Diocese of Chichester

Christmas Day Address:

‘The White Witch? Who is she? [asked Lucy]. ‘Why,’ replied Mr Tumnus, the faun, ‘it’s she that makes it always winter. Always winter and never Christmas; think of that!’

Powerful words from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first novel in C S Lewis’s Narnia series.

Dedicating the book to his goddaughter, Lucy Barfield, the author notes that girls grow up quicker than books get written. Fearful that she will have outgrown the story by the time it’s finished, he hopes that one day she might ‘take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear and too old to understand a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C S Lewis’.

Those words describe the mood and spiritual temperature of British society in this century. We have indeed grown up very fast since Lewis began his first novel about four children who were evacuated in the Second World War to a house in the heart of the country. Life has changed out of all recognition. Television and the internet, the freedom of air travel and a recent pandemic have made the globe seem smaller, and life seem lonelier.

The Christian story of creation, fall, God’s intervention, hope and redemption – that story is like the one Lewis describes to his goddaughter. It has been left on a dusty upper shelf and taken down nostalgically at Christmas, alongside a bit of Dickens. For some, it’s a story we’ve outgrown and for many, it’s one we’ve never been properly told.

But like an ageing godparent, the Church still loves the people she serves, and says to any who are interested, ‘Tell me what you think.’

We might also want to say that the Christian story is not a fable we have invented, like the story of Cinderella or Aladdin. Our story is about reality, saying something fundamental about the future: ‘Born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth.’ Those lines from the well-known Christmas hymn by Charles Wesley tell the story beautifully: life beyond death is our destiny.

In the 21^st century we have grown up thinking that technology proves we have come of age and are now in control of our destiny. Shopping and consuming so define us that we even think we should be able to pay for a good death if we can afford it, the ultimate statement of financial control. The Christian story about life beyond death is profoundly disturbing because it indicates that how we live now is not erased by death. What survives our death is what God made and sees and loves in us, and one day will name, as the secrets of our hearts are uncovered and we can be released from all the damage of our lives, so that the perfect person in us is seen at last.

And an essential thing about the Christian story is that we enact it. You, the congregation, are the players, witnessing to the reality of this drama by how you behave. This enactment is captured in the Portinari Altarpiece by the Flemish painter, Hugo van der Goes, commissioned in 1475 for the Hospital of Sta Maria Nuova in Florence. It depicts Tommaso Portinari and his family kneeling on either side of the Christmas stable, adoring the new-born Child.

The detail of the stable tells us that this picture is not simply about the first Christmas: it’s about how Christmas illuminates the mystery of time and creation. The artist presents the realism of the Christ child, laid naked on the earth on a bed of straw, and that detail is balanced by two pots of flowers and a wheatsheaf. The flowers indicate that the earth has blossomed: it is beautiful and fragrant. Recalling the plot of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, this is evidence that Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, calls time on the winter of despotic, corrupt and unjust regimes.

And the enactment of Christian worship on earth, as it is in heaven, is indicated by angels, vested in the sacred garments of the ministers of the Eucharist, who kneel to worship and adore at the stable. The shepherds, who are the congregation, bring with them the instruments of their labour and are inspired to kneel, to put their hands together in adoration, and to open their hands in prayer, just as the priest does at the altar.

And what does the wheatsheaf signify? Bethlehem means, ‘House of Bread’ and the wheatsheaf alludes to the bread of the Eucharist. When, shortly, we hear those words, ‘This is my body’, spoken about the bread we offer, we, like the shepherds, have the opportunity to behave in ways that indicate our awe and humble adoration. How sad it is that kneeling, or even just bending the knee in adoration before the Body of Jesus, has slipped out of practice.

In the Portinari altarpiece, Joseph has taken off his shoe, a reminder of words spoken to Moses when God is revealed in the Burning Bush. Please don’t take off your shoes this morning: you will get very cold feet. But please do compose yourself in a frame of shepherd-like adoration as you come to receive holy communion, aware that the in these words, ‘The Body of Christ’, the child of Bethlehem is entrusted into your hands for safe keeping, for your adoration, joy and consolation in moments of doubt and sadness.

Hugo van der Goes’ work blew the minds of the people of Florence because of its realism, structure, and exquisite delicacy. But he himself suffered from severe mental illness and at one stage made an attempt to take his own life. It was in a nearby monastery that he found the therapy of sacred music, the echo of that other world, heaven, as the context in which to paint what he was hearing.

The sacred nature of the earth and all it holds is a musical theme running throughout the Christian story. In creation redeemed we are told that the valleys laugh and sing at the time of the harvest. Human misuse of the earth, symbolised by unjust trade, lies at the heart of the Church’s experience that the discipline of worship is how we learn to be good stewards of the earth.

