Walking in the darkness...looking for the light

 

In the stillness of this hour, when the day has finally loosened its grip on us, the Church insists on a strange claim. Not at noon, not at rush hour, not when we are at our most efficient or impressive — but now, in the small hours, when we are tired enough to stop pretending — now, says the Church, this is when God chooses to speak most clearly.

Isaiah puts it with disarming confidence: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” Not the people who solved the darkness. Not the people who explained it away. But the people who walked in it. Christmas does not begin with answers. It begins with honesty.

Most of us here tonight know the story well. We know where the shepherds will appear, when the angels will sing, and exactly how many verses of O Come All Ye Faithful we can manage before our voices give out. And yet, if we are honest — and midnight invites honesty — we also know that the world this story addresses does not feel especially sorted. War has not obligingly taken a Christmas break. Anxiety has not politely waited until January. Many of us carry private griefs that no carol quite manages to touch.  The sheer number of loved ones’ names hung on our Christmas trees tell us that much.  Even joy, at Christmas, often arrives laced with exhaustion.

And into that world — not a tidy one, not a victorious one — God does not send an argument, or a system, or a set of instructions. God sends a child. Vulnerable. Wordless. Dependent. A child who cannot yet explain himself, but who already reveals something essential about the heart of God.

Luke is careful to anchor this birth in the machinery of empire. Decrees are issued. People are counted. Power is exercised from a distance. And somewhere on the edges of all that control, a young woman gives birth in borrowed space, because there is no room. That detail should never become sentimental. It is a theological statement. God arrives without privilege, without protection, without leverage. The Prince of Peace is born into a world that does not rearrange itself for him.

Which means — and this matters — that if you have come here tonight feeling slightly out of place, uncertain, unconvinced, or just quietly longing for something you can’t quite name, then you are not late to the story. You are right on time.

The angels say, “Do not be afraid.” Which is always a clue that fear is present. Fear of loss. Fear of change. Fear that the world is slipping beyond our control. Christmas does not mock those fears. It meets them. But it refuses to let them have the final word. Peace, in the biblical sense, is not the absence of trouble; it is the presence of God in the midst of it.

And that is why this service does not rush. We light candles. We sing old songs slowly. We wait in small moments of silence. We break bread. We allow ourselves to be gathered, rather than driven. Midnight Mass is the Church’s quiet rebellion against a world that tells us our worth lies in productivity, certainty, and noise.

For those of us who are here often, Christmas is a gentle but firm reminder that faith is not something we manage. It is something we receive. And for those who are here rarely, or cautiously, or simply because this night still pulls at you for reasons you can’t fully explain, the Church dares to say this: you are not required to have everything worked out in order to belong here. The shepherds didn’t. Mary didn’t. Even the wise men, still on their journey, were not sure what they would find, or precisely where to go.

In a few moments, we will come to the table. Some of us confidently. Some of us hesitantly. Some of us choosing a blessing instead of bread. And all of that is held. Because this is not a reward for the certain. It is food for the hungry.

The God we meet tonight does not stand at a distance. He lies in a manger. He places himself into human hands. He entrusts himself to a fragile world. And in doing so, he tells us something astonishing: that the darkness has not won; that love has taken flesh; that peace has a pulse.

So take this night gently. Let the light linger. Carry it with you into whatever tomorrow brings. And whether you return here next week, next year, or simply carry this moment quietly in your heart, know this: the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Amen.

 

What are you doing here?

 

In the name of the God who meets us in candlelight, questions, and quiet longing. Amen.

Tonight, the place is full. That matters. It tells me something important about you. Because nobody drags themselves out on a cold December evening out of habit. Not in 2025. Not when there’s a warm sofa, a glowing screen, and plenty of Christmas viewing already queued up on iPlayer. Something has drawn you here. Something quieter than nostalgia, deeper than tradition, and—if I may suggest—more stubborn than logic.

For if we’re honest, the story we tell tonight is a strange one. Virgins. Angels. Stars that behave suspiciously like GPS systems. Shepherds receiving divine messages while minding their own business. If this were submitted as a Netflix pitch, it would be sent back with a polite note saying, “Interesting, but totally implausible.”

I imagine that many of you are sitting here thinking, I love the carols. I love the atmosphere. But I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to do with all the supernatural bits. And if that’s you—let me say this clearly—you are very welcome here. You are not a second-class Christian. You are not a failure of faith. You are, in fact, standing in a very long and honourable tradition.

