First preached as a sermon at Midnight Mass at Croydon Minster, Christmas 2018. Luke 1.1-20.
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“The
shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem to see this thing
that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us!’”
So
where is Bethlehem? And how do we get there?
As is
pretty well known, Bethlehem is a town located in the central West Bank just
over the border from Israel in the Palestinian Authority. You may need your Satnav
to know that’s it’s just over 6 miles south of Jerusalem.
And how
do we get there?
Mary and Joseph got
to Bethlehem travelling from Nazareth, some 100 miles to the north. There
because of the census being taken, with Mary about to go into labour, and
finding no room or shelter, except a place for animals to feed in.
The shepherds got
there from the fields somewhere in the region around Bethlehem, called by the
angels.
Later
on Magi from the East, probably some
700 miles away if they were coming from modern Iraq, as we might imagine; they
were led by a star.
Well,
unlike Mary and Joseph, unlike the shepherds, unlike the Magi, we’re not going
to get to the real Bethlehem tonight. And even if we drove down the M23 to
Gatwick, flew into Jerusalem and got a taxi to Bethlehem we would find it hard
to get into the City of David because of the security wall that separates it
from Israel: a sign that humanity has not yet accepted the angels’ proclamation
of the birth of the Prince of Peace.
That’s
not our journey tonight. Tonight we make a different sort of journey
altogether, what might be better called a pilgrimage. It’s a journey you began
as you left your house this evening.
Our
journey, our pilgrimage tonight is, like all good pilgrimages, both physical
and spiritual and its destination is to a place of encounter where we may meet
the Living God.
The
heart of the Christmas proclamation is that in Jesus Christ we meet both true
God and true human being, the fullness of God the fullness of humanity: Son of
God, son of Mary.
We
will say in the creed shortly, ‘For us and for our salvation he came down from
heaven, was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and was made
man’.
These
are words so profound and at the heart of things that ancient practice is to
bow or bend the knee when speaking them, such is their weight.
Jesus
Christ, born in Bethlehem, is not simply a great teacher or a prophet from a
distant era, but is God: yesterday, today and for ever.
So we
make our pilgrimage to Bethlehem in the company Mary and Joseph, shepherds,
Magi and countless pilgrims over the ages: but we’re not on the next El Al
flight, rather, we are here in the ancient heart of Croydon.
Croydon?
Bethlehem? Where would you rather be?
Before
you answer, there is another thing worth knowing about Bethlehem. The name of
the town literally means ‘House of Bread’. Bethlehem is the House of Bread.
Every
church is a House of Bread, because its heart is the celebration of the Mass,
in which bread is offered, broken and shared. Here in Croydon is the House of
the Bread of Heaven, Jesus Christ.
“The
shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem to see this thing
that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us!’”
We
might say to one another, ‘Let us go to the House of Bread to see this thing
that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us’.
We’re
here tonight, not summonsed by a census and quite possibly not even by a choir
of angels, yet something has called you and me this House of Bread, this
Bethlehem, as pilgrims to encounter the Living God.
This
bread is for life, not just for Christmas!
May we
always be eager like the shepherds, preserving like the Magi, devoted like
Joseph and Mary in our pursuit of an encounter with Jesus Christ the Bread of
Life, born in Bethlehem, the House of Bread.
Tonight,
draw near, dear fellow pilgrims, in this House of Bread receive, in Holy
Communion, the Bread of Heaven.
In
that way we will all have travelled to Bethlehem, like shepherds and Magi who
have gone before us, with countless faithful souls through the ages, let us
fall down at the feet of Jesus Christ, the bread of Life the beginning and the
end of our journey.
Amen.
©
Andrew Bishop, 2018
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