ANOTHER YEAR OF GOD'S GRACE Jeremiah 31:31-34, Romans 12:1-2 Mark 1: 4-11 January 8th 2006


An American Indian story is told about a young man who found an eagle’s egg and put it into the nest of a prairies chicken. When the baby eagle hatched, it grew up with the prairie chicken, did as they did and thought itself to be a prairie chicken. Like them, it scratched the dirt for insects and seeds to eat. As for flying, like the prairie chicken, it flew but a few feet above the ground, thrashing its wings to do so. The years past and the eagle grew old. One day it saw a magnificent bird high above in the cloudless sky, soaring gracefully on its strong golden wings. “What a beautiful bird!” exclaimed the eagle to its neighbour. “That’s an eagle, the greatest of all birds” replied the neighbour. “But don’t get any ideas. You could never be like him.” And so the poor old eagle never gave it a second thought and eventually died think that it was a prairie chicken.

In a real way, our Covenant Service is about living as what we are, the precious children of God. Too often we think of this service as the service in which we commit ourselves to a form of spiritual masochism. We think of the traditional language form of “Put me to Suffering” and we are automatically put off. And yet the way we understand those words is what is so often missing the point. I have no love of suffering. It is something in our world that I find it hard to come to terms with. When I was on the Isle of Man, for three years in a row I found myself having to address those word at this service. You see, during my second year, we had lost our youngest member, a beautiful talented young wife to cancer, and at this service, her mother would always be present.

What the Covenant Service is really about is a response to a God whose love knows no bounds. That God has taken the initiative of making us his people to live in harmony with him as we were reminded by our reading from the Book of Jeremiah. This God transforms how we see things, renewing our very minds. What brings us here today is an understanding that even if most of the world might seem to be against us, God is still for us. Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than in Jesus sharing with those whom John the Baptist has called “vipers” in undergoing a baptism that he had no need of and which was based on a wrong idea by John as to the nature of the forthcoming Messiah.

It is against this background that terms such as “suffer” should be understood. Our Worship Book puts it well when it says;

“These words do not mean that we ask God to make us suffer, but that we desire, by God’s help, actively to do or patiently to accept whatever is God’s will for us.”

And so in a sense, what the Covenant Service is about, is a gratitude for God’s kindnesses in the past that elicits a desire to live for God in the present and the future, a desire given meaning by the ongoing Grace of God to help us even when things seem to be at their darkest. This echoes the Beautitudes of the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus reminds us that we are blessed by the presence of God in the worst of situations as much as in the best. It is this Grace which bring life, hope and love even when we are in the darkest of valleys.

This morning we affirm that God is worthy of our service. We trust in God to help us in our callings. And then we go out rejoicing that unlike that eagle we can live as what we truly are, the precious, valued children of God.


This sermon was preached at the Covenant Service at Bideford Methodist Church on January 8th 2006

BEGINNINGS Genesis 1: 1-5 Mark 1: 4-11 January 8th 2006

A complaint of many a reader of the novelist Thomas Hardy, is that the beginnings of his novels seem to be of interminable length. The reader turns page after page just longing to get to the real action of the story. And yet, to miss those early pages, leaves the reader unable to fully appreciate what is to follow. Beginnings are important when it comes to understanding what is to follow.

Today we often ask the questions - Why are we what we are? How did we get to this place? Some years ago, Alex Hailey’s epic “Roots” became a best seller and in the past year we have had, and are apparently programmed to have in the coming year, programmes in which celebrities are enabled to discover something of their own family history, something you may find just a little more edifying than “Celebrity Big Brother.”

Beginnings are at the heart of today’s Bible readings. From Genesis, we have heard the beginnings of the first of the Biblical Creation stories. It is a story of God bringing order and light out of chaos and darkness. Now it is a story whose form is poetical to bring out great truths. Nowadays, there is some debate about these scriptures. Often Scripture and Science have been pitted against each other as if in some ‘to the death struggle.’ It is a conflict that has done Christianity little good at all.

