It is good to be together at last for this wonderful feast, even if we have experienced a kind of wearying deja vu over the last couple of weeks. Christians are people with a resolute hope, sure and steadfast, because we believe that God is faithful and that God intends good for us. The basis of our hope is Christ, the Son of God, born in the crib in Bethlehem, a helpless babe entirely dependent apart from breathing on the love and protection and nurture of others, who secures the world’s salvation by his Incarnation: which is about the whole of his life birth, death and resurrection. His names are Jesus, meaning ‘the Lord saves’, and Emmanuel, meaning ‘God with us’ – and we know that he will grow in strength and wisdom through all the stages of life, hallowing our humanity, and teaching us the way to God.

This year the Archbishops have chosen for their Christmas message the theme ‘At the heart of Christmas’. In the biblical tradition, the heart is the place where the gift of faith is received. It is not in the mind alone, although the mind plays an important part in faith. We are never to turn our minds off, or to close them, or to believe unthinkingly. But the heart is the place where all our capacities function together: our imagination, our reason, our affections, our will, our capacity to identify with others. The heart – as the summary of the First Commandment makes clear – the heart is the category that contains all the faculties: ‘you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength’ (Deuteronomy 6. 4; cf. Mark 12. 29-31).

This is why in the Bible the opposite of faith is not doubt but hardness of heart. Hard hearts cannot receive faith: how could they, when faith is the gift of the unseen God and a hard heart can barely raise itself even to peep out and see its sister or brother? For a hard heart constricts life and encourages a certain closed meanness. But faith – that wonderful gift – faith enlivens our imagination, broadens our affection, gives resolve to the will, and makes us identify with those in need.

When we gaze on the Christ-child as Mary did, we find our hearts are warmed already for the gift of faith. For who can look on a new-born and not respond with love and wonder at the mystery of life? But the challenge of the Incarnation – of human flesh united to God’s love – is not to stop there. To speak of the heart is not simply to encourage fine feeling. We need to treasure all we hear and to remain with it, to ponder it with all the faculties that comprise the heart. For the Christ-child will grow to become a man. The same child that warms us here this night becomes the man who overturns the tables in the Temple. He is the one who challenges the powers of his age, and of every age. He is the upsetter of the powerful and the advocate of the weak. To stay with Christ is to broaden our hearts beyond what they might feel on their own, beyond what – if we were left to our own devices – they might even imagine.

We need this Christmas to ask for our hearts to be softened. The challenges of the last eighteen months, and the tiredness many feel, are leading in some quarters to hardness of heart. This is particularly evident in our political and parliamentary life where, despite the good offices of many honest parliamentarians and public servants, there is a conspicuous need for integrity and probity to be demonstrated at the highest level. Yes, people are tired – and with prolonged tiredness we are apt to develop a certain defensiveness by raising barriers or constraining the scope of our affection – but let us answer that tiredness with compassion and the imagination born of faith, not with meanness.

If we pray that our hearts may be softened we stand some chance, by God’s good grace, of keeping the second commandment: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ (Mark 12.31). There are many who will need to use foodbanks this Christmas, many who feel their bereavement intensely, many who are worried about their livelihoods and future, many who are despised for fleeing war, or who have left home and family to seek a better, sustainable life elsewhere, some fleeing for their lives and ironically endangering their lives in the risks they are taking. But the Christian faith is clear – the teaching of the Scriptures is clear – God is born in Christ not only for our salvation, or for the salvation of people who look or sound like us, or for people who think like us. God has come near in Christ so that all humankind – all those made in the image of God – may be brought in to the Father’s heart and made whole. God’s heart is broad enough to bring us all in. Cannot our hearts be broadened to include our neighbour?

And so my friends I wish you and those you love a very happy Christmas. We do not know what the coming year will bring but we do know that God is with us, that God intends us good, and that we can trust God’s loving purposes towards us. As you consider the Christ-child this night, know that God is already softening your heart by grace. You would not be here otherwise. Take with you as you leave the echoes of the carols, the words of Scripture, the grace of Holy Communion – and ponder them in your heart. Make that pondering your prayer that God will further broaden your heart, fill your imagination, and strengthen your resolve to do good. My friends, this Christmas I urge you to do everything from the heart: that will be the most wonderful sign of grace and peace and love as we celebrate the love of God coming down at Christmas, the very Word made Flesh.

Image from Bishop Christopher’s Christmas card: mosaic depicting the Nativity in the Crusader Church of St Anne, Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem

A hymn written by The Revd Professor Jean Boyce-Tillman from All Saints, Tooting.

INCARNATION

1.  Do shepherds stand tonight at Tooting Broadway
And are there those among us who can see
Amidst the trade, the traffic and activity
The Christ who comes in deep obscurity?
Do shepherds stand tonight on Tooting Common
And are there those among us who can see
Beneath the pond, the rippling and the gliding swans
The Christ who comes anew in deep obscurity?

2. Do shepherds stand tonight in Springfield hospital
And are there those among us who can see
Amidst the grief, the crying and the harsh despair
The Christ who comes in deep obscurity?
Do shepherds stand tonight in war-torn countries
And are there those among us who can see
Amidst the rage, the wounding and the shattered dreams
The Christ who comes anew in deep obscurity?

3. Do shepherds stand tonight in Brudenell Road
And are there those among us who can see
Amidst the births and deaths in all our living
The Christ who comes in deep obscurity?
Do shepherds stand tonight on All Saints’ tower
And are there those among us who can see
Within the prayers and sharing in communion
The birthing Christ within our own community?

June Boyce-Tillman, August 2021 to the tune Danny Boy (with acknowledgement to the now deceased Rev Norwyn Denny of the Notting Hill Group Ministry)