Christmas begins with Christ

I have not braved much Christmas shopping this year. Nearly all of my shopping has been done online. Whilst I have ‘shopped’ around I have some wonderful delights that maybe you have stumbled on too...

For the devout PA - there is a 4gb memory stick in the shape of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It even has a little heart that flashes when you plug her into your USB port. Her halo has a prayer - ‘O Maria keep my data safe.’

Or show how devout you are, you might want a Spirit Filled bible - like this one...


There are also the items of a more intimate nature printed with sacred images, marketed simply as ‘thongs of praise.’

Alternatively as I scoured the net I also found a wooden nativity scene. It’s made in Bethlehem. Placed down the middle of the scene separating wise men from the holy family is a wall. It is a stark reminder of the 370 km long, 6 metre high, barbed wire topped wall encircling Palestine and which causes hardship to many thousands.

When I did venture out into Hemel I was really struck by the quite frankly facile advertising campaign in the Marlowes shopping centre this year -

love life. love gifts. love christmas.
love life. love style. love christmas.
Christmas, it’s in the bag.

All of that is in stark contrast to the Christmas advertising we have used at church this year which you might have seen. The poster is of a scan of a be-haloed baby - clearly meant to be Jesus. The tag line reads - Christmas begins with Christ. I wonder which of these two visions of why we are celebrating you buy into?Amongst the trivia and the kitsch, the laughter and the celebration, tonight we are reminded that Jesus was born into a world then as now that was a messy place, a place where injustice lives alongside privilege, poverty in the shadow of obscene wealth and where violence so often prospers despite the peace-loving goodwill of great numbers.

It’s a reminder that the world foreseen by Isaiah that we heard about in our first reading tonight, seen some 800 years before the events we recall tonight, is still to be fully realized. Today we celebrate the fact that glorious light does indeed shine on us in the dark times of our lives and in the dark places of our world. But we do also acknowledge that Jesus, the Prince of Peace’s reign of justice has begun, yet it is far from being fulfilled. God’s vision of the world, shared through Isaiah, is a magnificent vision and the child to be born is the gift beyond all gifts, offering us life beyond what life so often is, showing us love deeper and more meaningful than we ever thought possible. It’s that reality that inspires us to let the light of God shine forth in our lives.

When we look into the manger tonight, what do we see? The warm romantic glow of a proud new family unit, or a new family seeking refuge in a stranger’s barn? We see new life, God’s New Life, begun in the depths of our sometimes messy and sometimes frivolous realities and we see the vulnerability of a God who reaches into human life in the most intimate of ways - by becoming one of us.

When we look at this baby, we see right into the heart, into the life, into the purposes and hope and dreams of God himself. And in that heart there are no barriers. It is a heart that isn’t put off by barbed wire, barbed comments, roadside bombs, religious intolerance, environmental abuse. A heart doesn’t waver when enemies want to nail it to a cross. A heart that continues to love no matter how much we might take advantage of his vulnerability.

When we look into the crib tonight at this baby, we see a whole cinema of images, every one which points us to the passion that God has for each of us. Every one of them points towards God’s absolute determination to show us that the messiness and frivolity of human life is ultimately no match for divine extravagance of His vulnerable love.

God’s love isn’t such that offers quick fixes, magical protection or emotional anaesthesia: it isn’t infantile love. God’s love is far stronger because it stands with us when things are at their very worst and holds us when life verges into the intolerable. Through the baby in a manger God offers us a powerful, grown up, real kind of love whose light shines with glory even as it challenges us to give birth to that same birth ourselves in our lives, lifestyles, words and actions.
So what do we see as we look into the crib? Shopping bags crammed with love gifts for those who matter to us? A baby? As importantly though, I wonder what God sees as he looks out at us?

He sees what we don’t expect Him to see - he looks past self obsessed X-factor desire to be famous, and instead sees deep down a longing in each of us to be recognized and loved for who we are. He looks past our self obsessed National Lottery desire to be rich, and instead sees deep down a longing in each of us to be secure and safe. He looks past our self obsessed Apprentice desire to be the best at all costs no matter who gets trodden on on the way up, and instead sees deep down a longing in each of us to know that we reaching our God-given potential.

We don’t like a God who messes with us. This is why Christmas has become about shopping. But there are not enough presents in the world to obscure the God who looks for us tonight. Many of us say things like ‘I believe in God’ but then not allow that belief to touch the sides of our lives and just pass straight through leaving us unchallenged, unchanged. It’s easy to deal with a God who doesn’t deal with us because we don’t have to deal with Him, but a God who come to the muck and mire of our lives forces us to face the fact of the manger we gather at tonight - if this is God’s response to me then how should I respond to Him?

