I wonder what this
moment feels like to you, on the cusp of the midnight that ushers in Christmas
Day? When we were small, we were
probably full of excitement, dreaming of Christmas stockings, wondering what
was in those parcels under the tree. Maybe now it is a bit more complicated,
and feelings are more mixed – but whatever our experience, this is the moment
when Christmas Day starts. Even if you are a real Grinch or Scrooge, a Christmas
refusenik, it’s hard to resist the hopefulness of this moment when Christmas
Eve becomes Christmas Day.
The problem is,
though, that by this time tomorrow, this moment of expectation will be behind
us. The wrapping paper you’ve so carefully applied will be rubbish for the
recycling, and the Christmas meal you’ve lovingly cooked will be reduced to
leftovers and washing up. In the space of twenty-four hours, anticipation is
often replaced by anti-climax. Even if your family festivities have been full
of joy and happiness, you may realise at that point that nothing has really
changed, and your life will soon be back to the same old, same old. The problems you had before Christmas will
still be waiting for you after it. That’s as true for the world around us as it
is for us as individuals. We may send each other cards wishing “Peace on
earth”, but the earth will be just as war-torn on Boxing Day as it is now. We
remember that famous World War 1 truce, when English and German soldiers played
football and sang carols together, but we forget that the next day they all
went back to shooting at each other.
Christmas isn’t
magic, no matter how magical we try to make it. It can’t cure the world’s ills,
make people happy when they aren’t, draw together feuding relatives, or mend
marriages that are crumbling. It can’t put right in a day what has taken months,
years, lifetimes to go wrong. It takes more than a bit of glitter and a tub of
Quality Street to mend a broken world.
Christmas Day can sometimes
seem disappointing, but I wonder whether that might be because we see it as an end, when it’s meant to be a
beginning.
When Jesus came into
the world at Bethlehem of course there was a sense of fulfilment and
achievement. After all the hardships and tensions of the pregnancy, and that
unplanned journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the child was born. Even if the
only bed he had to lie in was a cattle stall, he was safe and well. Of course Mary
and Joseph were relieved, and delighted by their new born son. But for them,
just as for any new parents, this wasn’t the end of the story. This was where it
started. Parents usually treasure their first moments with their new baby,
posting endless photos on Facebook, spending hours just gazing at their little
miracle, but they wouldn’t really want their child to stay like this forever.
There would be something seriously wrong if they did. The joy of parenting lies
in seeing your child grow up into the person they were meant to be. Along the way,
there’ll be pain and challenge too – for any child, not just for Jesus, but
growing and changing are what life is all about. Birth is a beginning, not an
end.
There’s a lovely
poem by a poet called Luci Shaw about the new born Jesus, which perfectly captures
that moment when all his life lay ahead of him, unknown and unimaginable. It
goes like this:
In sleep his infant
mouth works in and out.
He is so new, his
silk skin has not yet
been roughed by
plane and wooden beam
nor, so far, has he
had to deal with human doubt.
He is in a dream of
nipple found,
of blue-white milk,
of curving skin
and, pulsing in his
ear, the inner throb
of a warm heart’s
repeated sound
His only memories
float from fluid space.
So new he has not
pounded nails, hung a door,
broken bread, felt
rebuff, bent to the lash,
wept for the sad
heart of the human race.
(Kenosis, by Luci
Shaw)
It’s a poignant
poem, which acknowledges that this child is going to have sorrows to face as
well as joys. But it also reminds us of
the gift he will be to the world. He’s the one who will weep “for the sad heart of the human race”. He’ll
share our sufferings and by doing so, he’ll transform them. His death and
resurrection will show us that however dark the night, God can bring his light
into it and give us a future with hope. In
him, God will break into our human experience, not so that he can understand
what it feels like to be us – he knows that anyway – but so that we can understand
how much we’re loved.
