Christmas Midnight 2023

Christmas Midnight 2023

We have learned from science that we share our DNA with some animals to such an extent that we are almost indistinguishable from them. Yet we know we are not the same – and that word ‘know’ is why. It’s all about knowing – not knowledge, but knowing, consciousness.

Christmas is about God becoming human: if we want to understand that, it matters what we think it means to be human. So what is it to be human? Mature humanity involves, among others, the following three things.

First, to be human is to know that we will die. We are the only creatures who are conscious of our mortality. While that means little to us at first, the penny drops as we mature. The knowledge of our mortality is the frame within which we paint the picture of our lives; it provides the parameters within which we try to make sense of ourselves.

Then, second, we are aware of right and wrong. Culture, and time, and place, relativize which particular things are accepted as right and wrong, but we have a deep sense that not all courses of action are equally valid or good (the concept ‘good’ is another part of this human consciousness).

But third, and above all, we have a capacity to love. Animal attraction is one thing, and an important thing, but love is about a choice: choosing commitment and faithfulness, commitment, to another’s flourishing, and faithfulness, expressing ultimate acceptance.

That is where Christmas comes in: in this child God chooses to be one of us that we might realise our full potential, unlock the divine spark of life which will give fullness of meaning to existence.

The Christmas story, in all its original gritty realism (as well as in its romanticized greeting card tinsel), says simply this to us all: God is as close to us as birth and death, and everything good in between comes from him. This involvement with us is very simple: God did not become like us as we are like some animals. He became the same as us, to give us back our self-respect. Christianity was not intended to make us guilt-wracked, fearful creatures: on the contrary, the gift of Christmas was the first sign of the many which Jesus gave us that God wants us to be free from fear and to flourish.

That is, of course, a wonderful, literally miraculous, thing. It is something for which we give thanks, which is why we gather here on this night, especially. But it extends far beyond the crib and the manger and the shepherds and the kings. It extends to our death – for the Son of God went there too – and it extends to what is good, what is right and how we find that and do it.

Our humanity, our distinctive consciousness of who we are and of the created order in which we spend our lives, was not just shared by God in Jesus: it came from God in the first place. The birth of this child and, more importantly what he did with his life (and what he did with his death, too) shows us how much we matter; it is a pure act of love, because it is a concrete sign of acceptance and faithfulness. It cannot be taken away. The relationship is forged for ever.

What follows from that is that celebrating the Christmas festival is meant to kick-start us in the same direction. To use our consciousness to seek, prefer and promote love, which is stronger than death and which always finds the good. It begins here where we intersect with the story of Christmas. As with Jesus, it is what we do with it that will give meaning to our lives.

Fr Michael Bowie