Because the Bible itself is stuffed full of people who respond to God not with instant belief, but with raised eyebrows. Mary herself asks, “How can this be?” Joseph assumes something has gone badly wrong. The shepherds are terrified. Even the wise men, by setting off on an epic journey across deserts, seem to be saying, We’ll believe it when we see it. Doubt, it turns out, is not the opposite of faith. It is often the doorway into it.

So what if—just for tonight—we loosen our grip on the question of whether Jesus’ birth really happened like that? And instead ask a deeper one: why does this story refuse to let us go?

I think it’s because, at its heart, the Christmas story is not really about unlikely human reproductive methods, or astronomy. It’s about where God chooses to be found. Not in palaces, but in borrowed rooms. Not in strength, but in vulnerability. Not in the centre of power, but on its margins—perhaps in a space no larger than this chapel.

This is a story that quietly but relentlessly challenges our assumptions about power. God does not arrive as a general, or a billionaire, or a social media influencer with perfect lighting. God arrives as a child—dependent, fragile, carried by ordinary people doing their best under difficult circumstances. If that sounds unconvincing, that may be precisely the point.

Christmas suggests that the sacred is not hidden in the spectacular, but woven into the ordinary. That holiness does not shout—it whispers. That love does not conquer by force, but by persistence. And that God’s way of changing the world begins not with fear, but with invitation.

You might not believe in angels with wings. But I suspect you believe in moments that break in unexpectedly. A word spoken at just the right time. A kindness that changes the course of a life. A sudden clarity that arrives when you weren’t looking for it. Call them coincidences if you like. The Bible calls them messengers.

You might have trouble believing in virgin births. But perhaps you can believe that new beginnings still happen. That something genuinely fresh can be born in places that seem exhausted or closed down. That history does not have to repeat itself forever, but can still be interrupted by hope.

You might not be sure what you believe about God at all. But something has drawn you here—to the light, to the music, to this ancient, stubborn hope that refuses to die. And maybe faith, tonight, is not about signing up to a set of supernatural claims. Maybe it’s simply about allowing yourself to be addressed. To be nudged. To be invited into a different way of seeing the world.

Because if Christmas is true—at any level—then it says this: that love is stronger than fear, that light still shines in dark places, and that the ordinary stuff of human life is precisely where God chooses to dwell.

And whether you call it belief or not, that is good news worth coming back for.

The Politics of Christmas

(Preached at the annual Community Carol Service, with members of Havant Rotary, the local Member of Parliament, the Deputy Mayor and other local politicians and charity leaders present.)

Just in case you were wondering: no partridges were harmed in the singing of that carol. 

‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ is one of those songs that begins with confidence and ends with mild panic.  Everyone starts well.  By day six, half the congregation is bluffing, a third has given up entirely, and one person is still confidently singing “five gold… something!”  It’s chaos.  Festive chaos.

And yet — it’s also rather perfect.  Because Christmas itself is a bit like that.  We spend weeks preparing for it.  We rehearse it (or at least our choirs do!).  We plan it.  We wrap it.  We over-cater for it.  And then, when it actually arrives, it doesn’t behave quite as wonderfully as we had hoped.  Children get over-excited.  Adults get over-tired.  Families are wonderful and difficult in roughly equal measure.  Christmas, when it finally turns up, is not neat.  It’s noisy.  It’s crowded.  It’s gloriously imperfect.

Which is, of course, exactly how the first Christmas was.  No carol service.  No rehearsal schedule.  No reserved seating.  Just a young couple, far from home, caught up in a census they didn’t ask for; a birth in borrowed space; surrounded by straw, animals, and rather a lot of smelly brown stuff — and visitors who turn up unannounced.

First, the shepherds.  Not the sort you’d normally put on a guest list.  Shepherds were outcasts in their society.  Their work meant they couldn’t keep ritually clean, and they even worked on the Sabbath.  Outsiders.  Not quite respectable.

Then the wise men — how many, we don’t know.  What we do know is that they were from the East.  Foreigners.  Not Jews.  Carriers of strange ideas and mystical notions about astrology — something Jewish law rejected.  And yet, somehow, they too find a welcome.

And into all of that chaos — the mud, the animals, the shepherds, the foreigners — God chooses to arrive.  Not in power.  Not in control.  But in vulnerability.  In dependency.  In the middle of real, messy, human life as it actually is.

