Watchnight Sermon - Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time – That’s how all good stories begin.

Once upon a time there was a great wizard who lived in a far off country.

Once upon a time there was curious young girl whose name was Goldilocks.

Once upon a time there was a boy called Jack who lived on a farm with his mother, and their one and only cow.

Once upon a time. Magical words that take us to magical places. And we never grow tired of hearing them, even in adulthood.

Sure, the subject matter might change as we grow up. It’s a long way from Little Red Riding Hood to Game Of Thrones. But both kinds of story have heroes and villains; both tell us about people who have choices to make; both have people who need rescued and others who do the rescuing. There’s comedy, tragedy, mistaken identity, danger, retribution, redemption. It’s all there, in every fairy tale ever told, no matter how grown up a tale it might be.

Chances are, at some point over the next couple of days you’ll sit down to watch a film or two, and if you’re anything like me you might even make time to take in a few old favourites – the kind that are always on the box at this time of year.

The Wizard of Oz, It’s a Wonderful Life. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – the original one with Gene Wilder, not the naff remake with Johnny Depp.

And the thing is, you’ve seen them all before. You could probably quote chunks of them verbatim! Why would you waste your time watching them all over again?

Because you enjoy them!

Ok – go a bit deeper. Why do you enjoy them? Because they’re heartwarming stories. Ok – but why are they heartwarming?

Because, like all good fairytales, they have a happy ending. They don’t deny the pain and difficulties of life because they’re an integral part of the story.

But what warms our hearts is that in these kinds of stories, goodness always overcomes. It’s a struggle, and nobody survives unscathed, but in the end, Charlie wins the chocolate factory; the people of Bedford Falls bail out George Bailey and Dorothy gets back to Kansas safe and sound after all her adventures

And unless you’re completely out of touch with the child within you, there will be moments in those stories when you find your emotions surfacing.

JRR Tolkein, who knew a thing or two about stories, puts it this way:

“It is the mark of a good fairy story, of the higher or more complete kind, that however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, when the turn in the story comes, it can give a child or adult who hears it a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, perhaps even tears.”

These stories move us, somehow; and we could brush it off as mere sentimentality. But I think there’s more to it than that.

Why is it that since human beings started telling stories, the same elements have kept recurring in all our fairy tales?

Magical lands that are just a hairsbreadth away. Places we get to by walking into a wardrobe, or taking the red pill rather than the blue pill, or flying through a wormhole.

Even a thoroughgoing atheist like Philip Pullman uses that theme in his storytelling – imagining a subtle knife that one of his heroes uses to cut through the fabric of space time so he can step into other worlds.

And now theoretical physics is telling us that we shouldn’t be thinking so much of a Universe but a Multiverse. We live in a quantum world where things are getting more complex and mysterious every day as our knowledge grows.

And in all the stories, choices have to be made. The other worlds exist, but the protagonists have to enter them. Lucy has to press on through the fur coats before she smells the pine and feels Narnian snow under her feet. Neo has to take the red pill to discover what the Matrix really is. Frodo has to take the ring and set off to Mordor, even though he doesn’t know the way. The story doesn’t get going unless that initial choice is made.

And the choice always leads to a dangerous path where good folk are caught up in a genuine struggle against evil - without and within. And there are casualties on the way. Obi Wan raises his lightsabre and lets Vader kill him. Aslan, trussed up on the stone table, submits to the Witch’s knife.

But it’s all in the service of a deeper magic the enemy knows nothing about, and by the end of the story, justice is done and redemption is complete. Scrooge wakes up on Christmas morning a new man; the Grinch saves Christmas. Aslan springs to life, and Edmund’s debt is paid.

It’s the same story played out time and time again in our mythologies, which shows one of two things. Either there’s a distinct lack of imagination on the part of our storytellers, or there’s something far more deep and wonderful going on here.

Could it be that these made-up stories are an echo of a deeper, more foundational reality that’s being played out in the universe?

Could it be that there are other worlds a hairsbreadth away from us all the time, worlds that we can access if we know the way? Is the struggle between good and evil more real that we give it credit for? And don’t we hope that in the end, when all’s said and done, all will be well and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well – even if we can’t see how that could ever be the case?

Is the movement we see in all these stories a reflection of a greater story that’s playing out even as we gather here this evening?

Christians would say a resounding ‘yes’ to that.

Come with me to Bethlehem, where that great story’s about to take a turn no-one would have imagined.

A good creation has fallen from grace and a shadow has covered the land. We’re bound by forces we have no power to escape from – the power of sin and the power of death.

God sees; and in the fullness of time God transcends space and time to come and rescue his people. In his glory we could no more look at him than stare into the sun, but the twist is that he chooses to enter our world as a child. He hides who he is so he can reveal who he is. Only those with eyes to see and ears to hear, genuinely understand the nature of his coming.

God is born a human child, putting a face to the divine name. A face that’s kissed and stroked in infancy; admired and loved in adulthood. But later, when evil gets word of what’s happening, God’s face will be punched, beaten and spat upon. The unthinkable happens. The one sent to save us is cruelly murdered by the powers that be, and our hopes are buried with him in a dank cave. Wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. Wrapped in a burial shroud and laid in a borrowed tomb.

But there is deeper magic going on here that the enemy ever imagined; for this Christ is a Trojan Saviour. He enters death only to destroy it. He takes our sin upon himself only to redeem us from it.

He rises, free, to set us free. Free from the consequences of our wrongdoing; free from the fear of death. Free to love, free to serve; free to be the change that God is working in the world, and will one day bring to a glorious completion.

That, I believe, is the story behind all stories.

And those tugs on your heart as you watch those Christmas movies, or as you gather here amidst the candlelight on Christmas Eve, are telling you something.

They’re telling you that once upon a time is real; and a long time ago is now.

Because God has come to us in Christ – and today is the day of salvation.