3^rd Sunday of Advent, St. Ninian's Gourock

1. Some days ago a radio news broadcast included a report that many people nowadays, especially younger people, are unfamiliar with the details of the Christmas story. The journalist concluded his report by saying that the true message of Christmas nowadays is the message of being with family and friends and of exchanging gifts. The secular Christmas, Christmas without Christ, seemingly, has arrived.

2. Whether this is truly the case or not, or the extent to which this is the case, is difficult to determine. As we all know, the media has its own agenda, even if it’s only the old journalistic chestnut that ‘dog bites man’ is not a story, but ‘man bites dog’ is a story. There is no story yet in reporting that many people can tell you the Christmas story, but there is arguably a story in reporting that people can hardly tell you where Jesus was born.

3. Even if it is true that many or most people in our land celebrate a godless Christmas, it really in the end should not make so much difference to those who do believe in Jesus Christ. After all a generation ago in this country only Catholics marked Christmas as a religious feast. Christmas was not even a public holiday when I was a wee boy. Many Catholic men had to work on Christmas Day. To tell you the truth, there was something special about giving witness to the Christmas mystery as a minority group by going out to Mass. It felt a bit like being part of the Church of the catacombs and of the martyrs, and that made Christmas all the more special.

4. So irrespective of what the world around us is doing, we welcome again on this Sunday the Advent presence of John the Baptist as the messenger and precursor of the Lord urging us to prepare spiritually for Christmas.  Christmas is the great feast of God’s self-giving to us in his Incarnate Son. In order to celebrate that properly, we need to be ready to respond by giving ourselves in a wholehearted way to God and to our neighbour in an unreserved act of faith and love. For this we need to heed the Baptist’s message, so emphatically endorsed by Jesus: confess our sins, and show the fruits of our conversion in greater love for God and in greater love for our neighbour, especially the poor and the needy. God wants of us a religious practice which is authentic, faithful and heartfelt. God wants from us a love which, like his own, reaches out to embraces friend and foe alike. This is the way of the kingdom.

5. Christmas of course is about being with family and friends, and about exchanging gifts, and we all look forward to that on Christmas Day. But without the joy of the birth of Christ, what would that be? I suspect that even the godless depend on us to give them a reason to celebrate Christmas and to make their Christmas special. From tomorrow, Advent prepares us for Christmas by focusing very deliberately on the birth of the Saviour. All the more reason for us to listen to the message of John the Baptist and prepare well during this last part of Advent.

 16th December 2007