Nativity of the Lord, Christmas Day—Proper 3

What has come into being in him was life,a and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Tis the season to be jolly - 'oh no it’s not' - 'oh yes it is'!

Tangled fairy lights; eating too much and feeling stuffed; running out of fridge/freezer space; not having any batteries for presents in the house; family arguments over board games, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. There are some proverbs about beginnings aren’t there. Starting is half the battle; A job begun is a job half done; it is only the first step which costs.

There are many proverbs which seem to indicate that, once we’ve started something, the hardest part is over. The rest will be plain sailing! I’m not quite so sure. Often beginning can be the easy bit, when we are excited about something new, a new routine, a new story, a new child. But often it is the finishing which is really the difficult bit. Can we finish as we started? Full of optimism, hope, excitment, love? Can we keep going? Can that little bit of God in us and in others remain the source and form of our desire, of what motivates us?

The story of the scriptures is full of half-beginnings. Again and again there is hope, things begin well. The Spirit of God broods over the waters of creation; a good king is able to bring justice to those with no voice; a people are freed from oppression; a child is born. But as predictably as the days grow dark in winter, it is finishing well which is the difficult part.

Life is full of half-starts, full of moments where grace looses the battle: words misunderstood; promises broken; patience lost; quick judgements made; selfish solutions sought - and that’s just in the Church!

Another name for the Gospel reading today, John’s prologue, is the Last Gospel. This is because, traditionally, John’s prologue was read at the end of the Mass. It was the equivalent of having the Angelus at the end of the Mass. As the Mass ends in church, it all begins again in our own lives. We hear the word of God and, like Mary, we say, thy will be done.

The Angel comes to Mary, “Hail Mary, full of grace;” “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with ye.” As it did at the beginning of creation, the Holy Spirit broods over Mary; Mary who is full of grace, the Greek word for full of grace or favoured one being a good translation of the Hebrew of the name “Hannah” who, in the Old Testament gives birth to Samuel in the beginning of the story of Israel’s kingship. Mary will be with child and he, like Israel when they were freed from Egypt, he will be called the Son of God; and new life will come to the rest of the world, beginning with Elizabeth.

This is the beginning of the Gospel. With Mary’s words, “Let it be to me according to thy word;” “fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum” - it sounds much better in Latin! This is not a moment which condones the oppression of women; that they should always submit to their husbands or anything like that: Let me agree with everything you say and promise regardless of what you’ve done in the past. No, this is Mary, in contrast to many similar characters in the Old Testament, believing that when God says something, God will do it. “Let there be light” and there was light. It is Mary, as a model for all of us, recognising that she doesn’t know better than God. It is Mary not trying to take God’s plans into her own hands.

In the beginning was the Word. The Word that the Lord is with thee. The word that is the word of the Cross, the word that God is for us, even unto the end, and it is this Word which is made flesh in the end on the Cross. The end which turns out to be but a new beginning. The end which Mary and the disciple John beheld.

Christmas is a new beginning and it’s hopeful but it’s complicated. It’s still winter. We are still in the stable and it’s often difficult for us to see and understand the particular way in which God is wanting to be born in someone else’s life. Frankly, it can often feel like a threat to the Kingdom of God that we know. Is saying to someone else, to an outsider, “there is room for you here,” is what we should take away from Christmas? Is this how we bring Christmas into ordinary time? This is the beginning and yes it is hard but the difficulty comes in pushing back on the temptation to think we know it all, to think that we can make decisions on behalf of others and on behalf of God and get it right. Life is full of half-starts and uncompleted dreams. But, in the child born to Mary, “It is finished.” In Jesus, God will bring all to fulfillment, not in an escape from the world, but in a redemption of all of time and history. Our role now is not in building projects which will bring about God’s kingdom by our own design. That would be as bad as the present my friend got me last Christmas. It was a manichin’s leg. I said, “This isn’t a present! This is just a stocking filler!” Stock-king - king-dom. There was a tenuous link!

God calls us to love in a big way but, in Jesus, God shows us that to love in a big way within our own small worlds is enough. Maybe God will do something great with it, and in that we have faith, but we must become like Mary and say “I trust you God, you have shown us you love us on the Cross.” Help me finish well in somehow holding on to that faith this Christmas.

In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.