Jeremiah 31:7-16

Ephesians 1:3-14

St John 1:10-18

A few days ago, in the middle of the week, I had come to the conclusion that I would have nothing to say to you this morning. I felt drained. The developing news of what was happening in south east Asia was just too much. What can you say in the context of Christian worship at a time like that?

Sure, we’ve had disasters before. How shocked we all were as we saw the events of September 11 developing in front of our very eyes. And for many people, not only those who lost loved ones that day, the sense of shock is still there.

Yet the numbers killed in the destruction of the twin towers were considerably less than the numbers killed on British roads in a single year. Around 3000 people killed by terrorism on September 11; over 3½ thousand people killed on Britain’s roads in 2003.

As for AIDS, things continue to get worse. More than three million people died from AIDS in 2004. Nearly 40 million now have HIV. These are the highest tolls in the 23-year history of AIDS, the United Nations has reported. It is said that, unless we take drastic action now to fight the AIDS pandemic, we will see the collapse of communities, economies and society at large, in much of sub-Saharan Africa.

So disaster and tragedy are happening all the time. Yet that doesn’t make it any easier to take in the sheer horrific numbers of victims in the present crisis, and the news that at least 125,000 people have died so far as a result of the tsunami.

Some religious people manage in a sense to make light of tragedy and disaster: they’ll say that, though just now we can’t understand why things happen as they do, one day all will be revealed and understanding will come. To a certain extent that may be true, but somehow, in the middle of a tragedy, that seems such a cop-out.

Yet there are examples of people in the middle of suffering being able to see light through their darkness.

You may remember that Norman Tebbit’s wife suffered tragic paralysis in the bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton twenty years ago. As a result, Norman Tebbit became involved with Stoke Mandeville Hospital. Some time after the bombing, he wrote this:

“There is nothing ennobling or spiritual about a shattered spine or the suffering it brings to the victim or his or her family and friends. Yet somehow, from beyond that pain and suffering, something good can emerge.

“As we bemoan our lot, an attack of flu, a late train, a family quarrel or some material want, we may lose sight of more important things. In our imperfect world we may even lose sight of the human spirit which is fundamentally good.

“For some it is here that, by turning to God for the first time, he is found. I hope you will never be brought here as a victim nor sit at the bedside of a loved one. Either is to know tragedy and suffering. But should that be, you will find something that perhaps you did not know – something strong and good that you may call courage, or love, or strength, or God.”

It is not for me or any minister at a time like this to pontificate about how something good can emerge from someone else’s tragedy. That is for the people themselves to say. Only Norman Tebbit had any right to stand in the shadow of his wife’s tragedy and say these things, because these are the things that he found for himself: things that opened his eyes in his family disaster.

Yet there is something good and unavoidable in what he said with such feeling: something that points us beyond the disaster to an acknowledgement that there is something good out there, in spite of the tears, and the death, and the suffering. And so there is only one thing I want to leave with you this morning as we stand on the edge of a new year with all its hopes and its dreams. It is this:

In a world where we have grown used to evil men doing evil things, not because poverty has forced them into it, but doing evil because they choose to do it … in this world of bin Ladens, and murdering kidnappers who can behead fellow human beings on a whim … in this world of evil that we have grown more and more used to, especially in the past three years, we are still seeing the depths of goodness that the human spirit is capable of.

We have just seen the celebrations of Bandaid 20; more record-breaking donations for Children in Need; and all sorts of human generosity. Now it is all happening again, as people do the only thing they can do in these circumstances, and give with all their hearts to alleviate suffering, and try to save some human dignity for the victims.

At one point, we are told, the donations through the Disasters Emergency Committee were hitting a million pounds an hour. What an achievement! I hope we’ll all be helping unstintingly in this disaster above all disasters.

So here’s a challenge: not one that everyone will be able to undertake, but many of us could, if we had a mind to.

Will you think about joining me in giving £100 or more to the Disasters Emergency Committee?

Do it not because you can afford it, but perhaps because you can’t.

Do it not because it’s money you don’t need, but because of something Mother Teresa said: If you give what you do not need, it isn't giving.

Do it, if you possible can, in grateful response to what has been done for you. Do it with a spirit of generosity, a spirit of love, the Spirit of God.

And if you haven’t done it yet, will you do it today, as soon as you get home?

Lift the phone, turn on the Internet, or write a cheque. Remember to do it through Gift Aid if you pay tax, so making every £100 worth nearly £130.

Do it today. Then, even from something like this, something good can emerge, and the Spirit of God – whether it is recognized as that or not – will rise to the surface in the love, and giving, and the generosity, that millions of people across the world are showing at this time.

Now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, be ascribed, as is most justly due, all might, majesty, dominion and power, now and to the end of time. Amen.