I think we do much better to follow the example of the past where rather than divorce faith from science, many Christians were particularly involved in scientific discovery. Certainly today, science is revealing more and more about the wonders of both this planet and the cosmos to which it belongs. A best selling book at the moment which addresses such matters in an accessible manner is Bill Bryons’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything.” It is a book which tells the story of human understanding developing as to the story of our world and humanity. More importantly, it excites in the reader a sense of wonder that the writers of Genesis could have empathised with. For can we but be amazed that this planet should have the right delicate balance of co ordinates to support life when so many other solar systems and planets seem unable to do so.

It is a perfectly natural human impulse to ask the question as to how this world came to be what it is and how at a certain points humanity has emerged. Ultimately science will go on searching for answers to such questions and we can enjoy learning of the discoveries.

But that is not the task that the ancient writers of Genesis set themselves. They did not write a scientific manual But that does not mean that they did not offer an equally if not more important truth to us. The truth that they offer is the profound truth that in the processes of creation, God is found to be present, working in love. So God is discerned as the author of the physical world of creation, the One without whom nothing would be. And because Creation continues today, God’s spirit continues to move as in Genesis. For God cannot be seen as having set in the world into being, just to wander off . No! The God revealed by the writers of Genesis is very much with us today.


But of course, God is most specially revealed to us in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Mark’s Gospel from which we have heard today, has no Nativity to tell us of. Instead, its account of the story of Jesus begins with Jesus as a man. John the Baptist has led a religious revival movement down by the River Jordan. Peoples’ lives have been changed by what they have heard and witnessed and the sign of that change has been baptism. John has spoken of a great one who is to come. Now this does not mean that John understood the way of Jesus. We know that later as a prisoner he had his uncertainties. Probably, he shared the violent expectations of his day concerning the notion of the Messiah who was expected to be a figure of power who would overthrow the power of Rome. How different was to be the way of Jesus!

Jesus, indeed, shows us a very different way. As we discover in one of the early hymns of the church which is echoed in the Letter to the Philippians, the path taken by Jesus is the path of humility, powerlessness and self giving. And yet, it is this path that undoes the demonic powers of darkness and violence and reveals the truth even to a Roman man of violence who having done his worst gazes at the cross and says, “Surely, this man was God‘s Son.”

And here in our Gospel reading, despite the chasm between his view of Messiahship and that of John, Jesus submits to that baptism. What does this mean? Well, I think part of the message is that Jesus does not stand against us even when our ideas and religion are perverted. Jesus does not stand against people but instead he stands alongside us. He reveals God to be “for us” and this is endorsed by the Divine voice at the moment of his baptism. And as such, he challenges the curse of religion that is based on fear, for as David Jenkins, the former Bishop of Durham puts it;

“God is. He is as he is in Jesus. Therefore, there is hope.”

And so, our readings have told us something about beginnings. God is intricately involved in the beginnings of our world and continues to be so involved. Jesus, in the beginnings, told to us by Mark is revealed to be One who is for us and with us. But what of us? At our stage of life, can there be new beginnings for us?

On December 12th, a prisoner gave an interview to a journalist. He protested his innocence of the crime concerning which he had been questionably convicted but admitted that he had been a “wretched person.” He went on to say that “redemption is tailor-made for the wretched.” As to his legacy, he expressed a desire to be “remembered as a redemptive transition, something that I believe is not exclusive just for the so-called sanctimonious, the elitists” but that which is “accessible for everybody.” Hours after that interview, Stanley Tookie Williams, co- founder of the Cripps gang turned campaigner against gang violence, was killed in a botched execution that took nearly half an hour.

The Governor of California who authorised the execution, disputed William’s claims to be a changed person. Read about the case if you wish and decide who you think was right! But changed man or not, the words of Tookie Williams concerning redemption ring true. For in his baptism, Jesus voluntarily identifies with those whom John the Baptist has derided as a “brood of vipers” and soon the religious establishment will accuse him of being a “friend of sinners.” Later he will even tell a condemned man hanging next him on a cross, that that same day they will be together in paradise. It is a Charles Wesley put it in one of his hymn;

“The vilest offender who truly believes,
That moment from Jesus, a pardon receives.”