God in the muck and mire of the manger sees our vulnerability and sees each one of us as irreplaceable, precious and lovable, irrespective of what we may feel about ourselves. As He looks out of the manger tonight and recognizes each of us as His own son or daughter because of Jesus. Because of this baby looking back at us, we all children of God and in His heart, there is space for all of us.

love life. love gifts. love christmas.
love life. love style. love christmas.
Christmas, it’s in the bag.

No, Christmas is not in the bag. Christmas is is in the manger, in the crib, because Christmas begins with Christ.

~~~~~

With grateful thanks to Brett Ward's sermon in 'The Preacher' issue: Oct 2010 no. 139

The Nativity - God's protest song...

Well who would have thought that Rage Against the Machine would have the Christmas number one, especially as for the last few years at least, the winner of the X-Factor has been pretty much guaranteed the number one slot.

‘Killing in the Name’ could not be a more unlikey choice for the top slot this or any other Christmas... not a saccharine syrupy lyric in sight, a great guitar riff, and very very political (and fairly colourful) lyrics. It is a heartfelt cry for justice. The song is about the then campaign against corruption in the US police forces, trying to expose and remove officers who were also members of the Ku Klux Klan, and American society’s unwillingness to act against this clear abuse of power.

‘’Killing in the Name’ is a cry for justice that is echoed down the corridors of history: in the recent Climate Change protests, the ‘Stand Up’ anti-poverty campaign, the Make Poverty History and Jubilee 2000 campaigns, Band Aid, CND, the Suffragettes the anti-slavery movement, and so on... Things just should not be like this. We know they shouldn’t. God knows they shouldn’t... and yet they continue to be so, we continue to be so...
In a year of the failed Copenhagen summit, global recession, mass unemployment, flooding nationally and internationally, banking crises, and more fighting and dying in Afghanistan it is no wonder that we might think that God had gone on an extended holiday and left us to our own devices and our self-made mess... In that context ‘Killing in the Name’ seems a most appropriate anthem this Christmas.

We so easily approach the events that we recall tonight as though they were a scene from many of the Christmas cards that we have received or sent. The Holy Family surrounded by animals, shepherds, maybe an angel or wise man or two all enveloped in the divine light of God. A soft focus Nativity, and yet our first reading tonight could not be a more sharper contrast.

The prophet Isaiah speaks to Jerusalem has been ransacked and laid waste. It has been waiting for it’s day of liberation. Those who guard the city’s shattered buildings and nearly empty streets are scanning the horizon. They have to be especially wary as the Babylonians have undermined the city’s walls leaving the it defenseless. Suddenly, off to the east, they spot someone on the crest of the Mount of Olives. They can barely make out the person’s faint cries. As he makes his way down the mount they hear, “Your God is King!” The messenger is from Babylon and has made the 500 mile trip across the desert to bring this hopeful news to Jerusalem. God is returning to making the city holy by His divine presence.

We gather again tonight, looking out for hope and life too, for many of us feel hopeless. Yet over the brow of the year comes the Christmas story... and our hearts sink. The soft focus, saccharine stories of the God who fails to make a difference... And yet, have we really heard the Christmas story at all? Strain with me to hear again what St John says. The Word, who pre-existed with God, has brought all that is into existence. The life that he lives is like a beacon of light to people - a blinding light that cannot be extinguished. He lived that Divine light and life amongst us, but we did not see him or recognise him, but those who do are offered the life of God, life with God. Who or what is this Word? He is the one who speaks of, acts out and lives the very life of God Himself... Not a mention of global recession or unemployment, Afghanistan or climate change, but there is talk about light, life and an over-riding sense of hope...

If you came tonight to coo over a baby, born in conditions that the Social Services would have a fit about, but to go ‘ahhh’ at the Christmas story nonetheless, then you will find that child on the front of many a card at home. Through the child born in the manger in Bethlehem, tonight God speaks to us His Word, He blinds us with the light of justice and He deafens us with His protest song of hope.

Friends I am not naive enough to realise that this sounds all too utopian, a Christmas sticking plaster over the gaping wound of my life or our lives together - yet tonight I am reminded in the midst of political, financial and environmental turmoil this baby is born. The Word made flesh. God himself amongst us, returning to make the city, this village, our workplaces, our families, our lives, holy by His divine presence.

A colleague of mine was once describing the beauty of the world to some children, when one child popped up with, ‘He could not have done it without the council,’ meaning the workers of which his Dad was one. The child knew that without us, God will not, without God we cannot. Or to put it another way, ‘Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born, if he is not born in you, you a still forlorn. Want a better life? A better year? Some good old fashioned hope? It begins at the manger. But we have got to accept what He offers. This baby comes to make us holy, to forge a friendship between us and God, to offer us light, hope and life, to transform our lives and together, our world. Amen