At 12noon today precisely, something important happens. Ah yes, the alert among you are thinking, the Angel returns to public display. And it’s true, that is important. But it’s not what I had in mind. 12noon, precisely, would’ve been a significant time today, even without the Angel. Why? Because from that moment, next Christmas will be nearer than last one. December the 25th 2007 will be closer to us than December the 25th 2006. I apologise to those of you to whom this comes as a nasty shock. But you should have seen it coming: last week the longest day came and went and the nights are now drawing in for winter.

This, of course, is why we celebrate the birth of John the Baptist on June the 24th. Chapter one of the Gospel of Luke is more about John than it is about Jesus, and one of the things it tells us is that John was six months older than the Lord. Luke says that when Mary conceived, her kinswoman Elizabeth was already six months’ pregnant. So once the church had established December 25th as an appropriate date to celebrate the birth of the Saviour, it was bound to fix on June 24th to celebrate the birth of his herald. It’s a rather wonderful coincidence, that our Lichfield Angel returns to permanent public view today, because it is right there in the story of the Annunciation (which we’re pretty sure is what our limestone carving depicts) that the angel Gabriel says to Mary, 'And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren'.

Now the last time I was in this pulpit, I took issue with the lectionary compilers. I realise I shall have to be careful, or I shall get myself a reputation. But I’m going to do it again. You see, Luke chapter 1, from which this morning’s Gospel reading is taken, is one of the most carefully constructed chapters in all Scripture. In it, the song that Zechariah sang on the birth of his son serves as a sort of climax, and as a mini-overture if you like to the Gospel as a whole. But in their wisdom, the lectionary writers have omitted it. They have selected, as a Gospel reading for this morning, as you can see from your newsletter, Luke 1, verses 57 to 66 and verse 80. But, not for the first time I’m sure, our choir has saved the day. Because the verses omitted by the lectionary compilers (verses 67 to 79 in other words) were included this morning by the Cathedral Organist as a Gospel motet: the song that Zechariah sang was the canticle we know as the Benedictus, and the text is there on the newsletter on the inside page at the top of the middle column.

I want to do three things this morning. First, I want to offer an overview of Luke chapter one, to show how the Benedictus is the climax of it. Then I want to offer an overview of the Benedictus, to draw out its shape and key emphasis, which is also the key emphasis of Luke’s whole Gospel. Then finally, I want to suggest what that emphasis might mean for us here in this Cathedral Church at the mid-point, more or less, of 2007.

1. Luke Chapter One

First of all then, Luke chapter one. Apart from the opening four verses of the Gospel, which form a meticulous introduction, the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel is made up of four connected stories. Actually, they are two pairs of stories.

The first story is about a visit of the angel Gabriel (who just had to get airtime today, really) – but not to Mary. The angel’s first visit is to Zechariah, in a prequel to this morning’s Gospel reading. Did you notice, in our Gospel reading, how Luke says that ‘Zechariah’s mouth was opened and his tongue freed and he began to speak’? Well, if you don’t know the first instalment of the story, that might have struck you as an odd phrase. His mouth opened by whom? His tongue freed from what? The prequel tells us. It’s a wonderful story, full of comic touches, which introduces Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth: an elderly, devout but childless couple. Zechariah was a priest, on duty at the temple in Jerusalem, when Gabriel appeared to him in the sanctuary, and told him that his wife was about to bear a son – a son who would be filled with the Holy Spirit and would prepare his people for the coming of the Lord. Zechariah’s response is to say, more or less, ‘Don’t be daft. I’m an old man and my wife is past it’. To which Gabriel replies: ‘Look – I’m not messing about here. Your wife is going to have a son, and the sign will be this: you won’t say another word until the day your son is born’. That first story closes with Zechariah emerging literally dumbstruck from the sanctuary and attempting to communicate to people in gestures what he’s seen and heard. I’d love to know how he mimed: ‘An angel told me Elizabeth is going to have a baby’.

The second story is better known. It’s the one about the visit of Gabriel to Mary, to tell her that she too is to bear a son. That’s our Lichfield Angel story, at the end of which Mary is sent by Gabriel to see her kinswoman, who is also bearing a miracle child, as confirmation that his message to her is from God.

The third story is the sequel to the second and describes that visit to Elizabeth – and it climaxes with the song we know as ‘the Magnificat’. So the two stories about Mary, the first of them involving a speaking part for Gabriel and the second a speaking part for Elizabeth, are clumped together in the middle of chapter 1 and they climax in a canticle: a song of praise to God – in which, by the way, Luke sets out a good deal of his theology.