And that is what Grace is all about.

So God is present at the beginning of all things and in all that follows. In Christ’s beginning of his ministry, God’s love is revealed to each of us. And finally in Grace, the offering of new beginnings to each of us when we mess up, is made. And surely such a beginning is sorely needed in our world, that instead of being filled with hatred, prejudice and violence, instead, the songs of grace might fill the world.

And so back to Thomas Hardy and another of those beginnings that seems to last an eternity.

This sermon was preached at Torrington Methodist Church on January 8th 2006

NIGHT OF WONDER Luke 2: 1=15 A Christmas Eve Meditation - December 24th 2005

The stories of Narnia told by C.S. Lewis are this Christmas very much in the hearts and minds of many people with the recent release of the film, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” Lewis paints a bleak picture of Narnia as it is under the power of the witch. It is the place where there is “Winter but no Christmas.” It is a place in need of hope.

Hope lies at the centre of the Christmas story. A people have travelled with God. Their journey has at times been difficult. Disunity, despair, destruction and exile - they know all these things. Yet they have glimpsed the dawn of a great hope, a hope that the Gospel writers saw as being fulfilled in the coming of Jesus.

In this Holy Night we look to the fulfilment of the hopes of the years. An ordinary night, in a small town far from Rome, amongst ordinary people and ordinary happenings, God breaks into our world, unnoticed by nearly all. And yet that night, we recall, is the greatest, most significant moment in the history of our world. As U.A Fanthorpe, the first woman to be Professor of Poetry at Oxford University puts it;

This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future’s
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.
This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.
This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.
And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the Kingdom of heaven.

I don’t know about you but that poem blows me away. On a night such as this, those farm workers and members of an obscure Persian sect walking haphazard by starlight straight into the Kingdom of heaven. What a night it must have been!

And it’s that night which changed the world, that draws us here at this late hour. Why do we come here? In a real sense we come to stand in the space between history and the future. That night is a night that changes everything. It is a night which affirms that brutishness and violence need not have the final say for this is the night in which God’s love is unleashed in the person of Jesus. In our world that is armed to its very teeth, God unleashes a liberator in the form of what Jurgen Moltmann describes as “a pleading child.” This doesn’t mean that darkness is yet at an end. Our experience of life tells us that this is not so. In a real sense the work that began in a stable in Bethlehem is not complete but through Jesus Christ, light is a reality in the world as much as darkness and it is a light that darkness can not put out. And just as Christmas is a fulfilment of the hopes of the years, so to we can as Advent has reminded us, look to a future in which God’s will that is the will of mercy and peace, is done on earth as well as in heaven.

And so on this night, we welcome Jesus as God’s perfect gift. You know, our Christmases today owe so much to Charles Dickens and his “Christmas Carol.” It’s a book which I love and yet it merits a cautionary note. Dickens tells us of the transformation of Ebeneezer Scrooge from a tight fisted mean spirited man to being a model of generosity. The message is that we like Scrooge can become generous people. We can be givers. We can feel good about ourselves. But that is not the story we find in Luke’s Gospel. For Luke’s message is that we are needy people who need God to do for us what we are incapable of doing for ourselves. And that God does in giving us a gift beyond anything we could imagine or expect, the gift of himself in Christ Jesus.

But whilst recognising that our relationship with God is based on God’s loving initiative, it does of course call for us to identify with what God is doing. Rowan Williams in his Christmas message to the Anglican Communion puts it well when he suggests that if Christians wish to be a part of the solution to the problems of our world, then as we look to the vulnerability of the baby of Bethlehem, we “must be wholly and unconditionally pledged to that love with all its costs.”

