The four wonders of Christmas

A sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on December 24, 2021 at Midnight Mass by Revd Jonathan Evens

Readings for address: Isaiah 9. 2-7 and John 1. 1-14

Three miracles or wonders come together on Christmas night. First, the miracle of carrying a baby. The wonder of new life growing within the life and body of a mother. A shelter within the womb in which dependent life can grow towards independence, a life providing all that is necessary to nurture hidden growth and development.

Second, the miracle or wonder of birth itself. The contractions that signal the inevitable, shuddering and painful (for the mother) descent down the birth canal and out, gasping tiny lungfuls of air for the first time. Then the marvel for the parents of holding this tiny being who is flesh of their flesh, bone of their bone; wholly theirs and yet wholly itself.

Third, there is the reaction of others; friends, family, hospital staff, others on the maternity ward, all of whom gather round to share their congratulations and point out those features which confirm that this is a baby that is the child of these parents and these alone. As the saying goes, ‘It takes a village to raise a child’, and that village begins gathering from the moment of birth.

These three miracles or wonders were all present on Christmas night. The miraculous conception of Jesus led Mary from Joseph’s initial rejection and his dream-based acceptance, to the support of her cousin Elizabeth and the recognition of the Messiah by Jesus’ cousin John while still in Elizabeth’s womb, and on to the journey to Bethlehem because of the census, the lack of room for them to stay, with the stable at the inn becoming their resting place in preparation for the birth. Mary was the God-bearer, the one who carried Jesus through his nine-month gestation and who delivered him into a world that neither knew him or particularly wanted him.

That delivery happened on the night that we celebrate tonight. Without midwives and for the usual length of time involving all the usual birth pains, the birth took place of a child about whom prophecies had been spoken and through whom the world itself had come into being and yet he came into a world that did not know him and did not accept him. While born into obscurity, living and dying in obscurity, many, throughout time, have come to see this moment, the birth, as the central moment in human history, the moment around which our wellbeing, salvation and future happiness revolve.

And then others began arriving; first, the animals in the stall, then angels sending shepherds, then a star leading Magi to find the baby born Kings of the Jews. There was celebration and singing, wonder and awe, gift-giving and more dreams providing warnings and directions. A hastily assembled village bringing affirmation, guidance, and protection for the new family who were a long way from home and shortly to become refugees.

All these wonders occurred in less than ideal circumstances, bringing into question our current yearning for Boris to ‘save’ Christmas. To save what and for what, when as we’ve already seen God is always most fully experienced and encountered in adversity, rather than comfort!

Three Christmas wonders, but we have yet to experience the full wonder of Christmas night. There one more wonder, I want to share. I want to encourage you to look more closely into the manger. If you do, looking more intently and closely at the child lying in the manger like new parents seeing their new-born child for the first time and recognising their features in their child, you will see yourself looking back at you.

This insight was first expressed in 1939 by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor who directed an underground seminary in Germany, an intentional Christian community that practised a new form of monasticism. The seminary was closed down in 1937 by the Gestapo and more than two dozen of its students were arrested. Bonhoeffer, too, was arrested in 1943 and executed in 1945, just weeks before the end of World War II. Earlier, while still at liberty, he wrote circular letters to his students encouraging them to pursue and maintain fellowship with one another in any and every way possible.

In his circular letter sent at Christmas in 1939 Bonhoeffer wrote this about the nativity:

‘The body of Jesus Christ is our flesh. He bears our flesh. Therefore, where Jesus Christ is, there we are, whether we know it or not; that is true because of the incarnation. What happens to Jesus Christ, happens to us. It really is all our “poor flesh and blood” which lies there in the crib; it is our flesh which dies with him on the cross and is buried with him. He took human nature so that we might be eternally with him. Where the body of Jesus Christ is, there we are; indeed, we are his body. So the Christmas message for all … runs: You are accepted. God has not despised you, but he bears in his body all your flesh and blood. Look at the cradle! In the body of the little child, in the incarnate son of God, your flesh, all your distress, anxiety, temptation, indeed all your sin, is borne, forgiven and healed.’

That is the great insight of Bonhoeffer’s letters; where Jesus Christ is, there we are, whether we know it or not; what happens to Jesus Christ, happens to us. He became a human being like us, so that we would become divine. He came to us so that we would come to him. He took human nature so that we might be eternally with him. Where the body of Jesus Christ is, there we are; indeed, we are his body. Like new parents seeing their new-born child for the first time and recognising their features in their child, so, when we look in the manger, we see ourselves looking back at us.

‘How shall we deal with such a child?’ Bonhoeffer asks. How shall we respond to so many Christmas wonders? These wonders, these miracles, are all wonderful points of connection with the God who connects with us in and through the Christ-child on Christmas night.

I wonder with which of the four wonders of Christmas night you most identify? I wonder how you will come and connect with the Christ-child this Christmas night? As one who has carried a baby and given birth, as one who has gathered in support of a new family, or as one who has seen something of yourself in the new-born child.

Bonhoeffer also asks us, ‘Have our hands, soiled with daily toil, become too hard and too proud to fold in prayer at the sight of this child? Has our head become too full of serious thoughts … that we cannot bow our head in humility at the wonder of this child? Can we not forget all our stress and struggles, our sense of importance, and for once worship the child, as did the shepherds and the wise men from the East, bowing before the divine child in the manger like children?’ Will you look in the manger this Christmas night to see not only Jesus, but also yourself, and bow your head in humility and worship at the wonder of this God-given child.