, we can probably guess how they’d respond…
Thirdly and finally, good news to cherish. As Mary brings Jesus into the world in the most makeshift of surroundings because there’s no place for them at the inn, God is there. Having chosen to respond to God, she finds God right there in the middle of a world turned upside-down. So if you find yourself this Christmas challenged about the state of the world or your place in it, not unlike me perhaps as I adjust to retirement, choose to trust this truth: God hasn’t given up on our world, or on any of you. However far we sometimes think we are from the heart of the action, that might just be where God is at work, seeking us out, finding us, calling forth our response. In the birth of Jesus, God with us and God for us.
