Sermon preached at Evensong on the First Sunday of Christmas 2025

During these first days after Christmas, we have an opportunity to stay for a little while at the crib, and to look a little more deeply into what is actually going on in that scene. Not only what we see, but how we see. By now, the mangers which were empty for the few days and hours before Christmas have received their central focus, the figure of the Christ-child himself. Mary and Joseph are almost always there in different poses of adoration and care. Shepherds kneel, perhaps cap in hand, whilst angels sometimes attend from the skies. The scene has become so familiar, so comforting, that we perhaps need to look a little deeper, pause a little longer, to allow the wonder of God’s action displayed in this scene to enter our hearts, and thus to refurbish them, renewing the sight of our faith.

There are almost always two other characters in the scene which could so easily go un-remarked upon. These are animals, an ox and an ass. They are regular features in this picture of Jesus’s birth at least since the third-century, even though they don’t make it into Christian writing until slightly later than that. What is going on here, and to what do they point us? Are they merely decorative elements of a countryside scene attending the manger, perhaps because the child appears to be lying in their feeding trough? Well, there would be more to say another time about the varieties of crib in which the Christchild sleeps – you may have noticed that occasionally the crib looks a little like a sarcophagus, for example – but for now, let’s stick with these animals. What are these silent, non-human witnesses, trying to tell us?

You may remember a verse at the very beginning of the prophet Isaiah’s vision, ‘The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.’ The presence of these two animals at the manger is a visual representation of this verse, the non-recognition of the Lord’s presence by those to whom it was promised, interrogated by the implicit perception of the ox and ass. It is a long-standing theme in the prophetic literature of the Hebrew bible that the people to whom the Lord’s message is sent do not receive it. There may well be other resonances at play, too. Although the two animals eventually came to signify both Jew and Gentile worshipping the Christ child, there is an early prophetic tradition that a vision of the Lord would be flanked by two creatures, similar to the way in which the cherubim flanked the ark of the covenant. Certainly by the middle ages, this tradition had been codified into the text of the liturgy, as at Matins on Christmas morning, one of the responsories begins with the text, ‘O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see our Lord born, lying in a manger!’ The ox and ass which flank the newly born Jesus tell us something key about the story: this birth is a theophany, a revelation of the Lord’s glory, as all the hopes of the prophets collide into one tiny human space. The animals recognize and witness to this great mystery and wonderful sacrament. They see it all, as do Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and ultimately the Magi, even though most of the surrounding world is uninterested at the perfect revelation of God’s love and will which has come to pass in borrowed space in Bethlehem.

In today’s second lesson, St Paul records for us the text of a hymn, or poem, or early creedal statement, which may well have been composed as early as the late 30s AD. The letter to the Philippians is probably written in the early 60s, and it seems that this text was already very familiar to the Philippian Christians. It celebrates what is known as the kenosis – or self-emptying – of Christ at his Incarnation. Jesus Christ is the second Adam, who does not seize equality with God and exploit that, behaving, if you like, like ‘a god’, but rather assumes human form and human death, taking the form of a slave. This is the mystery which the ox and ass recognise, but which most humans – including most of the people to whom Jesus was sent – do not. Christ’s humility, and his refusal to exploit his divine status, will lead him to death on a cross, and it is this, ultimately, which leads to his exaltation and recognition. Ultimately, Christ’s self-emptying, his death for us and for our salvation, will lead to the bending of every knee, and the proclamation of his lordship by every tongue. For most people in first century society, this was not what God – or a god – was supposed to look like. This theme of self-emptying, of serving the world and binding up its wounds, kneeling alongside those declared outcast and unclean, would permeate the ministry and teaching of Jesus. But for now, in Bethlehem, few have the eyes to recognise and contemplate God’s action for what it is; the seeming paradox of ultimate majesty robed in human flesh, omnipotence in vulnerability, the faithfulness of Covenant Promise in the delicate, gossamer-thread fragility of one new-born human life, near the bottom of the social pile, and almost overwhelmingly threatened by the world’s powers. Laurie Lee’s poem, Twelfth Night, speaks of how  ‘for men with shepherd’s eyes there are signs in the dark, the turning stars, the lamb’s returning time…’, but they had learned how to look, and how to trust, on their lonely hillsides, at one with nature’s rhythms. They were perhaps better attuned to paradox, to the utterly interwoven realities of life and death, vulnerability and strength, blood and glory.

The ox and ass gaze upon this mystery – in this scene, perhaps the truest non-verbal response to the Word made Flesh. They are drawn to the Christchild, naturally perceiving something of his utter magnetism. And yet by their very presence, they also articulate this mystery. Can we learn something from the ox and the ass? Can we, if only for a few moments, suspend our relentless need to verbalise and explain, and simply contemplate? Can we recognise all the strength, wisdom and truth of God, in the gift of a love which pours itself out, which makes itself totally vulnerable, and which places itself into a position of non-dominance, without intruding, or threatening, or shouting about itself?  If we learn to contemplate the crib alongside the ox and ass in this way, without resorting too quickly to language, or concepts, or models, our hearts may learn to recognise God and God’s action in the world more naturally. As we begin to prepare for the turning of another year, remember the ox and the ass, and their simple contemplation of the outpoured love of God in the weakness and vulnerability of a child, drawn as they are to this scene by instinct and wonder. Let our hearts share that, this Christmas.