Tonight, we look to the heavens and like others across the globe and like others from whom we are divided by time, we are filled with the wonder of God’s grace revealed in that Holiest of Nights. In wonder we approach the mystery of grace which is the only yet supremely valuable thing we have to share with our world. For this is the night when our world is invaded by hope, joy, love and mercy. This is the night above all night, the night in which our world so often ruled by force is confronted with the wonder of the grace of God. This is the night in which winter is invaded by Christmas.

Welcome! All Wonders in one sight!
Eternity shut in a span.
Summer in winter, day in night,
Heaven in earth, and God in human.
Great little one! Whose all-embracing birth
Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heav’n to earth!


This sermon was preached at Christmas Eve Midnight Communion on December 24th 2005.

HE COMES A Sermon for Carol Service at Bideford December 18th 2005

And so he comes;

To world of conflict, to a town with the soldiers of the world’s one Super Power, Rome, fiercely guarding the streets, a world with Zealot firebrands looking for the opportunity to strike against Rome’s soldiers.

Still he comes to a world beset by conflict, a world of terror, a world in which the resources spent on armaments dwarf the expenditure on health and education leaving many deprived of basic education and the treatment their diseases require.

To this world he comes, the Prince of Peace, accompanied by the song of peace that the angels sing.


And so he comes;

To a world of rigid rules, a world in which to transgress carries real consequences, a world in which male priests carry great power to shame those they deem to have transgressed.

Still he comes to our world, a world in which private shame is tabloid delight, a world in which people are frozen so often in their worst moment and denied the possibility of moving on and growing.

To this world he comes with a birth tainted in scandal, a scandal which had the capacity to lead to his mother’s ostracism or even stoning. He comes to face the painful reality that is shame.


And so he comes;

To a world in which Herod can build a luxury palace and a magnificent temple yet many are left with little space of their own for these are not the people who matter.

Still he comes to a world, our world in which over 100,000 households live in temporary accommodation in Britain with nearly a million children living in overcrowded conditions.

To this world he comes to be born not in a royal place but in a stable, the home of animals for as the crowds converge on Bethlehem, there is no room at the inn for a pregnant woman.


And so he comes;

To a world of strict social orders where classes are aware of their place, a world in which the people who are other, gentiles, are kept at a distance.

Still he comes to a world in which we are easily wary of those who are other than we are, a world in which we have our preconceptions of who is and who is not respectable.

To this world he comes, a King to be greeted by lowly and often despised shepherds, a child of Israel to be welcomed by people from a distant land who faith is very much other than the faith of Israel.


And so he comes;

To a world of cruelty where human rights do not exist, a world where a King’s arbitrary power is law, a world where those fall foul of the throne must flee if they are to live.

Still he comes to a world in which even the nations that wrote the rules of human rights now begin to talk the language of when torture , ’even if they do not dare use that odious word, might be permitted, a world in which those who flee tyranny face vilification in their hoped for places of safety and even the threat of their children being taken from them into care.

To this world he comes as one hunted by that King remembered as Herod the Great, forced into exile as an infant into a strange land, the only place of safety.


The coming of Christ is a coming that in all its details is other than might be deemed appropriate. It is a coming that is far from our Christmas card’s idyllic impressions. It is a coming that gives value to unexpected people and challenges us and the society to which we belong as to our values. And if we see in Christmas, a Divine NO to much of how we live and our world operates, we might be close to the real Christmas message. But in all of this, Christmas does not merely challenge and transform our visions. For Advent reminds us, the Jesus who came as a baby in Bethlehem will one day come in glory as our judge. He is the one who comes in judgement over all things. He is the one to whom all our malevolent values and powers will have to answer.

But there is also a message of YES. Years ago, for a time I attended an independent church. I still recall the Christmas where it seemed as ‘though the most important message was whether we should sign our cards ‘Christmas’ or ‘Xmas.’ Xmas, you may imagine was out of favour. A load of stuff and nonsense if you ask me!

