Hand in Hand

A sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on December 25, 2024 by Revd Dr Sam Wells

Christmas Day

As I stood in the wind and rain three weeks ago on the night of the lighting of the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square, I several times heard the word solidarity. The tree obviously represents Christmas. But it also means the people of Norway recognising that the British people stood by them through the most benighted days of the Second World War, and act of solidarity that, 80 years later, they’ve not forgotten.

These days when a baby’s born, the fashion is to take a huge number of photographs to remember the moment. One photograph that often makes it onto a birth announcement is that of the tiny little hand of the new-born infant tucked into the enormous hand of the joyful but astonished father, making the father look like Gulliver in Lilliput. Such a picture demonstrates the common humanity, and yet the profound difference, of our respective stages of life. It’s a perfect mixture of vulnerability and tenderness, weakness and love.

As I stood in Trafalgar Square, the mention of solidarity put me in mind of three moments in my life when another person has held my hand in an act of solidarity. One was shortly after I’d received a phone call to say my mother was dying and I needed to get on a plane and fly 2000 miles home to be with her. A man I found very difficult, who was rude and unkind and reckless and wild, just said nothing and held my hand tight. There was nothing to say, and he said nothing. For all his craziness, I recall him fondly for that moment alone. That squeeze of my hand. Forty years later, I’ve never forgotten that squeeze of my hand. That was solidarity.

A few years later I was climbing on a mountain in Snowdonia in winter and, as a schoolteacher once said of me, my ideas were a bit above my abilities. The other climbers were more nimble and agile than I, and I was falling behind. I scrambled up a tight gap and lost my footing. I reached out my hand desperately and one of my fellow climbers caught it and held it tight until I could find my footholds and stand up again. I don’t dare think what would have become of me had that hand not reached out for me. Later in the pub I said, ‘I think I owe you a drink.’ We both knew I owed a lot more than that. That was solidarity.

But more than anything else, what came to my mind in the Square was a moment later in my life. It was a tumultuous time in the community where I lived and worked, and many people were so angry that they were calling for the person in charge to resign or be fired. There was a big public meeting that wasn’t about the crisis – although it was a time when everything felt related to the crisis. I was sitting beside the leader of the community in a section of the hall largely hidden from the rest of the audience. One public representative got up and made a short speech saying, I know this is a tough time, but you need to know you’ve got the right leader and she will bring you out of this with dignity and hope. Quietly and invisibly to anyone else, the leader took my hand in hers and squeezed it very hard. She didn’t say anything. And we never spoke about it again. It was the only time she ever indicated to me how much pressure she was under. She who always seemed so assured and strong was actually vulnerable. I was moved to be so needed and so trusted. And I felt perhaps the greatest sense of solidarity I’ve ever experienced.

Christmas is the greatest-ever moment of solidarity. It’s the moment when God shows us a love that will never let us go. It’s when God says to us, ‘I’ll hold your hand when you’ve lost the person you deeply love; I’ll take your hand when your life is in danger; I’ll put my hand in yours when it feels like the whole world has turned against you.’ The Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square isn’t really about presents and Santa and parties and turkey. It’s about God saying to us, ‘I’m taking your hand in mine; and I will never let you go.’ That’s the great truth of Christmas.

But here’s the big surprise of Christmas. When we see that birth announcement (the one with the big hand and the little hand), when we realise Christmas and God’s birthday are the same day, we’re not quite ready for the big surprise at the heart of Christmas, deep within the mystery of solidarity between God and us. Here’s the big surprise: the big hand in the photo belongs to us. The little hand is the tiny hand of God. Squeezing ours tight.