Canterbury Cathedral

25 December 2001

Many years ago our family enjoyed a post Christmas break in Northumberland. Late one afternoon we decided to go for a walk up Yeavering Bell paying scant attention, I regret to say, to the lateness of the hour. We realised after about an hour's vigorous walking in the rough moorland that we would not get back before dusk - and alarmingly, we had no torches with us to help us see the way. Darkness soon enveloped us, and progress became very difficult indeed. We did what all parents do at such moments of crisis - jollying the children along with nursery rhymes and stories. But frankly, I don't think any of us were reassured.

Suddenly we turned the brow of the hill and there, piercing the darkness with its single pure light, was Bamburgh Castle lighthouse. What a relief! And I recall at the time thinking 'now I understand what St John meant by his magnificent words about the coming of Christ: "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it".' Or, as it is sometimes translated: 'The darkness has not overwhelmed it' or 'the darkness has not extinguished it'. That light, seemingly so fragile and small, had pierced the huge canvas of blackness and made it possible for us to see. Within five minutes we were home in front of a warming fire.

But St John's words are also troubling. They suggest there are times when the darkness comes close to overwhelming the light and putting it out.

That, I suspect may be true of the way many people feel after September 11th. Some have told me: 'September 11th changed the world. It made me realise that shocking things could happen to innocent people.' Others have said: 'It reminded me that we live in a dangerous and unstable world - so many of the old securities and signposts have gone.' And then, in many cases, there comes a question: 'How can faith help us in a world like that?'

The devastated area left by the collapse of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre has come to be known as 'Ground Zero'. The phrase has a military history. It emerged with the birth of the atomic bomb - signalling the actual point of detonation of a nuclear device. Over the years the phrase has been used in other ways. As a result its meaning has broadened. Today 'Ground Zero' can also suggest an intense epicentre, the point from which shock waves of energy fan out with great force. Friends who were caught up in the devastation of the Twin Towers describe how vast clouds of smoke and dust billowed towards them, suddenly engulfing them in a choking, blinding darkness.
Those clouds have dispersed, but for many they have left a greater darkness, which no lighthouse beam has graciously penetrated.

So, what, to return to the question, can lighten that greater darkness, which continues to challenge us and our faith?

I believe we can begin to find an answer in what we are celebrating today - the birth of Christ. For Bethlehem too was a kind of 'Ground Zero' - one from which waves of new hope and new life have spread, rather than waves of destruction and despair; waves that have rippled out over centuries rather than seconds. That birth in a humble stable in Bethlehem did not immediately jolt the world; indeed it went largely unnoticed in the Middle Eastern turmoil of the time. Yet it was the epicentre of something truly remarkable. The coming of that helpless infant, heralded in the angels' song 'Peace on Earth and good will towards men', was the 'Ground Zero' of the Christian story, of a new way of living. Across more than two thousand years of human history we continue to feel its remarkable and life-giving power.
We feel it today in the work and witness of the Church - in its ministry among the poor and outcast, in its work in schools, hospitals and prisons, in its service of all those in need. One example which immediately comes to mind is St. Paul's Anglican Chapel, directly across the street from 'Ground Zero'. After the events of September 11th the chapel was transformed into an emergency centre for the rescue workers. One of them described it on television as 'an oasis of heaven, in the midst of hell'. How wonderful that a chapel in which George Washington worshipped over 200 years ago should still be a beacon for worship and a place of support.

New York friends say their city has changed in the aftermath of September 11th. Strangers are more likely speak to one another; commuters are less aggressive and more co-operative; people in the police and emergency services are treated with a new respect.

That is all to the good, but it would be a mistake anywhere in the world to rely on emotion or collective grief alone to drive our moral will or sustain our earnest endeavours.

It is interesting that since September 11th Yeats' great poem 'The Second Coming' has been much quoted. And with reason - for it contains words of enormous resonance for our troubled times. 'Things fall apart,' Yeats writes, 'the centre cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.' However, some later lines from the poem - also with great resonance - have been quoted less often: 'The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.'

These words surely serve as a warning against taking too much for granted about the wellsprings of a civilised society. We rightly shrink from the kind of passionate intensity fed by intolerance and extremism. But we must also avoid a bland indifference that blesses anything and everything. Weak commitment to shared values can only weaken us all. We need strong commitment to values which transcend us all.

So, a better world will have to be built on the secure foundations of values we share and agree to live by. They are, I believe, values deeply rooted in the Christian Gospel - such as equality and justice, tolerance and respect.

Commitments are easy to make, but tough to live out day by day. For Christians, those commitments must be fed by faith - faith in the message and meaning of Christmas. It is that which must burn brightest in our hearts - and in our Christian witness. We can learn much from the spiritual confidence of our Christian brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. We sometimes say 'I can do so little. I am only one puny individual.' My reply to that recalls the words of Adlai Stevenson on the death of Eleanor Roosevelt: 'She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world'.
If Christ is the light of the world, we must be his candle-bearers, unafraid to confront the darkness in our world, warming it where we can by deeds of faith.
As we gather in this great Cathedral, we know the 'Ground Zero' at Bethlehem was not a dark crater but a cradle of light. It brought to us then, and brings to us again today, the Prince of Peace.

That finally is why we are sure with St John that: 'The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.'