Sermon for Christmas Eve: “As God prepares so do we” preached at the Eucharist, Sherborne Abbey on Sunday, 24 December 2023 by the Reverend Christopher Huitson (Romans Ch 16: v 25 – end; Luke Ch 1: v 26 – 38).
Travelling by train has had its difficulties in recent months. Floods, landslips, overhead line breakages and Engineering work have caused cancellations – and strike action has added another layer of problems. An American visitor to England struck up a conversation on a train with an English passenger. “Do you know”, he said, “that you can board a train in Texas and after 24 hours you’d still be in Texas?” The Englishman wearily replied. “Yes, I know. We have trains like that in this country!”
Our lives are closely bound up with time and with events in succession so that we cannot imagine what it would be like to be outside time. Still less can we imagine what God’s perception can be like where he is outside time but relates to a universe where time is one of the dimensions.
On an atomic scale, reactions happen in a fraction of a second while in the universe at large it takes millions of years for stars to burn and planets to reach a stable state. Our understanding of the evolution of our world and its life forms span such lengthy periods of time, as plants and creatures developed. Many adapted to their particular conditions marvellously well. But human beings are able to adapt to a great variety of environments.
Christians ascribe such wonders to the creative power of God and we may see that the God who took such care over the creation of the universe, this planet and the plant, animal and human life on it, has taken equal care over our redemption. God is at work both in vast time scales and in very small ones. It seems that time is unimportant to God. We heard, a couple of weeks ago, words by the author of 2 Peter, perhaps building on Psalm 90 which contains the verse “for in your sight a thousand years are as the passing of one day”. He makes this profound observation: “With him one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day”. So it is that we see him working as much in a very small time frame as in another very large one.
We know that for us Advent is a time of preparation. God made his preparations too for the arrival of Jesus, but his preparations were over centuries, not weeks and involved a response from men and women, a response which had to be freely given as they heard the call of God.
Half a millennium before the birth of Jesus various prophets gave a similar message. Someone special was coming – a king, a priest, someone like their greatest king – David. Naturally the detail was lacking. Sometimes an earthly kingdom seemed to be what was imagined, sometimes a spiritual one. A mighty prince might be proclaimed, powerful but just, a War Lord figure who would subdue all enemies OR a lowly servant who would even suffer on behalf of the people.
As a result, there were many different expectations and this variety continued right up to the time of Jesus himself and indeed beyond for a good many of Jesus’ contemporaries could not accept that he was that longed for king and carried on looking for the Messiah.
Then the human participants in the coming of the Messiah had to be prepared as well. This Sunday has a mixture of themes for it is at heart Advent 4 but also Christmas Eve. The gospel gives us the Annunciation – the request by the Angel Gabriel that Mary should consent to be the mother of the Messiah for that is the theme set for Advent 4. Because of her role as the mother of Jesus we rightly revere the Blessed Virgin Mary and, as you know, this great Abbey Church is dedicated to her and so it is that we also keep today as our patronal Festival and celebrate this day with due solemnity.
In keeping with many churches, we have a Lady Chapel, a place of worship, peace and tranquillity with a special dedication to Mary whom we call our Lady. When the main Abbey building was purchased from Sir John Horsey after the dissolution of the monasteries, the Lady Chapel was not required and so the townspeople saved themselves some money. Theology had changed and it was felt unnecessary to have mediators, go-betweens carrying prayers from human beings to God. The prayers of the saints and of the Blessed Virgin Mary were not needed, it was thought, and so the Lady Chapel was not preserved at Sherborne and indeed for some centuries was converted into a dwelling for the headmaster of Sherborne school and his family. It wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th century that it reverted to being a Lady Chapel again thanks to the work of volunteers and the fund raising and gifts of many people given partly to remember those who gave their lives in the 1st World War.
So Mary is well commemorated in this Abbey, for God’s great plan depended upon Mary being ready to accept her destiny. Apart from this call, Mary was nothing special, as the world judges these things. Her special nature lay in her simple acceptance of the greatness of God and her belief in his power to achieve his divine plan.
She wasn’t a princess or descended from a famous family, just a village girl who accepted what God had planned and said “yes” to what he asked of her. She could not know what the future would bring nor could she see the demanding nature of her vocation though she was given some idea when she went to the Temple in Jerusalem and met Simeon who blessed her saying “This child is destined to be a sign that will be rejected and you too will be pierced to the heart.” It was not going to be an easy path for Mary.
Now we have reached the eve of Christmas there is little time for much more in the way of preparation and I’m sure your preparations are well advanced. We pray in the prayer set for the lighting of the 4th candle in the Advent ring – “Bless your church preparing for Christmas.” God took infinite care to prepare for the birth of Jesus and he did it because of the plans he had for us all – to bring us to the new life of his kingdom. If he takes such care for our sake, so we should be ready to see the whole of our lives as a preparation for our participation in God’s kingdom. What happens to us in this temporal existence we can use, with God’s help, so that it becomes part of a life dedicated to him and affirmed in the life of resurrection in the timeless eternity of the kingdom of heaven. Christmas may be the beginning but it is Easter which is the glorious aim and focus of all our hopes.
Lastly, since only a few hours separate us from Christmas Day let me anticipate by wishing you all a very Happy Christmas.