And it all starts
here with this child cradled in a manger, not an end but a beginning; a small beginning who reminds us of the small
beginnings each of us is called to make, the journeys which start here and now.
Tonight we may
cradle in our hearts a dawning hope that change is possible, for ourselves or
the world around us. But what are we doing to feed that hope, to help it to
grow, to become the reality we long for?
Tonight we may
cradle in our hearts a tiny flicker of faith, a desire to pray, a new born
longing for God. But what are we going to do to nourish it so that so it can be
a source of strength to us for the rest of our lives?
Tonight we may
cradle in our hearts a sense that there’s something we’re meant to be doing
with our lives, a meaning and purpose we need to search out. But what are we
going to do that will help us to listen to that calling and respond to it?
Hope, faith, purpose;
these are the sorts of things that are born in our hearts tonight. They are
God’s gifts to us, but just like a new born child, they are small, vulnerable, easily
destroyed. They are just beginnings. It is what happens next that matters, and
if we want to help those “children” of ours grow up, if we want our hope, faith
and purpose to develop, it will take more than good intentions.
It will take time
and patience and will sometimes come at a cost. It will take other people. It
takes a village to raise a child, as the saying goes. Mary and Joseph seem to
have been alone in Bethlehem, but God soon gathered some very unlikely people around
him to form a family around them. There were shepherds from the hills, and foreign
magi summoned from far away by a star. These aren’t the people you’d expect at
the crib side – where are Jesus’ aunties and uncles, grandparents and cousins?
Later on there would be fishermen and tax collectors and prostitutes, a strange
“DIY” family to support Jesus and be supported by him. “Family” for him was
never going to be simply about blood relatives – it was for anyone and everyone
who wanted to be part of it. That’s why
Christian faith has always been a communal faith, one in which coming together
is valued. We need one another - all of us - with our gifts and our scars,
struggling to get along and learning to love and be loved as we do so.
That’s one of the
reasons why you have all been given one of these pink slips tonight, so that,
if you want to, you can let me know that you’d like to be kept in the loop, or
maybe have a chat in the New Year. There are no strings attached to this offer;
I just didn’t want people to go out into the night wishing they’d done
something to take the next step. If you’d like to keep in touch, fill in the
form and give it back to me, and I will make it happen.
It’s good for us to have
our moment of wonder and joy tonight, but what God really wants is for us to
have a lifetime of wonder, a lifetime of joy. It’s good that we can celebrate
this child born in a stable tonight, but what God really wants is for Christ to
be born in our hearts as well, and to grow and thrive there.
So, happy Christmas
– it all starts here! But let’s make
sure it doesn’t end here too.
Amens, and foreign
magi summoned from far away by a star. These aren’t the people you’d expect at
the crib side – where are Jesus’ aunties and uncles, grandparents and cousins?
Later on there would be fishermen and tax collectors and prostitutes, a strange
“DIY” family to support Jesus and be supported by him. “Family” for him was
never going to be simply about blood relatives – it was for anyone and everyone
who wanted to be part of it. That’s why
Christian faith has always been a communal faith, one in which coming together
is valued. We need one another - all of us - with our gifts and our scars,
struggling to get along and learning to love and be loved as we do so.
That’s one of the
reasons why you have all been given one of these pink slips tonight, so that,
if you want to, you can let me know that you’d like to be kept in the loop, or
maybe have a chat in the New Year. There are no strings attached to this offer;
I just didn’t want people to go out into the night wishing they’d done
something to take the next step. If you’d like to keep in touch, fill in the
form and give it back to me, and I will make it happen.
It’s good for us to have
our moment of wonder and joy tonight, but what God really wants is for us to
have a lifetime of wonder, a lifetime of joy. It’s good that we can celebrate
this child born in a stable tonight, but what God really wants is for Christ to
be born in our hearts as well, and to grow and thrive there.
So, happy Christmas
– it all starts here! But let’s make
sure it doesn’t end here too.
Amen
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