The final story is the one made up of both our Gospel reading and our Gospel motet this morning. It’s the partner of the first story: this time we’ve got two stories about Zechariah, but again, the first involves a speaking part for Gabriel and the second a speaking part for Elizabeth, and again the two stories climax in a canticle. If Luke had painted chapter one of his Gospel, he’d have had all his diagonals converging on this canticle, to draw the eye to it and focus our attention on it. The importance of the Benedictus is heightened by two things: it comes right at the end of the chapter and it comes right at the end of Zechariah’s nine-month silence. Most of us struggle to stay silent for 9 minutes At the end of that fast of speech, his mouth is opened, tongue is freed and he speaks, praising God. What does he say? It matters. Luke wants us to dwell on it, to savour and ponder it. It’s perverse to cut it out.

2. The Benedictus

So, look with me secondly, if you would, at the words of the Gospel motet on your newsletter.

Actually, a little bit of bible trivia first of all. In all four Gospels, taken together, how often do you think the word ‘salvation’ appears? Surely a hundred? Fifty then? Twenty five? No. Surprisingly, the two Greek words which mean salvation (soteria and soterion) come just half a dozen times in the four Gospels. The word comes not once in Matthew, not once in Mark, just once in John and five times in Luke – including three references in this canticle, the Benedictus. Add together all the references to salvation in all four Gospels, and you find half of them in the words the choir sang in our Gospel motet this morning – although admittedly one of them is hiding. (One of the references, that is; rather than one of the choir.) You’ll see the word salvation in the third line of the first paragraph and again in the third line of the second paragraph. But the same Greek noun also appears in the sixth line of the first paragraph, where our translation says, ‘that we should be saved from our enemies’. Literally, it’s ‘that we should have salvation from our enemies’. So what’s the Benedictus about? At the start of Tony Blair’s last week in office, there’s really no other way to put it than by saying, it’s about ‘salvation, salvation, salvation’.

But salvation for whom and from what? Let me say one other thing about the content of the Benedictus, before I ask what all this might mean for us today.

In your newsletter, the text of the Benedictus is printed in two sections before a Gloria. The Gloria is not part of the Lucan text. In the first half of the canticle proper the tone sounds very narrow and nationalistic. It’s about salvation for the house of David, the descendants of Abraham, the covenant people of God – and it’s salvation from its enemies, from the hands of those who hate them. The word ‘enemies’ comes twice. But contrast the second half: it’s about a salvation that is known through the forgiveness of sins, as a light that comes to those in sit darkness and the shadow of death, and as the dawning of mercy and peace.

Those of you who are familiar with the content of Luke’s gospel will know that this second understanding of salvation as something generous, inclusive and broad which bursts the old narrow and nationalistic framework is key: salvation, for Luke, is from sin and death – not merely from the Romans; it’s salvation for tax collectors and sinners, for Samaritans and Gentiles, for women and the poor – not merely for religiously orthodox male Israelites. In the Benedictus we hear as in an overture the central theme of the whole Lucan Gospel: that the salvation of God is something gracious and life-giving, welcoming and accepting of all sorts and conditions of people: young and old, rich and poor, black and white, good and bad. For Luke, this salvation is first embodied and then enacted or effected, established, in Jesus. It’s a salvation of which John the Baptist is the forerunner, appointed ‘to go before the Lord’.

Conclusion

But, finally: so what? If Luke chapter one climaxes in the Benedictus and the Benedictus climaxes in the celebration of an inclusive salvation, embodied and enacted in Jesus – what difference does that make to us here in this Cathedral Church in mid-2007?

Well, we’ve had some good publicity this weekend. The return of the Angel has been helpfully reported in at least the Times and the Telegraph and on TV too: even if Midlands Today did describe the Angel as seventh century, not eighth, and carved from wood not limestone, and spelt the Dean’s surname ‘D-A-W-B-E-R’. Never mind.

Given the publicity, I anticipate an increase in visitor numbers to the Cathedral over the summer months. What will visitors encounter when they come, I wonder? An Angel, obviously. But an Angel simply as an Anglo Saxon artefact? Or an Angel as a messenger of the Living God, entrusted with a message of salvation: the good news of a salvation which is generous, inclusive and broad, embodied and enacted in Jesus. Would you make it your prayer, please (and in so far as you meet and greet and engage with those who visit us, would you also please make it your aim to ensure), that it will be the latter, not the former only. Beyond the summer, maybe the decision we’ve received from the HLF offers us a God-given interval in which to make certain that Lichfield InSpires will provide a window for the public to enable them to see through the Cathedral onto the salvation of God. And meanwhile, may we ourselves together with the newly confirmed be renewed in our pondering and savouring of that salvation: a salvation which is generous, inclusive and broad, embodied and enacted in Jesus.

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up a mighty salvation for us in the house of his servant David; To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of all their sins, Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us, To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,and to guide our feet into the way of peace. Amen.