St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

A sermon preached by The Revd Bruce W. B. Jenneker in the Cathedral Church of St George the Martyr, on the First Sunday after Christmas, 30 December 2007

Christmas is in the air. The sounds of carols everywhere, the lights on the city streets, the cards piled on our sideboards, the SMSs clogging up our cell phones and all those left-overs in the fridge. Christmas is in the air.

We have been charmed by the angels, touched by the shepherds and enchanted by the baby in the manger. There is something magical and nostalgic about it all, we find, rather like a familiar and well-loved fairy tale. And for most of us, that's about all it's been. Two thousand years of custom and tradition have conditioned our responses, and we take Christmas in our stride. Please don't misunderstand me – we work and cook and slave; we spend and give and get. We rest and play, we eat and drink. But for most of us, that's about all. A folksy festival, a pious fairy tale, jolly gatherings with food and drink and gifts.

The Christmas which Matthew holds before is a very different matter altogether. At the heart of his sombre and sober tale of a provoked king, a terrified Joseph, a disgraced Mary, and a desperate flight into Egypt by night. he recalls the words of the prophet Jeremiah: “Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet,” he says: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled because they were no more.”

Rachel comes to the front of the stage, the clue to the meaning of Matthew's Christmas story. Do you remember Rachel? Life was not kind to her. She had Laban for a father, Leah for a sister and Jacob for a husband. Life was not kind to Rachel. Laban, her father, was obsessed with the welfare and prosperity of his family. He cared passionately about the family at the expense of its members. He quite willingly sacrificed them to ensure the best for the family name. Leah was her older sister, as plain and homely as Rachel was beautiful and gracious.

When Jacob arrived to work for Laban, it was Rachel who caught his eye and stole his heart. For seven long years Jacob laboured for Laban to secure Rachel's hand in marriage. But on the wedding day Laban tricked Jacob into marrying Leah. Jacob had to work another seven years before we was finally allowed to marry Rachel. While Leah had quickly borne four children, Rachel had no children, until eventually she had a child named Joseph. She had a second son born through a painful childbirth which cost Rachel her life. As she lay dying she named her second child Benoni, which means 'child of my sorrow'. Later Jacob changed this child's name to Benjamin, which means 'son of my right hand'.

As the painful history of Israel unfolded, a story of endless wars and deprivation, occupation and captivity, exile and slavery, Rachel came to stand as a symbol of Israel's deep sadness, her inconsolable sorrow the pattern and image of Israel's own.

What consolation can there be when you are the victim of circumstances beyond your control, circumstances that hurl you into pain and loss, grief and despair? What consolation can there be when so much that happens to you is unfair, unjust, unwarranted and undeserved?

Rachel is part and parcel of Matthew's Christmas story because she stands for the experience of a world falling apart, a dark world of selfishness and greed, crime and corruption, a world in which innocence is degraded, life is cheap and the ways of the wicked prosper. Rachel is part and parcel of Matthew's Christmas story because it is into Rachel's world that Christ is born, it is Rachel's world that Christ comes to save, it is Rachel and those like her that Christ comes to draw into the secure embrace of divine love.

Ours too is a world in which the lights have gone out. No candle flame flickers bravely against the encroaching gloom. Too many deaths are all around us – the innocent children on the waysides of Darfur and Baghdad, Beirut and Kandahar; Benazir Bhutto and those slain along with her in Pakistan; the men, women and children dead and dying of HIV and AIDS up and down our country and across our continent. Too much fear and resentment and oppression all around us – in the cells of enraged men and women impatient with injustice and economic disadvantage, in Palestine and in the notorious prisons of Guantanamo Bay.

Ours too is a world in which the lights have gone out, in which there is wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children, inconsolable, because they are no more.

Not all of us are weeping. Let this be said too. Some of us have fenced ourselves off in the cosseted estates of our comfortable possessions. Others of us have barricaded ourselves against the monstrous truth of our world by the bravado of our selfishness and self-absorption. Others of us have buried our heads in the sands of drink and drugs and sex and apathy. No all of us are weeping, some of us are not even aware of the pain of which we are a part.

There is little we can trust, less on which we can depend, and nothing that provides lasting security. We are afraid, without hope and without recourse. And to us, in our despair, and in the darkness of the shadow of death, a light breaks through, a message is trumpeted loud and clear – Do not be afraid, for a child is born unto to you: his name is Jesus, for he shall save his people.

Nothing is the same anymore. Dafur and Baghdad, Beirut and Kandahar stand as indeed they stood, and yet nothing is the same anymore. For unto us a child is born, to us a Son is given. And while the world remains the same, we are changed. Changed ourselves, by us and through us the world is also changing.

The Love that holds the universe together has taken up residence in us and we have been changed. This is the meaning of Christmas. Not that a baby was born in a manger long ago, but that Love has come to dwell in us, lay hold of us, claim, convict and convert us. Christ has come to be within, among and through us, to be bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, one with us, through and through.

So, don't be shocked when you find that your usual denials refuse to come to your usually self-deceiving lips – it is Love dwelling in you that confronts you with the truth and makes you speak it. Do not be mystified when the selfishness and greed that is so carefully hidden deep within you is changed into surprising impulses for generosity and kindness – it is Love that has taken possession of your heart and turned it outward, away from you to others. Don't be taken aback when a life-time of apathy and indifference is displaced by a rage against injustice, an urgent need to act now to bring about a new world of economic justice, environmental accountability, global responsibility – it is Love that has been born is you, making you passionate with love for the world and all that it is in it.

Nothing is the same anymore. Christ is born. Alleluia. Alleluia. Love is abroad in the world – in you and in me. We are enlisted you and I, to join in Christ's march against all that threatens to diminish or destroy creation. This is the meaning of Christmas – you and I, agents for Christ, wiping Rachel's tears, consoling her by our deeds.

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