Which is why Christmas still matters — even, perhaps especially, to those who wouldn’t describe themselves as religious.  Whether you believe the events of Christmas happened literally, or whether you see them as a myth with a message, the message at the heart of this season isn’t “be impressive”.  It isn’t “have it all sorted”.  It isn’t “get everything right”.  The message is this: ‘you matter — even here, even now, just as you are.

That’s why the angels don’t appear to emperors, but to outcast shepherds and weird foreigners.  Why the birth happens not in a palace, but in a stable.  Why the story keeps nudging our attention away from status, success and power — and back towards kindness, service, generosity, and care for the vulnerable.

Which is also why it feels so natural that this service is shared with Havant Rotary.  “Service above self” is not just a neat slogan with good alliteration.  It’s a Christmas principle.  It’s written into the story itself.  It’s the God who appears not to be served, but to serve.  It’s the story of quiet, persistent people who don’t seek the spotlight, but simply notice where help is needed — and step forward.  Just as Rotary does: with every penny raised, every shoebox filled, every food parcel delivered, every local family supported this Christmas.

Rotary — and charities like the Rowans, for whom we will raise funds tonight — remind us that Christmas charity is never about obligation, or ticking a seasonal box.  It’s about recognising that the world doesn’t magically pause its pain just because we’ve put tinsel on it.  Loneliness doesn’t take a holiday.  Illness doesn’t reschedule itself.  Poverty doesn’t suddenly find money for turkeys and presents.  Grief doesn’t politely wait until January.

The Christmas story shows us what it looks like for love to enter in — not just into our homes and hearts, but into the wider world: into our communities, and yes (let me say this gently, with professional politicians sitting in front of me) into our politics too.

Politics, at its best, is about the life of the people — the polis — it’s the shared work of shaping how we live together.  So what might that look like when it is infused with the Christmas message of love and service?

Love-filled politics doesn’t mean everyone suddenly agrees — that would be a Christmas miracle of quite a different order.  It doesn’t mean difficult decisions disappear, or budgets magically balance themselves.  Real love isn’t soft-headed or naïve.  But it does invite us to change the tone of the debate.

¾   It means refusing to treat opponents as enemies, but rather as people like us, living by the light they have received so far.

¾   It means speaking truth — always truth — without spin or convenient half-truths.

¾   It means remembering that behind every statistic is a human being, with a name, a story, a family, and fears very similar to our own.

¾   It means asking not only “is this popular?” or “is this efficient?” — both good questions in a democracy — but also “who might this hurt?” and “who might this help?”

¾   It means choosing listening over shouting, restraint over outrage, service over self-interest.

In other words, it looks rather a lot like the values we celebrate at Christmas.  So tonight, whether you came for the carols, the candles, the singing of our fabulous choirs, or simply because it’s what Havant does on this night of the year — I hope you take this with you:  Christmas is not about escaping the mess of the world.  It’s about discovering that love chooses to enter it.

And if that is true, then peace on earth doesn’t end with angel voices in the sky.  It continues — and must continue — with us.  Here in Havant.  Today, and every day.  Amen.

In search of wisdom

Epiphany 2025 

I suppose that many of us will have been on journeys over the last couple of weeks. Some of us have braved wind and rain to visit family and friends in far-flung corners of the British Isles. But I bet none of us had journeys which were as arduous as those of the Wise Men to Bethlehem.  They would have crossed blazing deserts, and freezing mountain passes.  They would have had to wash in streams, and to eat food gathered or trapped along the way.  Their journey was remarkable.

We don't know much about the Wise Men. The Bible calls them 'Magi', from which we get our word 'magician' - but that's not the full meaning of the word. The Magi were, as far as we can tell, learned men from another culture. They studied the stars, and no doubt studied the ancient texts of many religions too. They put that knowledge together came to the startling conclusion that a new King of the Jews was being born.

Actually, they were wrong.  Jesus never was the King of Jews in any earthly sense...despite the ironic poster that Pontius Pilate had nailed over his Cross.  In fact, according to John's Gospel, when Pilate asked him point blank whether he was the King of the Jews, Jesus replied "My Kingdom is not of this world".  No, the Magi were wrong.  The stars were not predicting the birth of the King of the Jews.

Another accident of the Magi was in their timing. According to Matthew’s account, they actually arrived something like two years late. (Matthew notes that Herod enquired of the wise men when they had seen the Star appear, and based on that information he slaughters all the boys in Bethlehem who are under two years old. )

So, the Magi were perhaps not all that wise. They failed to correctly predict the timing of the birth of a new King of the Jews - and they were two years adrift even of Jesus birth.  Wise men?  Perhaps not.

