Christmas Day
Isaiah 62.6-12
Psalm 97
Titus 3.4-8a
Luke 2.8-20
©Suzanne Grimmett
Goodness is stronger than evil;
Love is stronger than hate;
Light is stronger than darkness;
Life is stronger than death;
Victory is ours through him who loves us.
These are words of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu from An African Prayer Book, and while they may not sound on the surface like a Christmas prayer, I think they speak strongly to the heart of what we are celebrating today.
I think these words lie behind what the angels are proclaiming when they proclaim good news of great joy to all people and cry glory to God and peace on earth.
For you see, to believe that today means good news of great joy must mean that there is bad news that oppresses humanity. To believe that the light has come into the world is to acknowledge that there is some present darkness.
The reading from Titus reminds us that the promise of Christmas is that even the last great enemy, death, is defeated as, through the coming of Christ like the dawn, we become heirs to eternal life. While this is a great and joyful hope, religion has done far too much “pie in the sky” thinking where it is all about what happens after we die.
If we are to hear the message of the angels correctly, we need to hear that the good news is for us this day, this time, not just after we die. God is always to be found in the present and so we celebrate today the words the angels spoke to us ‘today.’
On this day, a Saviour is born.
On this day, peace.
On this day, goodwill to all humankind.
When we look around the world, however. We do not see peace and we sometimes do not see a heck of a lot of goodwill either. If there is peace and goodwill today, where is it to be found?
This year we have witnessed on the news the continuing war between Ukraine and Russia, the increasingly terrible violence in the long running conflict in Sudan, the escalating tensions in the Middle East, and the relentless campaign against Gaza with its horrific loss of civilian life. It is small wonder that churches in these parts of the world invoke not only the hope of the Christ child on this day, but also point ahead to the Feast day known as the Holy Innocents which reminds us of King Herod’s attempt to kill the Christ Child by murdering the children of Bethlehem. Small wonder, too, that the Rev’d Munther Isaac, Pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, in his 2024 Christmas sermon looks back on a year when 17,000 Palestinian children have been killed, and he cries out against a humanity that chooses to follow Herod’s path of domination and annihilation where the poor, the vulnerable and the innocent suffer the most.
Christ does not come to the world as we want it to be.
The great hope of Christmas is that Christ comes into the world as it is. Today.
Jesus takes up a place of solidarity with those who are marginalised and oppressed. Christ is found present amongst all those who suffer the tyranny and violence of others, whether that be the political violence of empire or the domestic violence where even home is not safe.
But that does not mean that we do not cry out, “How long, Lord?” and hope, and pray and work for something better.
British Somali poet, Warsan Shire wrote,
I held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.
What can this day say to that hurt? We cannot simply run our fingers across the world and wish it away. We can look at the world with the eyes of faith, however, and remember that…
Goodness is stronger than evil;
Love is stronger than hate;
Light is stronger than darkness
We can remember that this is true because the Christmas story tells us that love overcame evil, hate and darkness on this day when a young woman gave birth and laid her baby in a animals’ food trough while angels sang of peace on earth and goodwill to all people.
But… unless we can see how this event sets us free, it is just a nice tale. Unless we can see this story enfleshed in real lives, the songs of the angels are just words to beautiful carols and maybe the theme of a magical Christmas movie or two that help us for one day forget the hurts of the world.
There are, of course, many stories of such overcoming through 2000 years of Christianity making sense of the story of Emmanuel- God with us. Many stories of people living out love as a response to hate and life steadfastly affirmed over death. I would like to share with you one that was particularly inspired by the angels’ song delivered to those bewildered and amazed shepherds.
In the 1870s the village of Parihaka in Aotearoa, New Zealand became the largest Maori village of the time, with those disillusioned by the expanding colonisation or dispossessed of lands moving to the region. Histories describe many being impressed by the kaupapa (or philosophy) of the two leaders of Parihaka, Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi. The treaty of Waitangi had been signed, but commercial and government interests had led to continued annexation of Maori lands, and the area around Parihaka was particularly sought after for farmlands. Te Whiti and Tohu were Christians who led their communities and sought to model their lives around three principles;
Glory to God on high.
Peace.
And goodwill to people on earth.
Far from being just some nice lines in a carol, these men took the words of the angels and made them the framework for their lives of faith and service. When their lands were taken over, Te Whiti and Tohu led their people in acts of nonviolent resistance including ploughing and fencing confiscated land instructing them, ‘Go put your hands to the plough. Look not back. If any come with guns, be not afraid. If they smite you, smite not in return. If they rend you, be not discouraged. Another will take up the good work.’
Anne van Gend, in her book, Restoring the Story, related that the ‘ploughers’ were captured and sent to Dunedin as slave labour for two years. On their return to Parihaka, they resumed their nonviolent resistance. As a response, a large military presence arrived and surrounded the village. Thousands of villagers gathered together to sit in silence, but not before baking more than 500 loaves of bread to feed the militia.
The outcome, as you might expect, was tragic. The town was destroyed and the people dispersed with great violence. Many of those who were sent as prisoners to the colder lands down south died there of cold or malnutrition. Yet somehow, at the end of his life, Te Whiti remained committed to those three principles;
Glory to God on high.
Peace.
And goodwill to people on earth.
He is recorded as saying, ‘It is not my wish that evil should come to the two races. My wish is for the whole of us to live peaceably and happily on this land.’
The angels’ words announcing the birth of Jesus helped the villagers live into a bigger story, posing a challenge to which they utterly committed their lives. They carried a candle of hope, paying the price with their lives of their belief in the glory of the Prince of Peace who extends goodwill even to those who would consider themselves enemies.
It did not succeed in their time. But light endures and grows.
In 1987 descendant of the prisoners of Parihaka came to Dunedin where their ancestors had been enslaved and set up a memorial stone. Anne Van Gend writes that, “On one side of the stone is the shape of a koru, the uncurling fern frond that symbolises new life….On the other side they engraved the word rongo: peace. After all the injustices, all the reasons for anger and pain and revenge these people could have felt, this was their response.”
Christmas is a time of miracles.
This is a miracle, I believe, if we have eyes to see it.
Christ comes that we might understand that darkness can never defeat darkness.
Christ comes that we might encounter the God who would give up everything to seek us out, offering grace and showing us a different way to be.
Christ comes that we might see what love looks like when it is born amongst us.
May we know the joy and hope of Christ this Christmas, born anew into our hearts and our lives, as we commit to bringing hope to our corner of a hurting world.
Glory to God on high.
Peace.
And goodwill to people on earth.
+Amen