For with a little imagination, you can see the X of Xmas as a kiss. And what better way of picturing Christmas than being a kiss to us from God. Think back to the angel who tells an anxious Joseph, “ You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

The birth of Jesus, tells us that God is committed to humanity in fall awareness of our shortcomings. God gives himself in Christ, the incarnate one, God made flesh. In Christ, we find that God is no distant entity but One who is with us, our Emmanuel, God with us.

In Christmas, we dance for joy at the unstoppable love of God. We find we are valued. We rejoice. But then Christmas calls us to enter into the story and aided by the Spirit whom Jesus gives to us, to be about the real work of Christmas, that is creating the signs of God’s Kingdom where all find a value and a fellowship, and in which the pernicious wrongs of this world that masquerade as wisdom, are brought to their very knees.

This Sermon was preached at the Annual Carol Service at Bideford Methodist Church on December 18th 2005.

WELCOMING THE LIGHT John 1: 6-8, 19-28 Sunday December 11th 2005

This morning I attended a Nativity at Alwington. It was extremely well done and brought us very much into the story of the coming of Jesus into the world.

And yet today our lectionary Gospel reading seems far removed from the stable at Bethlehem. For John like Mark has no nativity to share with us. For them the figure of John the Baptist is a powerful figure leading us into a meeting with an already grown up Jesus. John presents Jesus as the one who brings light into the world. In a real sense this is important to us for our Christmas comes at dark time of the year, just a few days after the darkest day of the year. That is why the early Church followed the practice of Judaism which celebrates its Festival of Lights, Hanukah in the darkness of December. For candles in the darkness present a powerful visual message that God coming into our world is a an act of bringing light into the darkest of situation, light which darkness can never put out.

Sometimes, I feel that our Christmas cards carry a sanitised message about the coming of Jesus. Too often, they like us look for the idyllic and try to forget harsh realities. Yet the harsh realities of military occupation and the misuse of power are very much to be seen if we look at the nativity accounts of Matthew and Luke. It is truly for a world of often harsh pain and anger that Jesus comes to offer light and a different way of being. Were it not so, Christmas would only be of value to those few people whose lives are untroubled. And yet it is in our darkest moments that we most need to encounter hope.

One of the great Saints of Judaism in recent years was Rabbi Hugo Grynn. He recounts the story of the time he spent in Auschwitz. There, they tried to hold on to their faith as best they could. On one occasion on the first night of Hanukah, the family were horrified to see Hugo’s father take the family’s last pund of butter to make a candle using a string from his ragged clothes. As his father took a match and lit the candle, Hugo cried out, “Father, no! That butter is our last bit of food. How shall we live?” His father replied, “ We can live for many days without food! We cannot live for a single minute without hope. This is the fire of hope. Never let it go out. Not here. Not anywhere.”

I wonder if we today cherish sufficiently the hope that comes from the Light. Are we in danger of letting other things cause us to neglect the light that brings the hope which we need to truly live. And yet it is when hope seems to be least explicable that we need to keep it alive.

There is a story of the German Kaiser’s forces burning Jewish villages in what is now Poland. The day after one such village had been devastated, an elderly Jewish man appeared, pounded a few boards together, made a stall an opened up for business. A young passer by stared at the stall and asked the old man, “What are you selling among these ruins?” the old man smiled and replied, “I am selling hope. You can sell water on a dry desert so the place to sell hope is on the ash heap of destruction.”

And that lies at the heart of John’s message. Christ has come to the darkest of dark places and offers the hope that only the Light can bring. When in his conversation with the priests he echoes words from Isaiah recorded at a time when hopes were rising that half a century of exile were coming to an end, John is seeing Christ as the one who offers a new beginning, a beginning to be lived in the very presence of God.

