Midnight Mass - 24^th December 2006

Hail, thou ever-blessed morn!
Hail, redemption’s happy dawn!
Sing through all Jerusalem,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.

The obsolete language, the strange vocabulary, the reference to an event long ago and far away – what is it that attracts rational people in the 21st century to stand here and sing these strange words?

In the 2001 census, over three quarters of the population of this country said that they believed in God, and nearly seventy per cent of the population described themselves as Christians of one form or another.  Quite high figures; but then we look at the result of a poll published by The Guardian yesterday.  The headline said that non-believers outnumber believers in Britain by almost two to one; although in fact the question was, ‘Are you religious?’  Which is rather different.  I wonder how many of us would say we were ‘religious’!  The headline also said that 82% of those polled say that religion does more harm than good, which again was bad reporting, as the actual question was ‘Do you think religion causes division between people?’  When asked if religion did more good or harm, 57% said that religion is a force for good – though this is no cause for complacency, if 43% believe religion is harmful.

This isn’t the time or place to go into the facts behind these figures, nor to comment on the reliability of a ‘random’ poll of only 1,000 people; but it’s interesting that the second poll showed that 54% of the Christians questioned said that they intended to go to a religious service over the holiday period, which implies that 46% of Christians don’t go to church at Christmas!  Still, there’s one interesting fact: among the Christians it’s the well-off financially who are more likely to plan to visit a church: 64% of those in the highest economic categories expect to attend, compared with 43% of those in the bottom group.  Good evening, Esher!

Whatever the truth of the different reports, it’s clear we can no longer take religion for granted; we are a post-Christian country with a large multi-faith element.  One of the best-sellers in the bookshops has been Richard Dawkins’s book, The God Delusion.  Richard Dawkins is an eminent scientist in his field of evolutionary biology, as well as being a popular TV scientist.  He’s an evangelistic atheist, by which I mean that he is anxious to establish the respectability of what he believes is the latent atheism of the majority of people in this country.

As The God Delusion, the title of the book, suggests, Dawkins argues that there is no evidence for the existence of God, and that he is a human invention – we are deluding ourselves that there is a God who made us and cares for us because that makes us feel good about life, and death, and about the purpose of the world.  He defines a delusion as ‘the persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence’.

It’s a logical argument, and he’s entitled to believe it.  We do seem to have a need for a being greater than ourselves, and it’s possible that the whole structure of religious belief is made up; it’s logically possible that the disciples were either dishonest or deluded; that Jesus himself was either dishonest or deluded.  You may be familiar with the argument of CS Lewis in his book, The Case against Christianity: Jesus, in claiming that he was the Son of God (unless it was true), must have been either bad or mad; and his character and teaching showed that he was neither.  But he could have been deluded, without being mad.  It’s logically possible that the whole of religion is a man-made construction.  We have to judge on the evidence.

But what Dawkins refuses to accept is that there are limits to the power of logic; just as there are limits to the ability of scientists to tell us the ultimate meaning of life.  Scientists of course are expert in telling us how things work; but they can never tell us why.  They can describe the laws of physics, and chemistry and biology, but they can’t tell us how those laws were made.

Please don’t misunderstand me.  I am not suggesting that religion and science are opposed in any way.  How could they be: the laws the scientists are describing are God’s laws; the process of evolution which the scientists describe does indeed seem to be the way God allowed us to evolve over the course of history.  Neither am I suggesting that the so-called Intelligent Design theory is the bridge between science and religion; Intelligent Design is the product of a particular fundamentalist section of Christianity, which is effectively Creationism in disguise, and has no place in serious discussion.

But there are limits to science, and there is a realm which is beyond the capability of human reasoning, and that realm is the province of religion.  Humanity can never understand and define divinity, or God would be no greater than us, and incapable of having created us.

It’s not possible to prove the existence of God (using human principles); neither is it possible to disprove it.  But there is evidence, most certainly.  And the evidence is, simply, shown in the love of God, spelled out in his commitment to the world of his creation by coming into that world as Jesus.  The event of the birth of Jesus pins together, once and for all, the realm of human understanding and the realm of religion which is all around it, but focussed on that first Christmas night on the coming into the world of a baby.

That momentous event pins time and eternity together.  It pins together the physical and the spiritual.  It puts the wonderful world of creation in a new light; no longer a distant Maker who set off the whole enterprise in a Big Bang: but one who is intimately involved in the lives of his creatures.

And there is evidence, most surely there is evidence.  Not evidence that is conclusive in the way the scientist would expect it: not evidence that proves the existence of God and of his love beyond all doubt – because then there would be no argument.  But evidence there is, overwhelming evidence that allows us, if we want to, to see the hand of God in action in the world, in the lives of those who are inspired by him.  We may need the eyes of faith to see it: but that is very different from the self-delusion we are accused of.

Christianity, it has been said, is a revolutionary religion.  It overturns the values of the world, and we begin by seeing the power of the universe brought down to the dependence of a new-born baby on his mother.  This child will grow into a man who will turn the values of the world upside down.  The command to love your neighbour becomes the command to love your enemy.  The first shall be last, and the last first.  The Son of God becomes the servant of all.

And the last point is that Christianity is not a comfort blanket that insulates us from the harshness of reality.  Christianity gives a challenge to our self-interest: it offers not just the path to the crib but the way of the Cross too.  That Way leads us far from our comfort zones and into engagement with the inhumanity of the world, challenging poverty and injustice, terror and violence, and offering a better vision for all.

Lo, within a manger lies
He who built the starry skies.

The truth of Christmas is truth for all time, and for the whole of creation, and proof of God’s love for the world.  For you and for me.  As we gather round this crib this evening, let’s remember how simple that truth has been shown to be, in the person of Jesus, and how it transforms us.  Amen.