Sermon for the Third Sunday in Advent

Sunday 17th December 2006

Preached by Rev Paul Hewitt

If you have no more than a passing interest in Rugby, you may have heard of Nigel Walker who played international rugby for Wales. Nigel Walker was a former Olympic hurdler.

In one those ‘motivational’ talks, that sports stars often do, he once said, “There are two words I don’t want to find myself uttering as an old man, and they are, “If only...”

Tony Hawks the comedian and author of ‘Round Ireland with a fridge’ (which you should read sometime) was acting MC at one of these talks at a corporate function. Nigel was talking about his life with particular reference to the ‘need to adapt’. There could have been few people better qualified to talk on the subject. His talk was punctuated with video clips of his sporting achievements, and one particular sporting failure. It was during the 1984 Olympic 110 metre hurdle semi-final and the culmination of 4 years of dedicated, exhaustive and sometimes punishing training. As Nigel showed the clip, they all watched in horror as he caught his leading foot on the 7^th hurdle and went crashing to the ground. Everyone present felt Nigel’s disappointment as if it were their own; that sudden destruction of a dream held for so long. He went on to explain that when he failed to qualify for the 1992 Olympics, he felt he ought to make the change to rugby. Although many advised against it, he was determined, not least because he didn’t want to find himself saying at a much later date “If only I’d had a serious go at playing rugby”..... and so all the remaining video clips in his talk, of his magnificent international tries for Wales were all the more significant, and the audience was uplifted!

At the end of the talk, Tony Hawks was required to join Nigel on the stage to conduct a short interview. There was one question Tony Hawks couldn’t resist asking him, “Tell me, Nigel, was there any point when you thought to yourself, as you were lying prostrate on the Olympic track alongside an upturned hurdle with 2 badly grazed knees, ‘If only I had jumped a bit higher...?’”

A number of years ago at our Community Carol Service this was the cover for our Order of Service. It’s a photograph of the view of Jerusalem taken through the arched window, and its famous grille, of a beautiful little church on the Mount of Olives called “Dominus flevit” or “The Lord Wept”. It testifies to the time, as Jesus approached Jerusalem near the end of his Ministry on what we call ‘Palm Sunday’, when he saw the city and he wept over it. (The church’s dome is in the shape of a tear). And he said these words “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes”.... if only you knew what would bring you peace.

Christmas is a magical time, there is no doubt, and I’m sure it is really because of (often) warm and comforting childhood memories, that we carry on into adulthood and pass down to our own children. It is the season of peace and goodwill, I suppose. In fact, all in all, there’s a huge pressure on us ‘to be happy.’

Yet there was a newspaper article, headed once “Enough to drive you crackers” which spoke of people cracking up at Christmas as a result of the pressure to be perfect – or in a sense, to be “happy.” Isn’t it ridiculous? There are workshops entitled “Stress in the family and Coping with Christmas.”

And while many go over the top at Christmas, others go under. Do you know, there are more suicides over the Christmas period than at any other time of the year? And when we start remembering those loved ones who have passed on, Christmas can become an incredibly sad time of the year. We all know that – we’ve all felt that.

I wonder how God feels. Because however stressed out we become over Christmas, however down we can become (when we’re meant to be happy), however sad we can sometimes be, the saddest thing of all is that as we rush about in the frenetic mayhem that is Christmas, our world fights and kills in sectarianism and hate, in war in Jerusalem, in Afghanistan, in Iraq or wherever. We have missed the Christ child who would bring us peace....that is what God must feel – “If only you knew what would bring you peace”. If only you knew. Why will the world not listen to Jesus’ message of peace?

We are so determined to do our own thing! We head for disaster every time, because we haven’t really seen what would bring us peace. His tears are there when he sees the needless pain and suffering and hunger, mainly there because we want to follow our own agenda – we’re determined to do our own thing instead of the things of God!

We are about to celebrate an amazing event, the birth of the Christ child at Bethlehem. We continually thank our God for all that this means for us as individuals and for the world. But Christmas is also a time to say sorry. It is a time to remember that we have so obviously “grieved his heart of love” as our Bidding says at the beginning of our Carol Services.

Thank you God for this gracious gift of your son, Jesus Christ, and we are sorry that we have not followed him more closely.

If only we would know what would bring us real peace?