The song of the angels unites us on earth with the worship of heaven. They particularly summon us on this day to see in the holy Child of Bethlehem, the pledge of humanity set free in a new creation. And how very unwise it would ever be to interrupt the sacred duty of participation this divine worship, in order to impose the more limited purposes of our preoccupations, no matter how legitimate we think they are.

The waste and destruction, for our own comfort, of our common home the earth, does indeed place us outside the enlightened enclosure of the stable in Bethlehem. And in land of that City of David, as in Ukraine and all other places of conflict in the world today, the destruction of civilian life, home and livelihood will also deny to the perpetrators of such violence, any peace of mind, or false claims of moral justification and victory.

It is not obvious that when we grow up lacking or misappropriating the worship of God, we are uniformly content with adult life and how we treat each other. Christmas gives us permission to recover the grace of child-like attention and curiosity, to take down the beautiful old book of faith from a dusty shelf, noting that it does still belong to each and every one of us, and to ask what it might mean, why might it help, how might it make us happy. Enacting a response to those questions is described in the carol at the time of communion that reminds us of the motherly role of the Church, like that of Our Lady, St Mary:

And so we have come, Lady, / our day’s work done, / our love, our hopes, ourselves / we give to your son.

May your participation in this Christmas drama dispel the chilly gloom of winter, and brighten your days with the warmth and light of Jesus Christ.

Christmas Eve Address:

If you’re a Disney fan, there’s a great present for you this Christmas. It’s the film Wish, full of adventure and feel-good factor.
Lots of people make a wish at Christmas, as in the popular carol, ‘We wish you a merry Christmas’. That’s all about generosity for family and neighbours. We hope our wish comes true, but perhaps we also wish that we didn’t have to do the work that is needed to turn wishes into reality.

Disney has combined how we wish for a better world with the story of a magical night-time star.

The plot has the usual players. There’s a greedy king, Magnifico, and a beautiful 17 year-old girl, Asha, who makes a wish for Sabino her grandad on his 100th birthday. We’d need a ‘spoiler alert’ if I go into much more detail.

The night star at the centre of the Disney film is a speaking star, of course, that drops out of the sky into our world and works the magic that only speaking stars can do.

We’ve generally forgotten how to read the night sky. But the biblical story of Christmas tells us that our ancestors could do just that. Seeing a new star was for them what TikTok is for us. At a turning point in human history a new star was news and information which set a small number of them on a journey to find Jesus Christ, and a new and different kind of kingdom.

Ours is an age that loves Disney, but is sceptical about Bible stories. We want the Disney stories to be true. But the impression that they all lived happily ever after simply doesn’t match our experience.

Bible stories are also full of human wishes for a better life and a better world. In the Old Testament, Abraham and Sara look up at the stars and dream about friendship with God in a happy world. Joseph is also a dreamer, and the stars speak to him about doing something outstanding in his life.

At the same time these Bible stories confront us with reality and truth. They tell us that we will have tears and sadness. Bad things happen to good people. The young die before their time and the wicked grow old in their crimes. But there is a point at which all this is called to account. The struggle to be kind, generous, honest and cheerful has a reward that lasts longer than a lifetime.

Going back to Wish, the Disney film, we discover that having a magic star as your friend doesn’t make life as easy as you might think. You still have to work at resisting greed and fear and evil. Life is full of risks and uncertainty. In Disney land these are adventures that always end well: in the experience of millions of people today, that is not obviously the case.

Across the whole world, Christians will be praying for peace this Christmas, particularly in the land where Jesus Christ was born. Prayers are not wishes built on superstition. They are the cry of the heart in response to what we see, feel, love and need.

The Church’s prayers this year focus on tiny, vulnerable people who have been born into a world of violent bloodshed. How remarkably similar that is to the context in which Jesus Christ was born.

The babies of Gaza and Israel, of Ukraine and Sudan, and so many other places, are incredibly vulnerable. We identify the Christ child with them, because his death will embrace their death and all its evil origins.

What has happened in the minds and souls of people who maim and kill tiny children, defenceless women, aged grandparents, and young adults briming with hope and energy? They have lost the capacity to look up at the stars and be filled with wonder and delight. The tenderness of their own childhood has been eclipsed by a grotesque anger that is fed by hate.

The prayers that Christians say are not a wish list, with fingers crossed, hoping for the best, and sparing us any effort in contributing to a lasting peace that wipes away tears and builds a better future. Every sincere prayer is a cry to God that reasserts, against all the odds, the enduring power of beauty, joy, compassion and love. And it is our experience and conviction, in Jesus Christ, that these great virtues tell us what God is like, and that God’s goodness will ultimately win through, consuming even the worst that human depravity can inflict through fear and violence.

The true story of that triumph, comes next, at Easter. But for now, let us celebrate the delight and miracle of new life in the tiny Christ child, and may the star of Bethlehem bring you inspiration and hope for the days ahead.