So, to those who say that our future can be read in the stars, there is a warning here. The stars do not foretell our future, any more than they did for the Magi. We would be wise not to place our future in the hands of star-gazers too.

And yet...and yet...  The Magi embarked on a journey of faith. They thought they knew where that journey would lead. They assumed it would lead them to a royal palace in Jerusalem.  But God has a way of using the journeys we plan for ourselves, and turning them into something much different, much more profound. Instead of a new prince in a royal cot, the Magi's journey led them, mysteriously, to an unremarkable house in a rural back-water...and to a baby who had been born in a food trough.

And it was when they got there, that the Magi could truly be described as wise men. Recognising Jesus for who he was, much more than an earthly King of the Jews, they knelt in homage to him. When they met him, Jesus was nothing like they expected.

And that’s because, in Jesus-of-the-stable, God was declaring a new way of living, and a new way of thinking. Human beings had tended to think of the Universe as a ‘top-down’ place – with God in heaven, dispensing rules and justice from the sky.  But that was a mistake.  Through Jesus, especially the Jesus revealed at the Epiphany, God was re-forming our picture of where God is.  Not in the sky, looking down…but here among us, one of us, part of us.  No longer the ‘top-down’ God of our ancestors; this is the ‘bottom-up’ God.  The Kingdom of God is an upside-down place – where the humble are blessed, and the mighty are brought low – as Mary foresaw in the Magnificat.  It is the Kingdom in which by losing, we win; and by giving, we receive.

But we still fail to recognise this, don’t we?  Even Christians are duped by the promises of power or celebrity.  We find ourselves ‘looking upward’ in hope towards political agendas, or individual politicians.  We trust that the powerful of our nation know what they are doing – when in reality they are just as confused as the rest of us…stumbling in the darkness.  Or we look upward to celebrities, modelling our life-choices, our fashions, our financial decisions on theirs.  But we find no peace there either.  Or we look to great church leaders, great Bishops, prominent Christian writers - or even our parish priests - to save us.  But Father does not always know best – and we church leaders have feet of clay too. 

The ‘bottom-up’ Kingdom of Epiphany teaches us to look for God in the simple and earthy things of life.  The Sky-God is silent – and looking upwards to such a God, or to other powerful beings – will not help us to find ‘him’.  As Moses discovered in front of the burning bush, it is the ground which is holy, not the sky.

When we look for God in a stable, we find ‘him’ in the love of his parents, and the care of a community of Shepherds and Wise Men.  God is found in the love between neighbours and friends.  God is found in the simple sharing of a meal.  ‘He’ is found in the bread and wine of the Eucharist.  ‘He’ is found in a simple act of charity.

The Wise Men had the wisdom to recognise him, and to worship him, in the dirt and squalor of a back-water town. Their pre-conceptions of palaces and earthly royalty fell away; and the new reality of Jesus took their place.

You see, really wise men and women are open to what the Journey will bring. Wise men and women embrace the possibilities for change and growth that arise whenever we put our journey in the hands of God.

I wonder what our journey this year will be like - our journey with God both as individuals, and as a parish.  If we are able to listen to God’s voice, in the middle of peace and prosperity, as well as chaos and darkness, we will find God speaking into our situation.  There is always something to be learned, always some new spiritual growth to take place even...perhaps especially...in the darkest times.

So, my encouragement to you this Epiphany is to be open to the journey.  Make a new year’s resolution, right here, right now, that you will be more alert, more open to what God is doing in your life as a person, and in your life as a church.    Make a pact with God that you will listen to God with greater attentiveness, searching the scriptures, worshipping, giving, and receiving what God has to give you.  If God can lead a bunch of mystics across deserts and mountains to a new Epiphany at the manger, then God can do the same for us.  Amen.

A Christmas Sermon - for Carol Services

Christmas Morning

What is it, I wonder, that captures us about the Christmas story?  It’s a story that never fails to warm our hearts, or make is tingle with excitement.    I think that’s because, like all great stories, this one has so many brilliant elements to it. 

First it’s a story with a journey at its heart.  There’s a journey from Nazareth, to Bethlehem and then on to Egypt and back again.  Everyone loves a road movie – from the Wizard of Oz to Thelma and Louise, we all recognise, deep down, that road movies are analogies of our own lives…with all their joy and pain.

