There is something very special about this night. It is a moment in time – filled with memory and with anticipation.
If this building could speak, I wonder what it would tell us of Christmas midnight communions past? Much has changed since this church was built in the C14th. For a start, there would have been no pews – you would be standing. And much of the service would have been in Latin. But as we read the Bible, it is the same story of the birth of Jesus that our ancestors heard. And as we gather at his table and share the bread and the wine, it is the presence of the same Lord Jesus who we celebrate.
This night is full of memories of Christmas past and anticipation for the Christmas morning.
The night is full of memories of a child born 2000 years ago, and deep longing for the future.
Johny Mathis sings of a child to be born.
The Christian hope is that the child has been born.
“a child that would grow up and turn tears to laughter
Hate to love, war to peace
And everyone to everyone's neighbour
Misery and suffering would be forgotten forever
It's all a dream and illusion now
It must come true, sometimes soon somehow
All across the land dawns a brand new morn
This comes to pass when a child was born”
Tonight is the in-between night.
There is a story told in the protoevangelium of James, a second century document that is not part of the bible but that tells one version of the birth of Jesus. Joseph is out walking to find a midwife for Mary. And it says:
“And I Joseph was walking and was not walking; and I looked up into the sky, … and saw the birds of the air keeping still. And I looked down upon the earth, and saw a [table], and workers reclining: .. And those that were eating did not eat, and those that were rising were still, and those that were lifting food to their mouths did not raise their hands; but the faces of all were looking upwards. And I saw the sheep walking, and the sheep stood still; and the shepherd raised his hand to strike them, and his hand remained up. And I looked upon the current of the river, and I saw the mouths of the goat kids resting on the water and not drinking, and all things in a moment were driven from their course.”
It is as if – just before Jesus is born – the pause button on life was hit.
There is a moment of silence, of stillness as the world waits – and looks upwards
It is like the silence of the dawn. At first there is the singing of a few birds, while it is still dark, but then – just before dawn – they quieten down.
And then the sun rises, the dawn comes, and we hear the dawn chorus.
This night is the in-between night, the silence before the dawn comes
We look back to that first Christmas night: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”
It is a staggering claim: that the baby born in Bethlehem was the Word of God
He was before time. ‘He was in the beginning’.
He is the one who created us. ‘All things came into being through him’
He is not only our origin, but our meaning. He is ‘the light of the world’
Imagine a gathering of young mothers, meeting with their new born babies. They are talking about their children.
And in the way that new parents who are so proud – and rightly so - of their children do, they are declaring their praises. “He smiled at me; she giggled; she sleeps so well; he loves having a bath; she has a real connection with her dad; he’s on the 98th percentile”.
But then one of the mums, holding her baby, smiles and says, ‘He was with God in the beginning. He is the source of life. He is the meaning of our existence. He is the one who will reveal to us the truth – not the provisional ever-seeking truth of science, but the absolute truth about God and about ourselves. He is the judge of the world and the hope of our universe’.
You can imagine the other mums. Looking at Mary and slowly edging themselves from her. Maybe someone is thinking of calling social services – perhaps there is a potential safeguarding risk. ‘Poor girl’, they say, ‘she is clearly suffering from something post-natal’.
But it was not Mary who made those claims.
In fact, we are told that Mary keeps quite quiet about all the goings on of the first Christmas: the message of the angels, the virgin birth, the visits of the shepherds and wise men. Instead, ‘she pondered these things in her heart’.
The claims we read about Jesus today were not made by Mary but by John, one of the followers of Jesus.
And he goes on to give a reason for making those claims:
“The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory” (John 1:14).
They saw Jesus. They saw the things that Jesus did.
They saw him turn 120 gallons of water into wine. They saw him heal an official’s little boy who was on the point of death. They saw him liberate a man who has been paralysed for 38 years, feed 5000 with a few loaves and fish, walk on water, give sight to a man born blind and raise Lazarus from the dead.
John says, these are just some of the many things that Jesus did. They show his glory.
But he continues, we saw the real glory of Jesus in his death and his resurrection, in his love and trust of his Father God, his deep love for us and in his triumph over death.
John is saying: We didn’t make it up. We heard him, we touched him, we ate with him. We saw his glory with our own eyes.
Peter, another of the first followers of Jesus, also writes later, ‘We are not making this up. We were eyewitnesses of these events. We saw his majesty’.
So, this in-between night stands in the silence between memories of an event that happened 2000 years ago, ‘When the Word became flesh and lived among us’, and our anticipation, our waiting for the new dawn.
This night we wait with longing for the dawn of a new transformed creation.
In a world of war and famine and sickness and scams and horrific abuse, it is the hope of a different world, of freedom, fulfilment, peace and joy – that at the moment exists in our imagination.
And at the heart of this different, transformed creation, is not a philosophy, not the hope of utopian dreamers but a new relationship. We who are separated from God the Word, the source and meaning of life, will be united with God. We will know God.
“But to all who received him he gave the power (the authority, the right) to become children of God” (John 1:12)
We will no longer be rebels who have rejected God, or subjects who are fearfully seeking to do the will of their ruler, but children who share the heart of God.
So what of the silence of this in-between night?
It is the silence of the era in between the first coming of the Son of God 2000 years ago in the stable of Bethlehem and that second coming, when we believe that he will return and bring God’s kingdom
It is not the silence of absence
It is the silence of the pre-dawn
It is the silence of expectation, of longing, of prayer, of hope
And in this silence, we can encounter the Son of God, we can meet with him – and glimpse that future meeting, when we will see him face to face, and become like him; when we will be filled with the love of God.
For the Word who became flesh 2000 years ago, died, and rose again, is here with us, in this in-between time, now, by his Spirit.
And for those who receive him, who believe – put their trust in his name – he gives us the power to become sons and daughters of God.
And one day, as the prophet says,
"In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace". (Luke 1:78).