And that new beginning is one that draw us in. We are called to follow John’s example and to point to the Light that offers new beginnings a new hope. When the world goes the way of violence and destruction, followers of the Light are called to be sign of a better direction. During the past week there has been much in the media about torture allegations. Some may find pragmatic reasons for some of the practices which have been in the news but they can never be reconcilable with God’s better way, the way to which we owe our supreme loyalty. I have found myself revisiting the story the fourth century clash between Ambrose, Bishop of Milan and the Emperor Theodosius. Theodosius had just been responsible for the massacre of 7,000 people at Thessolonika. When next he appeared at the church where Ambrose ministered, Ambrose refused him entry saying, “You must not be dazzled by the splendour of the purple you wear. How could you lift in prayer hands which are stained with the blood of an unjust massacre? Go away and do not add to your guilt by committing a second crime.”

Light confronting the darkness and in Jesus’ life we will see him being confronted by the worse that darkness can be. Yet, the light that he brings into the world can never be erased and in resurrection, against all worldly wisdom, light is victorious.

And so back to the nativity presentations that are all around us. Many a child will enter fully into their role whilst we watch on. But where are we in all of this? The question put to John is one that we have to face also. Who are you? Well, I suggest that like John the Baptist you as God’s valued children are called to bear witness to the Light which is God’s love in the world. And so as we approach Christmas, we are called from our seats as observers on to the stage to the presentation of God’s love shining into the world. For now we have the Gospel Starring You!

This sermon was preached at Appledore on Sunday December 11th 2005

SINGING THROUGH CHRISTMAS : Isaiah 11: 1-10 Luke 1: 46-55 Sunday December 4th 2005

Everywhere I go at the moment I seem to be hearing Christmas music. Atlantic Village seems to be permanently playing seasonal music. But I wonder what is your image of Christmas music.

For some it might conjure up images of the race for the Christmas Number 1 record. Some years to describe the Christmas Number 1 as music might seem a tad optimistic. I think back into my childhood when a song about a drunkard named ’Lily the Pink ’ topped the Christmas charts. Years later new depths were plunged when Mr Blobby topped the Christmas charts. And if you think that things cannot get any worse, well let me tell you they can. This year, Crazy Frog has a version of Jingle Bells whilst in what must be the most horrific release ever, so to do Barmy Sheep - and YES it really is baaing to Jingle Bells.

But away from the completely ridiculous, Christmas has many songs with a sweet , even sickly sweet air. Think back to Cliff Richard's ‘Mistletoe and Wine’ which conjured up a rather idyllic Dickensian image of Christmas. And then there’s the likes of ’Frosty the Snowman’ or ‘Santa Claus is coming to town.’

And then there’s the songs we sing in church. ‘Away in a Manger’ brings envy from every parent with its non crying baby but in the main the carols we sing are pretty faithful to the gospel narratives. They tell a story with which we are in the main familiar - Mary, Joseph, angels, stables, shepherds and wise men. These songs are often songs of incredible joy that is for today and which takes us back in time. I often think that the enthusiasm that older people have for hearing children sing the likes of ‘Away in a Manger’ is that it takes them back to memories of singing that same song as children. And yet at times, it seems just a little bit safe which may be a part of the charm. And so sometimes we let these songs speak more to our sense of security than to any sense of challenge.

To be fair, Advent carols disturb us more which is probably why there is such a temptation to rush at Michael Schumacher speed into Christmas. Why? Because in the likes of ‘O come, O Come, Emmanuel’ and Come thou long expected Jesus’ is a sense of expectancy that looks to the return of Christ, a return they link with the expectation of a future judgement. Sometimes, we are tempted to restrict their expectancy to the coming of Jesus as a baby but that is untrue to their message as well as to the message of Advent which urges us to be ready to meet with Christ who knocks on the doors of our hearts as well as promising to return to this world.

And of course, there are the special works that are sung in grand performances, works like Handel’s Messiah, which goes back into the hope that begins to dawn on a desperate people in exile as recounted by our reading from Isaiah, a hope that is ultimately fulfilled in Christ to tell the story of God’s involvement in our world on a large canvas.