Secondly, this is a story full of juicy scandal!  From Eastenders to tabloid newspapers, we all like a bit of juicy scandal.  In this case, it’s the scandal of a child born out of wedlock.  Much more horrifying, though, is the scandal of King Herod, who put the children of Bethlehem to death for fear of losing his throne.  This is a scandal about power.  And we recognise it, don’t we?  From scandals in Parliament, to the outrage of ISIS, or the fictional horror of Darth Vader and the Death Star, we recognise the real horror of people who try to dominate others through violence.

Then, thirdly, this is a story full of magic and mystery.  Everyone who has ever enjoyed a fairy-tale or a Harry Potter movie instinctively picks up on those mysterious Wise Men of the East who follow a star.  And of course, let’s not forget the Angels – mysterious beings whom we barely understand, suddenly appearing and proclaiming peace on earth.

Fourthly, there are the animals.  Sheep on the hillsides, cattle lowing in the stable, a donkey faithfully carrying Mary.   Anyone who thinks that human beings don’t like animal stories should check out the number of cat videos on Youtube!  We are all suckers for a baby lamb, or a gently moo-ing cow in a barn.  It brings out the ‘Aaah’ factor in us!

It’s a story rich with characters, too.  There’s the faithful Joseph, who stands by his fiancée even though he must have had great doubts about her story.  There’s Mary herself, forcing us all to wonder whether we could have had her faith to press on.  Or rushing along the road to Bethlehem, trying to get there in time for the birth of her son…just as we rush around , preparing for the same event.  There’s those rough shepherds, men of the hillsides, outsiders who are yet welcomed into the heart of the story.  There are those mysterious wise men; and the fictional inn-keeper, never specifically mentioned in the Gospels, who yet causes us all to wonder how we would respond to a stranger asking us for sanctuary. 

Perhaps we all love this story so much because we recognise ourselves in it.  We know that we are all capable of Mary and Joseph’s faith, or the Shepherds’ wonder.  We recognise that we are capable of being intelligent and thoughtful Wise Men and women.  We also know, when we admit it to ourselves, that we, like Herod, are capable of abusing our power – the power we hold over our families or our work colleagues.  Or, we recognise that we are the victims of such power, if others dominate us.  We also recognise that there are times when we fail to act with the generosity of Joseph or the Inn-keeper.  We know that we need help to be as faithful as Mary, or as brave as the Wise Men as they set out on their quest.

Ultimately, we all know that we can only journey so far through life on our own resources.  We recognise our own weakness in the babe of Bethlehem.  If we are honest with ourselves, we know that we need the help of others – just as he did at that time of his life.  We cannot live in isolation.  We cannot do this thing called life, alone.

Ultimately, this is a story about a god who saw the plight and the drama of human life, and who chose not to remain aloof.  This is not a god who sits on a cloud, demanding worship and dispensing favours in return for the right prayers.  This is a god who decides to engage with all the mess and muddle of human life.  He comes among us as that most fragile form of human life, a baby, utterly dependent on those around him, to show us that this is how we should live too.  We cannot live a life apart.  We need those around us, in our families, in our churches, as much as God needed Mary to bring him to earth.  We need others just as Jesus needed Joseph and the Shepherds, and the Wise Men and even the fictional inn-keeper to welcome him and warm him.

This is our God who dispenses not condemnation on our messed-up human world, but mercy and grace.  He enters into the human condition – he refuses to sit apart from it.  And by his life, his teaching, and then his death and resurrection he offers us a way out, he rescues us, he redeems us – from our solitary, fearful, chaotic lives – from what the old-timers called ‘sin’.   God enters our existence, as a Word – a word of hope, and a word of challenge…and he shines a light into humanity’s darkness.

Sadly, all too often, we are blind to the Light that he shines, and deaf to the Word that he speaks.  That’s why the third verse of It Came Upon A Midnight Clear is so powerful:

"Yet with the woes of sin and strife the world has suffered long;

beneath the angel-strain have rolled two thousand years of wrong.

And man, at war with man hears not the love-song which they bring

O hush the noise!  ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing!"

My prayer for all of us is that this Christmas we will hear anew the power of the Christmas story.  May we open our eyes to the Light of Christ, and our ears to the Word who is God.  May we begin to recognise that the Christmas story is also our story – that it contains within it all the challenge we require to turn from our sometimes solitary, often fearful, chaotic, consumerist, self-focused lives – and to turn towards the Babe of Bethlehem, asking him – no, begging him -  to save us from ourselves.

Amen