This is the text of my sermon on Christmas Eve 2017.
10 … 9 … 8 … 7 … 6 … 5 … 4 .. 3 . 2. 1 … READY OR NOT, I’M COMING!!!
How many times as a child have you heard, or shouted, those words? Ready or Not, I’m coming! The game of Hide and Seek is common to most cultures. It teaches children valuable skills – counting of course, plus looking and listening, planning (where to hide) and also keeping quiet and still when necessary!
We grow out of childhood games. But to be honest there are times in our adult lives when we seem to hear that call “Ready or not, I’m coming”. Usually it’s when we are going to be inspected. The Landlord is coming to inspect your flat. OFSTED is coming to check out the school. The Archdeacon is coming to check up on the Vicar and Churchwarden. The date was set long ago, and you can’t put them off because you haven’t finished preparation.
But sometimes the expected visitor is welcome. You have invited friends for a meal and they turn up, even if the house isn’t spotlessly clean yet. The party is about to start and you realise you forgot to get the food out of the freezer. Too late, guests are starting to arrive. Will you turn them away? Of course not. Ready or not, they are welcome. I leave it to you to decide which of those categories – inspector or welcome guest – you put your mother-in-law in when she turns up for Christmas.
Today is the fourth and last Sunday of Advent. We have looked, as we do each year, at the Patriarchs, at the Prophets, and particularly at John the Baptist. In the last – and this time very short – week we look at Mary the mother of Jesus. Our reading is the Annunciation when she is told that she would conceive Jesus. That was her first “Ready or Not” experience – she was a young unmarried girl, not in the least thinking of pregnancy! Neither was Elizabeth who had thought years ago she was past having children.
And now here is Mary on Christmas Eve, expecting her first baby to arrive. Is she ready? I hope that Elizabeth, and Anna – Mary’s mother – had helped her to prepare by telling her what to expect and how to feed the newborn. She may have come equipped with blankets and swaddling clothes. No painkillers in those days of course. Joseph would have gone to call the Bethlehem midwife when she went into labour. But is any woman really prepared for her first birth? You who are mothers, did you have a sense of your baby saying “Ready or not, I’m coming”?
If “Ready or Not, I’m coming” is one message of the Christmas story, so is its equal, “Ready or Not, we’re going!” That was what Joseph had said a few days earlier as he loaded up the donkey in Nazareth. Mary may have begged for them to stay until the baby had been born, but Joseph knew he would be in trouble if he failed to turn up to register for the census. The only question was, would he be registering two names or three? Ready or Not, we’re going!
The Shepherds were quietly looking after their sheep – probably one on watch and the others sleeping – when the angelic host disturbed their night with the divine command that they run up the hill into the town to see this newborn baby. They weren’t ready for that either – sleepy, no torches, no exact address to head for. But Ready or Not, we’re going!
Meanwhile further east, the magi thought it was not very wise to set off on a long journey across the desert with little time to prepare. Quick trip to the bazaar to buy gold, frankincense and myrrh (no time to haggle, just give him what he wants!). Pack a bag with whatever food you have to hand, fill your water bottles, saddle the camels and off we go. No accommodation booked, no road map, only that blinking star to follow. But the ancient wisdom tells us that this star means a king is about to be born, and we want to be among the first to see him. Ready or Not, we’re going!
At the end of the Christmas story we are told that another angel appeared to Joseph, as the magi were leaving, saying that Herod was seeking to kill Jesus. So once again they had to be up and on the road, probably in the middle of the night. Never mind the regulations about child seats on donkeys, just hold him on your lap. No, I’ve never been to Egypt either, but it’s somewhere south of here. Ready or Not, we’re going!
I could say the same about the Spirit driving Jesus out into the desert at his baptism with no food or water. Or Jesus sending out the twelve disciples, then the seventy, with no equipment and minimal clothing. Or Easter and Pentecost when the church exploded out into the world through unprepared apostles. Again and again we see the same pattern –When God says go, Ready or Not, you go.
So, what about our own lives? There may have been one or more times in your life when circumstances changed dramatically, perhaps forcing you to give up your job, move house or end a relationship, with a sense of “Ready or not, I have to go”. If it hasn’t happened yet, it might still happen, and you don’t know when. Where is Jesus in those moments?
I suggest that at those moments, he is actually very close. Merely a prayer away. For what seems to the unprepared human eye to be unexpected and unplanned is known by the one who is before all time and above all things.
We have looked this morning at two aspects of really the same story, of knowing when to recognise Jesus, in his appearing or in his moving on. Jesus says, on this eve of Christmas, “Ready or Not, I am coming”. That is not a threat, it is a promise. Those who recognise the signs of his coming, who receive him into their lives, have as John puts it, “the power to become children of God”. Nothing can surprise Jesus, who is with us at all times and in all places, and at all times, he says, “Ready or Not, I am here.” The times when we find ourselves unprepared and beyond the limits of our own resources can be the times when we discover his strength.
As we look into the new year ahead, there may be times when he says, “Ready or Not, we’re going”. Not “you are going” but “we.” For he is Immanuel – “God with us”. When the unexpected happens, we can turn to Jesus in prayer, knowing that, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”
Those who hear his call to go, to change their lives for his sake, are those who to outsiders may appear to be unprepared and in difficult circumstances. But actually they are the blessed ones, the ones who stay close to Jesus, the ones who become the children of God.
If you see Jesus this Christmas, welcome him. If you hear him call, follow him. And may the coming year with him be a blessed one, wherever he calls you to go with him.