Sermon - "Midnight" Communion - Christmas Eve 2015

Sermon at St Saviours “Midnight” Communion, Christmas Eve 2015

Simon Brindley, Lay Reader

I don't know about you but for me, as a child, it was always getting presents that was the wildly exciting thing about Christmas….Maybe it was because it was only at Christmas and birthdays that anything new appeared!.....Maybe I just loved the sheer excitement of unwrapping and discovering what had been hidden under that paper, but it was definitely very, very exciting.

So by this time on Christmas Eve, as children, by the time of Midnight Mass as we used to call it, we could barely contain ourselves, sleep never came very easily and it’s no wonder we were up as early as we were possibly allowed on Christmas morning and creeping downstairs to get started as soon as parents appeared.

They say it is more blessed to give than to receive. Well….maybe, I think I get that one now, but receiving certainly took a lot of beating when I was young.

Receiving and opening presents…

I guess these Christmas traditions, of giving and receiving gifts,  started with the parents of the new baby in the stable, receiving whatever the shepherds had to bring: a lamb maybe, some extra hay, maybe a cap made of sheepskin to keep the baby snug and dry; and then the wise men bringing some gold, fit for a king, some frankincense, like the priests would burn in prayer in the Temple and some myrrh, expensive spice that was used in burials.

And even as a child I think I could sense there was something greater in that story, something even better than the presents waiting under the tree. I just didn’t know how to put it into words.

You’ll hear people talk every year about Jesus being the greatest gift of all. So what’s that all about?

We just heard two magnificent readings. I don't know about you but I really love them. “Before the world was created the Word already existed” starts John’s gospel in this version. “In the beginning was the Word” in the more traditional version.  From the very beginning he was with God and God made everything through him.

He is and looks exactly like God says the writer of the letter to the Hebrews.

So here he is, God being born as a baby.  There is the first part of the greatest gift of all….You should recognize him because you and everything else in the whole of creation was made though him.

And if you receive him and believe in him he will give you the right to become a child of God. It will be like starting again with a new father, God in heaven, starting again as a child of God. There is the second part of the greatest gift of all. You can become a child of God.

And then, says the writer of the letter to the Hebrews, you will see and learn and understand what God is like. God will speak to you through the life and work and the words and the presence of this child:

“In these last days he has spoken to us through his Son,” is how the Hebrews letter put sit. There is the third part of this greatest gift of all. He will speak to you and you can speak to Him.

When Jesus grew up, one of the ways in which he described this gift is this. He said that a man found a pearl that was so good, he went away, sold everything he had and went back and bought it.  The Christmas gift is like a really wonderful jewel, a pearl that is worth more than everything else, worth selling everything you have to own.

But it's a gift that is often unopened…we leave it wrapped up and do not open it..

Well I couldn’t find any real pearls, sorry, at least I couldn’t afford to buy a real pearl for everyone. But in here is the closest thing I could find at home.

Please taken one, one each if there are enough…..

Please take it home. Put it under your tree if you like, keep it in your pocket if you would prefer. But I want you to do just one very small thing. Please open it over the next 24 hours. That’s all I ask you to do. Open it. See the pearl, I am sorry you will have to imagine it is the most valuable pearl you have ever seen, one that is worth more than everything else you will see, eat and receive tomorrow.

And as you open it, (and I  know you will keep it safe from any child who might swallow it for example), please remind yourself of these three things about the greatest gift of all:

-       At Christmas God Himself is being born as a baby;

-       Receive Him and believe in Him and you have the right to become a child of God, with a new Father in heaven;

-       And God will speak to you and keep on speaking to you through this persons Jesus Christ. And you can speak to Him.

This light still shines in the darkness and the darkness has not put it out. It still is the best Christmas gift.

All God asks is that we open it.

Amen