This sermon was first preached (with slightly less visuals in 2007 at Holy Trinity Barkingside, then again in 2025 at St Christopher's Hanwell.
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[holding a cardboard box]
– So I’ve got here a controversial statement. Now what I am going to do is I am going to wrap it up in nice wrapping paper. {do} and then maybe I will wrap some Christmas lights around it {do so} – that should make it better…
So would someone like to unwrap this for me?
{they tear the wrapping paper off – and then inside there are a set of sheets – each sheet will also be projected up on the screen{
God is a baby {picture of a baby crying its eyes out}
Not a puppy. GOD was born in a stable
God came out of a womb – a tiny crying baby desperate for milk – wrapped in cloths and sheltering amid the smell of dung and manure. Now you can try wrapping that fact up in tinsell and fancy paper – but [pull a piece out] holly would be a more appropriate decoration – but the facts I have just told you – they prickle! It is as uncomfortable as the hard floor that Mary slept on that night, It is as disconcerting as the steaming pile [hold nose] that comes just behind where the donkey was standing….
God with a dirty nappy.
God hungry and crying for milk.
God a human baby in our world making demands on our time.
Any of you had children – and you remember before the first baby was born and like you were waiting for the pregnancy to end and that was going to be the grand climax - only to discover (as all first time parents do) that that is just the beginning. We have been opening our advent calendars, waiting for the baby Jesus. He is born. And we don’t get to put our feet up.
Don’t think Mary got to put her sleep that night or any night for many months afterwards. Babies are demanding. Babies impact your life.
This idea that the baby Jesus might have cried – of that the stable he was born in might have been so poor that there might have been actual real animals in it and their manure – was controversial -that both Chat GPT and CoPilot refused to create me a picture of it – because it might offend people.
More than half of people in this country believe in God. But most of them I guess believe in a comfortable CahtGPT God with a fluffy white beard sitting on a white cloud - who leaves us alone to enjoy Christmas and probably won’t make a difference in our lives until we die and he’s unable to resist letting us into heaven.
Christians however don’t believe in that fluffy myth. We believe something actually happened 2000 years ago. And because we are dealing with something that’s actually true we don’t get to pick and choose “I want God to be like this…..” – Truth is the way things actually are, so we don’t get to pick and choose – instead we have to go back to an event that actually – God born in a stable.
“and they shall name him Emmanu- El” – El – like the All in Allah. Hebrew and Arabic are very similar languages – El – Eloh Elohim – All – Allah – just means God.
Immanu-El – God with us.
Which brings me back to this [pick up a piece of holly]
The God of Holly – the uncomfortable deity who doesn’t stay up there on a cloud leaving us alone but who meddles in our lives – meddles enough to be born as a baby.
So three things about Emmanu-El – God with us
1) He is a God who acts
2) He is a God who instructs
3) He is a God who rescues
HE IS THE GOD WHO ACTS
Joseph discovers that Mary is up the duff. How would you feel if your fiancé had got pregnant and you were not the dad? Women here you can imagine how you would feel if your partner was having a child and you were not the mum – Though the circumstances are a little bit different in Joseph’s case.
A God who performs miracles sounds very exciting. Perhaps he can make me win the lottery – without even buying a ticket?
Perhaps he can heal my autoimmune condition and make me have a comfy normal life? God can heal that or any other ailment.
But be careful before you ask him to heal you. Look what happens at the first Christmas when God performs miracles.
Mary – miraclulously pregnant – WHOOPEE! Her relationship with Joseph – on the line. Her reputation in the community - dashed. This girl’s future …. Quite possibly ruined?
That’s the message of Christmas? Emmanuel – the God who acts … Acts like that?
{go to slide of puppy in a crossed out warning sign}
GOD IS NOT A PUPPY
As we’ll see in a moment, when God acts it may change history, but don’t expect it to be easy on the way.
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He is a God who acts
HE IS A GOD WHO INSTRUCTS
Joseph knows what he is going to do about the mess he is in. He’s going to “put Mary away quietly”. He doesn’t want to cause Mary any unnecessary pain, but there is no way he is going to go ahead with the marriage after all this.
And then God sends an angel to Joseph in a dream and tells him to marry Mary anyway.
At the heart of what happened at the first Christmas: Joseph getting told what to do. His only choice is obedience or disobedience.
