Christmas Day Sermon 2025

Dean Anthony Cane - 8.00am and 11.00am, Christmas Day 2025

So the film Love Actually is the sixth best Christmas film of all time – according to Radio 2 listeners anyway. Seeing this reminded of the famous scene in that movie relating to a school nativity play, in which a mother (played by Emma Thomson) is told by her young daughter that she will be appearing as the ‘first lobster’. ‘There was more than one lobster present at the birth of Christ?’, asks the mother. ‘Duh,’ says the daughter.

Well, who knows which animals were actually present? All Luke’s Gospel tells us is that Mary’s firstborn son was laid in a manger – that is, a feeding trough for horses or cattle. After that the imagination can take over, adding sheep, an ox and a donkey, camels, and more. This year has seen a new retelling of the nativity story promoted by the Church of England called, ‘The grumpy Owl’, in which the eponymous bird is startled by the intrusion of an expectant mother, deciding he doesn’t give a hoot about this new baby, however special he is supposed to be. Until – you’ve probably guessed it – his heart is warmed by gazing into the eyes of the infant Christ.

So I feel emboldened to add a couple of other animals into the mix – a tortoise, and a mayfly. Not so much because I think they were actually present at the birth of Christ, although believe it or not there really is a fifteenth century engraving by Albrecht Durer called ‘The Holy Family with the mayfly’, but rather as an image of two different approaches to life.

Mayflies are famously shortlived, some adults living for only five minutes or so. In my sermon this morning, I’d like us to think of mayflies as representing the short-term view, getting caught up in a particular moment, a social media frenzy about something before the next excitement comes along. Tortoises, on the other hand, live for eighty to a hundred and fifty years, and so represent a sense of perspective, an understanding of how a long trajectory of events has led to the present moment, of how change happens.

Now that I am in my sixties I have the sense, sometimes, of being a tortoise attending a mayfly party. Sure, I am not immune to the temptations of the smartphone, and the short-term flitting from one thing to another it encourages, but I can actually remember how we communicated and found out things before we had them! I have seen fashions, policies and trends come and go, whether in the shops or our schools, our politics, our culture, or indeed in the church.

While it may feel that Christmas is full on mayfly season, with hectic trips to the shops and all kinds of things vying for our attention, I want to suggest to you that underneath it all this is really the season of the tortoise. For many families, this is time for doing things the way we have always done at this time of year, for remembering and reflection, for a Christmas tree with decorations that go back years and are full of memories, for the different generations getting together, for recalling those who are no longer with us, and for engaging or re-engaging with the greatest story ever told, of the loving purposes of God, of the message of the angels, of a birth in Bethlehem and the Babe lying in a manger.

This is a story that has inspired millions upon millions of people over twenty centuries, and continues to do so today, with it message of peace and self-sacrificial love. At Christmas we witness the Creator of the Universe, often referred to in prayer as ‘Almighty God’, giving away all strength and power as they are usually understood. At Christmas, God shows us the kind of love found in a helpless child in a manger, and then in later life through death on a cross. In this moment that child is the still point in a turbulent world, as heaven breaks into earthly reality, and new hope is embodied in fragile new life.

In this moment we are invited to make a place in our hearts and lives for him, and to protect and care for him in the lives of his brothers and sisters, especially those who are poor, in danger, exploited or in any kind of need.

Amongst the multitudes whose lives have been transformed by the love of God made tangible in this child, were those who campaigned to end the slave trade. Strange that it has taken a Dutch historian, Rutger Bregman, who has just completed this year’s BBC Reith lectures, to point out that this is a profoundly British story. Go back to eighteenth century Spain, Portugal, France or even the land of the free, the United States, and there was little opposition to what we now see as one of the great historical evils. It started out that way too in Britain, until a small group of twelve men, galvanised by Thomas Clarkson and later joined by William Wilberforce, set out to achieve the seemingly impossible.

They were inspired by their faith to begin the first great political movement for the rights of others. And when the slave trade was abolished, this was arguably one of the great achievements of British history, outweighing conquest, empire and wealth.

Here is the perspective of the tortoise at a time when what it means to be a British and a patriot is the subject of sometimes fierce debate. A further example, this time from the Bible: another group of twelve, a motley crew of former fishermen and tax collectors, who somehow – by the grace of God – enabled the good news of what they had seen and experienced in the grown up Jesus to travel around the world and across the centuries even to Portsmouth at the end of 2025.

And so here we are, in a mixed up, mayfly world, in the midst of technological change of extraordinary speed, of divisiveness and rancour, of ongoing wars and climate change, of post-war certainties seemingly unravelling. It is a time desperately in need of hope, realistic hope, hope that engages with contemporary realities.

That fragile baby, heaven breaking into earth, transformed the lives of a few, and through them offered hope to multitudes, including those exploited by slavery. In Christ we learn that the future is not a place that already exists, with us powerlessly trudging towards our doom. God has not given up on us, our true future is being shown to us in Jesus Christ, our planet is still capable of being transformed by love, beginning with ourselves.

In our day to day lives, we are creating the future with what we do, and how we do it. There are age old temptations to inaction, such as despair (there’s nothing we can do so why bother) and false security (the world is changing fast but if I keep my head down I’ll be OK). These are not the ways to live: there is no hope there.

The perspective of the tortoise encourages to remember and reflect, to ponder who we are and how we got here, to learn there are always positive things we can do, to embrace the gift given to us in Jesus Christ. All this gives a hopeful compass for the future.

So yes, I am in my sixties, feeling like a tortoise at a mayfly party. This past year has for me, amongst other things, been one of bereavements and loss. Next year, however, I am looking forward to family weddings and our first grandchild. It occurs to me that the speed change in today’s world does have an upside – we have people who, as I said earlier, can remember what it was like before. Who may have smartphones, but can model putting them away so that we can eat together with proper conversation and looking one another in the eye. Who in all kinds of ways can bring a longer perspective to bear, while remaining open to the energy and imagination of the young.

I began with the sixth best Christmas film of all time. But perhaps it has the best title. For what is at the heart of this season? Not X-M-A-S, as Kylie Minogue is currently singing at the top of the charts, but L-O-V-E. Love, Actually, seen in that babe in the manger, whatever animals may or may not have been present. Fragile love, but in Christ sufficient for the transformation of the world.

I wish you a joyful and peaceful Christmas. AMEN