Through these songs, we seek to engage with Christmas. And in so doing we need to resist the temptation to separate Christmas from the harsh realities of life. Christmas must not be about escapism. A song that illustrates that for me is ‘Silent Night/7 O’Clock News’ which is to be found on Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Tyne’ album. In this song, Simon and Garfunkel begin by singing the ancient carol. But before long, the carol is disturbed with a news bulletin. This bulletin contains stories of prejudice, violence and war. By the end, it is hard to appreciate the carol as the bad news seems to get louder and louder. You get the picture? The niceness is disturbed and yet it goes on. And we need to appreciate that it is for a real world with its array of pains and conflicts that Jesus came 2,000 years ago. Then as now, the world was beset with problems. Contrary to the impression given by some of our Christmas cards, Jesus came into a world as brutish as anything we know today. He came to a land under military occupation from an outside power, a land where terrorism was commonplace, a land full of injustices, particularly against women and the poor. It was not for nothing that John in his prologue spoke of Jesus’ coming as light coming to the places of darkness.

Today, being the second Sunday of Advent is normally the Sunday in which we look to Jesus as the bringer of peace. Sometimes, peace feels as far away as it was to the Old Testament prophets. I have tended to like Thomas Hardy’s ditty;

‘Peace upon earth!’ was said. We sing it,
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We’ve got as far as poison gas.'

And yet others feel that Christmas offers the possibility of Tran formative change to us and to our world. John Lennon made no claim to be a Christian. Indeed his song ‘Imagine’ seems to deny such a faith. And yet, in his classic, ‘Merrry Xmas, War is over’ he seems to stumble upon the power of the Christmas story to bring change. For in this song, amidst the traditional seasonal wishes, there is a refrain that goes;

'War is over if you want it.'

And that fact that there is conflict in so much of the world and that the nations devote more resources to ever more intricate weaponry than to the alleviation of poverty and want in our world, suggests to me that for some perverse reason, our world has failed to truly embrace the message of the angels of peace on earth.

Yet Christmas tells us of a God who is passionately committed to this world, a God who goes to the greatest extremes of self giving to break into this world but who does so not so much by invasion as by drawing people into his works.

And that is where Mary’s Song, the Magnificat comes in. Drawn from Old Testament scriptures, Magnificat speaks of great change. The American evangelist Stanley Jones once described Magnificat as ‘the most revolutionary document on earth.’ To people denied hope, Magnificat brings hope reborn. From our Western comfort we struggle to appreciate just how much this Song means to communities of faith in the shanty towns of for example South America. Nor do we appreciate, the fear with which Magnificat is heard by the tyrannies that degrade and exploit. For Magnificat challenges our perspectives and those that are held often as unchallengeable.

William Barclay in his study Bible talks of Magnificat as being a sign of 3 revolutions of God. The first is the moral revolution in our hearts. For Magnificat ‘scatters the proud in the plans of their hearts.’

The second is the economic revolution. This is rooted in God’s concern for the hungry. Such are to be filled.

The third is the social revolution. For God ‘casts down the mighty’ and ‘exalts the humble.’ No throw away society for God. For God challenges our culture by giving value to those who are seen as least. They are every bit as precious to God as celebrities, academics or even politicians.

A story is told of a wandering scholar named Mauretus who was without material means. He became ill whilst in Italy and was taken to a hospital for waifs and strays. The learned doctors discussed his case in Latin, never dreaming that he could understand what they were saying. As one suggested that such a worthless wonderer might be used for medical experiments, Mauretus looked up and in their learned tongue, reproached them;

'Call no man worthless for whom Christ died.'

And this is the spirit of Mary’s Song, Magnificat.

Well, we’ve travelled quite a way this morning. All I can say is that it is good to enjoy the music of the season. But beware! Look closely at the words of our carols and the songs of the gospels such as Mary’s Song and well, you know, the words might just begin to change us and the world.

So if you want to play safe, stick to Crazy Frog and the Barmy Sheep. But if you want to enter the real purpose of Christmas, look deeply into our carols and look at that which Mary sang!

This sermon was preached at Bideford on Sunday December 4th 2005