If he does what God tells him – half the local village will think he is the father and that he couldn’t keep his flies done up and is responsible for ruining Mary’s life. And the other half of the village will mock him and laugh at him as a cuckold being taken advantage of by a manipulative Mary.
Emmanuel – God with us – the God who instructs? the God who tells us what to do?
In 2003 I arrived as vicar at Holy Trinity Church Barkingside. Under my predecessor Fr Brian Branche the PCC had adopted a really beautiful mission statement –
“To seek God’s will through prayer in order –
To bring people to Jesus and membership of his family
To lead them to Christlike maturity
To enable them to discover their mission in the church and their life mission in the world”
A perfect mission statement for any new vicar to inherit. But for tonight’s sermon listen to the first line
“To seek God’s will through prayer”.
Over the years that followed the PCC and I introduced sought to listen to God – and introduced some changes – from a ramp so people in wheel chairs could enter the church to multiplying the services; so that there was one mass with trad hymns for the older folk and one with contemporary music to draw in young families; to removing a few pews at the back so there could be refreshments in church; to putting up screens [point to the ones in the church I am preaching in tonight]
There were anonymous pieces of feedback saying “Don’t you understand WE don’t WANT this”. When I suggested to one long term member of the congregation that given the age profile if we did not change in ten years time there would be no one left” her response was “Why should I care? In ten years time I will be dead”.
Well we did persevere – and in ten years time the church wasn’t empty - in fact we saw dramatic growth going from being the 13th biggest church in the deanery to the fourth biggest.
But to get there we had to brave people saying “Don’t you understand WE don’t WANT this” and instead commit ourselves “to seek God’s will through prayer”
Imagine if Joseph had turned around to the angel and said “But I don’t want to marry Mary when she is carrying a baby that is not mine. I don’t want to do that!” – The Christmas story would have been very different.
Because as Joseph had to learn at that first Christmas, its not about what he wanted, or you want or I want – its about what God wants.
This is the message of Christmas. Emmanuel – The God who instructs, the God who tells us what to do.
Because
{bring back up puppy warning}
This is not a puppy we are dealing with – This is God.
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He is a God who acts
He is a God who acts
HE IS A GOD WHO STEPS IN AND RESCUES
What’s your favourite thing about Christmas {take some feedback from congregation}
Well – if Joseph had just done what he wanted and not done what God instructed we would not have {insert something from what the congregation said they liked about Chritsmas}
And if Mary had not had that miracle that made life very uncomfortable for her we would not have {insert something else from what the congregation said they liked about Chritsmas}
But there is something else more important that we would not have.
The angel says “And you shall name him Jesus”- or in Hebrew Ye-shua – which means “God rescues”
Jesus wasn’t born in a manger because it would look good on a Christmas card. He was born because the world was broken and needs fixing.
He was born because you are broken, I am broken – and we need fixing.
{picking up cardboard box and holly again} – that’s the uncomfortable truth.
Sometimes we like to hide it from ourselves . but if we look in the mirror {mime with hand as if looking in the mirror}– perhaps we recognisde we haven’t got everything right and we need a second chance. Just look at the number of arguments people have over just the Christmas season and you will know that we are not getting it all right.
If we don’t realise our need of help – then we are just going to want Christmas to be about [pick up] the wrapping paper and [pick up] the fairy lights. We will not be comfortable with the bits of the story where God told Joseph that uncomfortable stuff he had to do. We will not be comfortable with the bits of the story where God’s miracle turns Mary’s life upside down.
It's a bit like we are dancing in the ballroom of the Titanic – and someone comes in and tries to stop the music shouting “Get to the lifeboats”
How dare you come in and spoil our fun? We WANT to dance.
BUT {look down at mimed mirror} once we realise that we do need rescuer, that we do need a second chance – or maybe a third or a fourth one, that we do need forgiveness, that we need someone to lift from us the weight of the mistakes we have made that we do need peace in our hearts that we do need a love that will stick with us even when we feel most alone, that is when Christmas becomes a story of great joy and great celebration.
I have said that God is not a cute little puppy to do what we want with … but we can use a different Canine metaphor him
{picture of rescue dog pulling someone from an avalanche}
God is the one who rescues us from the snow drift life
And that was why Christ was born in Bethlehem!
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