St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

A Sermon preached by The Reverend Bruce W. B. Jenneker in St George's Cathedral, Cape Town, on the First Sunday after Christmas 28 December 2008

What Child is this, who laid to rest, on Mary's lap is sleeping? William Chatterton Dix wrote the words to several Christmas Carols, at least 2 of them in 1867. One was called The Manger Throne. It drew on all the rich images of regal splendour to transform the mean stable and lowly manger. This carol leaves us in no doubt about what child this is who lies in Mary's lap. This is the King of the Universe, the Mighty One, whose birth makes a stable a palace and the manger a shrine.

The other carol Dix wrote that year was the one we will sing during Communion – What Child is this? Without access to the facts, I like to think that Dix wrote this haunting Carol after he had written The Manger Throne. Perhaps it was the other way around, but I find something compelling in his returning to interrogate the lavish and extravagant images that ornament our carols. What Child is this, who laid to rest, on Mary's lap is sleeping?

Is this child the reason for draping our homes and malls with cheap ornamental gold and fake silver? Is this child the reason for over-spending, over-eating, over-indulging? Is this child the inspiration for facile platitudes and the denial of reality? Is this child the rationale for an annual commercial project worth several billion rand? What Child is this, who laid to rest, on Mary's lap is sleeping?

What do you make of this child? Is the ultimate truth about him defined by a stable cold and dark at the end of the little road to Bethlehem? Is the meaning of his life circumscribed by angel songs, shepherds abiding in their fields and bells going ding-dong merrily on high?

Listen to how Simeon answers the question of the identity of this Child, who laid to rest, on Mary's lap is sleeping. 'This Child,' says Simeon the priest, is universal 'salvation, prepared for all the world to see, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.' This Child, whom angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds watch are keeping, this Child is nothing less than the loving purposes of God incarnate in a little child. He is set to be the Saviour of the world, to usher in a new dispensation in which everyone is guaranteed a place, from which no one is excluded and from which no one is left behind. This is the Child, who laid to rest, on Mary's lap is sleeping: the Saviour of the world. Born a Jew, his meaning is not confined to his time and place or to his Jewishness. In his life, in the words he will speak and the deeds he will perform, those who are not Jewish will be brought into God's loving embrace. This is the Child, who laid to rest, on Mary's lap is sleeping: the a light for revelation to the Gentiles. It is as he gives historic expression to God's purposes – a universal salvation and light to those outside Judaism – that this Child will be the glory of God's people Israel.

No ordinary baby this, the manger, the shepherds and the angels, and the star notwithstanding. No ordinary joy this rejoicing at his birth. No ordinary peace this of which the angels sing. In this little child there begins the renovation of all things, with him commences the redemption of what was lost, the restoration of what had fallen. In him is salvation once-for-all, free and for ever. In him is light to scatter the darkness of fear and despair, light to pierce the gloom of not knowing who we are and what we were created to be. In him is God's glory when all the universe shall be one in God's love. This, this is Christ the King.

Simeon understands the meaning of this Child, who laid to rest on Mary's lap is sleeping. This little child comes to turn the world upside-down and inside-out. His Gospel is gentleness in a world that rewards brutality. His message is peace to a world ever embroiled in wars. His words are forgiveness and mercy to those who keep score and yearn for vengeance. His new commandment is selfless, sacrificial servant love over against a world that encourages greed, demands servility and rejects humility. 'This child,' says Simeon, 'is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel.' This Child will stand before the people as a choice.

This Child, sleeping on Mary's lap, says Simeon, will stand as a plumb-line among the people to separate them, as one separates sheep from goats, the loving from the self-indulgent, the violent from the peacemakers, the grudge-bearers from the forgiving, the gentle from the brutal, profiteers from those of generous spirit. 'This Child' says Simeon, 'will be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.'

How terrifying this Child, how alarming, how threatening to the behaviours and choices that sit most comfortably with us. How outrageous, how offensive, how odious a social system that rewards the weak and forgives the law-breaker while rejecting the mighty and dismissing the powerful. If this child stands for such a subversive redefining of law, society and life, he will be opposed, tooth and nail, and his message will be outlawed and his influence curtailed.

But not for us. There's no need for any drastic action, is there. We simply put him back in the crib, where for most of us, he is remote enough not to affect our choices, quaint enough to have no lasting effect on how we shape the world in which we live, and just too, too little in his little town of Bethlehem to teach us anything at all. Far away in a manger, on a silent night, long, long ago.

And yet, we are here, you and I, because we are called by the man that child grew up to be. We are here because we cannot resist the message of hope and freedom that he speaks. We are here, to look beyond the manger, to hear the divine rhythm behind the songs of the angels. We are here to learn the true adoration that brings the shepherds to fall at his feet.

And so, in conclusion, we come to another Carol – this one written by Robert Southwell that mystical Jesuit priest and poet who was martyred in Elizabethan England:

Let folly praise that fancy loves, I praise and love that Child
whose heart no thought, whose tongue no word, whose hand no deed defiled.
I praise him most, I love him best, all praise and love is him;
While him I love, in him I live, and cannot live amiss.
Love's sweetest mark, laud's highest theme, man's most desired light,
To love him life, to leave him death, to live in him delight.
He mine by gift, I His by debt, thus each to other due;
First friend he was, best friend he is, all times will try him true.
Though young, yet wise; though small, yet strong; though man, yet God he is:
As wise, he knows; as strong, he can; as God, he loves to bless.
His knowledge rules, his strength defends, his love doth cherish all;
his birth our joy, his life our light, his death our end of thrall.
Alas! He weeps, he sighs, he pants, yet do his angels sing;
Out of his tears, his sighs and throbs, doth bud a joyful spring.
Almighty Babe, whose tender arms can force all foes to fly,
Correct my faults, protect my life, direct me when I die!

Let Southwell's prayer become our own: that this Child, who laid to rest on Mary's lap is sleeping, will come to live in our hearts and to reign in our lives.

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