Bible passage: Luke 2.8-12
Silence
Now you may find this hard to believe but sometimes Jess can misbehave. I know… it was a shock to me when we got married. The sign of suspicion is when she goes quiet. You see, I get engrossed in things so I’m easy to sneak around. So, if Jess wants to do something she doesn’t want me to know about, she waits until I’m busy doing something and then sneaks round the house like a silent ninja, getting on with her naughtiness. She’ll deny it if you ask her… it’s all part of the act…! She is ever so good at being quiet.
And so, it turns out, is God. We finished our Old Testament series Covenant & Kingdom on Sunday, and after Malachi – the last prophet – put his pen down, there were four hundred years of silence from God. No prophets. No kings. No new word from God. Silence. Except unlike Jess he wasn’t being naughty…
As I said at the midnight service, empires rose and fell, rebellions came and went – but from God, silence. It had happened before: after Joseph brought his brothers to Egypt, 400 years passed before God rescued them from slavery. But still… silence.
Explosion
And then… suddenly an explosion. After 400 years of silence two babies are born miraculously – one to a woman old enough to be a great-grandmother, the other to a woman too young to be married. After 400 years of silence, in the space of one year an angel visits Zechariah, Mary, Joseph and the shepherds – and do you know the one thing the angel says to each of them? Zechariah, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds – they all get different messages, but there is one thing the angel says to all of them – do you know what it is? I’m sure someone does…
Do not be afraid.
On the one hand that seems pretty obvious. If an angel appeared in front of you suddenly, I think you would need to hear the angel say, Do not be afraid’!
But there is also something deeper in those four little words – words we all need to hear, and not only when an angel appears.
Unknown
The truth is, we all get afraid, even if we are good at hiding it. We all have things we’re afraid of – not things like arachnophobia (spiders), agoraphobia (large spaces), triskaidekaphobia (number 13) or pogonophobia (beards) – not things like that: things that make us worried, anxious, lose sleep. Some of you here I know are worried about health issues, worried about friends and family members, worried about your job, about going back to school. Ultimately our biggest fear isn’t the totally unknown but possible thing we can partly see; usually over which we have no control.
We are all afraid – which is the deeper reason why the one thing the angels said to Zechariah, Mary, Joseph and the shepherds, was Do not be afraid.’ God knows we need to hear it – and angels aren’t special, they’re heralds, messengers… they say what God tells them to say, and he told them to say, Do not be afraid.’
Do not be afraid’ – but why? Why don’t we need to be afraid? Is it because everything will be ok? No! Zechariah’s son was put in prison and beheaded by Herod. Mary & Joseph’s son was beaten and crucified by Pontius Pilate and the Jewish leaders. Their worst fears came true. Bad things happen, even to God’s children – but we don’t need to be afraid. Why?
God is with us
Because God is with us. That’s so important, it’s even one of the names of Jesus: Emmanuel, God with us.
Friends, I don’t know what’s coming for you, for us. You might be anxious about personal stuff, work stuff, family stuff, maybe even church stuff – I don’t know what will happen. Some of it will be good, maybe even great. For some of us, some of it will be bad. But through all of it, we do not need to be afraid. Why? Because God is with us.
That’s the good news of great joy we celebrate at Christmas: we are not alone in the darkness. The light shines, and the darkness cannot understand it. The Word is made flesh and laid in a manger, life so fragile yet stronger than death. Jesus is born, come to show us just how far God’s love will go to bring us home.
The Word is spoken, once and for all, and the Word is light and life and love, and the Word is for you, so you do not need to be afraid. Whatever you face, whatever you might face, know the message of Christmas: God is with you, and he is with you always.