Spirit and Flesh

Entering this church from the High Street this evening, you will have passed through the familiar ornate entrance. The baroque porch commissioned by Archbishop William Laud is one of the treasures of this place. Built in 1637, it features a statue of the Virgin and child. In the heady days of the English Civil War, it was interpreted by Puritans as a betrayal of the Protestant Reformation. Indeed, we know that the original statue was damaged when Cromwell’s forces took Oxford from royal control. Parliamentary soldiers taking pot-shots at the statue with rifles may be an apocryphal tale, but there is little doubt that when William Laud was tried for treason in 1641, one of the charges related to this ‘scandalous statue of the Virgin Mary’.

A statue of the Virgin might be an understandable source of controversy during this period, but not half as controversial as the attempts by the Puritans of the day to ban Christmas. This was a controversy that came to a head in the early stages of the English Civil War. In January 1645, Parliament decreed that ‘Festival days, vulgarly called Holy days, having no warrant in the Word of God, are not to be continued’. Clergy were even arrested for preaching on Christmas Day. John Evelyn, the great diarist, records how he attended a clandestine celebration of Holy Communion in London on Christmas Day in 1657. As they received communion, the chapel was surrounded by soldiers. They were arrested and held for questioning. And yet, as time continued, the people simply defied the government, so that one Puritan divine complained that ‘the people go on holding fast to their heathenish customs and abominable idolatries’. Indeed, there was a riot in Canterbury, when a large crowd gathered on Christmas Day and demanded a church service. They just wanted to celebrate Christmas.

We gather tonight to celebrate the mystery of Christmas. But why the controversy in the seventeenth century? Was this a conflict of great theological principle? We can only speculate…. but I suspect that the contours of this disagreement actually go much deeper than the politics of the day. 

The condemnations of revelry and feasting, the protestations at mince pies and plum pudding, the indignation at the holly and ivy, the bitter disapproval of ribs of beef studded with rosemary, the snippy comments about playing games, and the tiresome indignation about dancing and any kind of fun…, all betray a profound ambivalence about the relationship between spirit and flesh. 

And yet, the extraordinary paradox which lies at the heart of the Christian faith is that ‘the Word became flesh’ and dwelt among us. And, if truth be told, most of the time this terrifies us… because it disrupts all our best efforts to make religion neat and tidy. It subverts our attempts to police the separation of the sacred and the secular. 

And yet, the story of the nativity tells us that God comes among us, alongside us, and besides us – in our lives as they are. This is the mystery of the incarnation, of God with us, Emmanuel.  In the story of the nativity, we learn that God is with us among teenage parents, and homeless people looking for a bed for the night. God is with us in the squalor of a cow-shed, and in the uncertainty and fear of unlearned shepherds. God is with us in the refugee and the immigrant, even the stranger from afar seeking wisdom and kindness. This is where the mystery of God’s unconditional love is revealed to us. And every time God’s presence is felt, their hearts, just like ours, are filled with joy.

And to discover that same joy, we must be ready not to make our religion too neat and tidy, or to allow it to be imprisoned by the ideology of the day. We must be ready to hear again the message of the angels: ‘Do not be afraid’ – for our fear and anxiety and suspicion often serve to mask and conceal the good news of Jesus Christ - just like those puritans of old, convinced as they were of their own rightness, in spite of all its destructiveness and misery. 

But tonight our hearts are awakened and emboldened to attend to a mystery, as our loving gaze is drawn to the vulnerable and defenceless face of a tiny child. This is God with us, Emmanuel.