This sermon was preached on Sunday 17th December 2023 at St Peter and St Paul Church, Langham.

Today, amid the conflict going on in the Holy Land, there are 50,000 pregnant women on the brink of giving birth in Gaza. Women who conceived in safety, now nine months later, face the chaos and horror of giving birth in a war-torn land without medical support and other key supplies. You feel helpless to know the struggle that these women are facing, and you wish that there was another way rather than giving birth in such terrible conditions. But the babies need to come when they are due. There is no other option. They must be born into the world.

The world of first-century Israel-Palestine was not much different to today. Some characters are different, but the political tension and violence that characterises the Holy Land today were very present then too. The Jews lived under the oppression of the Roman Empire, and then under that, the puppet king Herod. Then before that, the Jews were battling the invasion of the Greeks. It was a land in a strained situation. The people were desperate for a way out of their oppression and struggle. They were in need of someone to rescue them, someone who would come and save them; to bring them to freedom and the full life that God had promised for his people.

So God chose a brave young woman called Mary. Probably not unlike the women who walk the same land 2000 years later, Mary was faced with a challenging birth. She was called by God to give birth to his son, Jesus. Mary would become pregnant by the Holy Spirit. The problem here is that she was not yet married to her fiance, Joseph. What would people think? Whose baby is it? She travelled from her home in Nazareth to give birth in Bethlehem, a long 90 mile journey for a pregnant woman, when the fastest transport would have been a donkey. Even when she got to Bethlehem, there was no room at the Inn. A stable place sufficed for the birth.

I think of how many women in the Holy Land are having to give birth in a stable tonight. There was no room in the hospital, there were no homes left after the bombing. A scared mother-to-be who worries for those who seek to harm the life of her newborn baby as the collateral of war. She does what she can for her baby, to bring them into the world because they need to come out now.

Mary gave birth in the stable because Jesus needed to come out, not just because the labour was due, but because the world needed him to be born. A world cast in oppression, violence, injustice, hatred, abuse and darkness needed the light of light, true love himself to come into the world. There was no other option. Jesus needed to be born into the world. He was born into a land of conflict and oppression to bring freedom and love to all who come to him. At Christmas time we celebrate not just that he came into the world, but that he came as the light of the world to cast out darkness for all eternity. He saw the plight of the suffering of this world and came to rescue us and bring us safe into his loving arms.

If you look out at the suffering and brokenness in this world and you are overwhelmed with fear and hopelessness, know that help has come. 2000 years ago Jesus was born in a stable in Palestine because he needed to come into the world. Jesus came to bring light to our dark world, and nothing can put out his light. His light is the light we celebrate and hold up at Christmas, trusting and believing that in God will come eternal love, justice, freedom and peace.

Amen.