165 signs of peace, hope and joy pew ed

Signs of Peace, Hope and Joy Canon Graeme Winterton at Holy Trinity Kew - Christmas Day - 2016

THE GOSPEL - John 1: And the Word became Flesh Introduction

1. I remember well Christmas 1989. The bells were ringing in Wenceslas Square!

The people of that good king of whom we sing were free to join with you and me in celebration. Their jubilation was that of a subject people free at last from the oppression and tyranny of a totalitarian regime which denied their basic humanity.

2. Czechoslovakia was joined by other European States and the bells were ringing throughout Eastern Europe from the Baltic to the Black Sea. In this, their joyous celebration of freedom and hope rekindled, the peoples of Central Europe came close to a demonstration of the essential nature of the Christmas message.

The themes of Christmas:-peace , joy, & hope were alive in their minds and hearts.

3. It is a very different story today! 1989 seems such a very long time ago and Europe has learned again, as it has to its cost throughout its history, that peace is a fleeting phantom to be grasped when you may.

At Christmas two significant factors impress themselves upon us: First, the Human Factor and secondly, the Divine Factor

I - THE HUMAN FACTOR 4. The world now is a very dangerous place of international tension, terrorism, warfare, genocide, atrocity, displaced peoples, suffering and despair. We live with the consciousness of factors which threaten existence, and certainly that of our children and their children.

Note again the subjects covered during Advent in the approach to Christmas.

5. Destruction of resources and the environment; the extinction of so many species, the return of nuclear instability. Warfare and famine in the Middle East and North Africa. The mass movement of populations as they seek to escape the horrors of destruction, death and starvation. The worst of it is that these intolerable events are due entirely to the uncaring inhumanity and violence we direct against our fellows.

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We ought not be surprised for the human factor enters history as a catalogue of contrasts, of enigmatic opposites: ● Hope gives way to Despair ●War destroys Peace ● Freedom exchanged for Captivity ● 4. Joy replaced

by Sorrow climaxed by incredible cruelty, stupidity, oppression, exploitation, destruction and evil.

6. Human failure and sin against a Holy God was the constant theme of the prophets. It remains as a fresh and relevant theme today because the human condition has not changed. It is rightly said that nature is red in tooth and claw and we very well may add that the human race in its fallen state crowns the bestiality of nature for our hands are red with the blood of the innocent and righteous; as scripture declares: "the heart is desperately wicked, and black with greed and evil imagining."

II - THE DIVINE FACTOR: Thank God for Christmas - It ushered in the Divine Factor.

7. Hope entered the arena in which the human drama is being played out.

Despite the dominance of evil manifest from the beginning of human history a supernatural element was injected; a new something, an inscrutable provision to meet humanity’s insoluble condition. “God became human in the Middle East on the first Christmas.

8. Jesus Christ entered our world on a raw night in an uncomfortable stable with a transcendental display of divine power. It was not hidden from the world or revealed to a select few, for angels, heaven’s hosts, trumpets, unearthly music, stars and glory announced, To you is born this day -a saviour, messiah, lord, the prince of peace."

The prophets pointed to it for centuries. The shepherds, wise men, ordinary folk like the fishermen, tax collectors, prostitutes, the rich and the poor, the soldiers, statesmen and religious leaders of Palestine were all drawn into this drama and played a part that indelibly marks our history and our lives.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

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St. John informed us that the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind

He was, and remains 'The Light Of The World.' The light leapt the years of quiet gentle obscurity and burned brilliantly through the length and breadth of Palestine for three short years. It would seem to have been extinguished by the twisting grinding boot of Imperial Roman law upon a rough gallows outside the city wall of Jerusalem.

So much for hope, So much for peace.

So much for a new order, and what hope for joy?

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III - A PARADOX 10. We name it ‘Mystery’ A divine mystery is not something hidden; rather it is something revealed. It is from deepest darkness that light appears to be most brilliant. The Christ event shone brilliantly then in the midst of the darkness of human history.

In some inscrutable manner this divine factor enters from without history, from without time and space as we conceive it, and impregnates our experience with the seed of new life. Hope is conceived, peace becomes possible, joy can be experienced!

11. It is this seminal aspect of Christmas that each generation must grasp.

We too must hold firmly. It is the only basis for hope that humanity possesses.

The prophets are right. Our history bears them out. We can only expect destruction from the unleashed unrestrained human spirit.

I V - THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PRESENCE 12. I wonder if we have even begun to grasp the significance of the fusion of the first and second comings of Christ into the one idea of the Advent. It is made real in time by stages. Firstly, in the promises of a First Advent made through Israel’s prophets which culminated in the Nativity on the First Christmas, and secondly, in the promise made by Jesus of a second Advent when the kingdom will be ushered in by his glorified appearing. Only one word is capable of presenting the truth of it - namely ‘Presence’ for it is a timeless word of eternity.

The coming is hope realised. It is of this hope, born within our hearts, that we sing in the words of Charles Wesley’s Christmas carol and will reach its final fulfillment with his Advent carol: “Born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth, hark the herald angels sing, glory to the new born king.” “ Saviour take the power and glory, claim the kingdom for your own; O come quickly, hallelujah! Come, Lord, come.”

Conclusion

13. Wherever people of goodwill, the peace makers of this world are at work­, the presence of Christ may be known for kingdom of God is constantly breaks out in new and unexpected ways.

14. Christmas 1989 saw the veil swept aside in a few moments of history in order that he peoples of Europe and humankind could catch a glimpse of the wonder of the eternal kingdom that first Christmas made possible.

Remember forever, “It is Christ within you who is the hope of Glory.”

It is the hope of the eternal dream fulfilled which we celebrate and renew this Christmas for it gives life its meaning and gives the world a future and a hope.

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