God with us
Most people at some time hear some really astounding news – news that is absolutely life changing. On Friday morning as I was eating my breakfast and watching the episode of Neighbours that I’d recorded from the day before I received such news – up on the screen flashed the words, ‘Happy Christmas from everyone at Neighbours’ – very nice I thought, but then the really life changing news, the next caption read, ‘Neighbours will be back on 5th January’…
This wasn’t supposed to happen with Channel 5 – there were to be no more Wimbledon interruptions, no more Royal Ascot interruptions, but now we have this ! Breakfast will not be the same !
Of course, life changing though this may be for me – it’s not quite as life changing as the news Mary received in the gospel reading today (Luke 1:26-38) – still really a young girl, not married, a virgin, but the angel had visited and told her she was to have a child.
Mary’s acceptance was incredible – she could have panicked, she could have simply refused to accept this – nobody could have blamed her. Her example of faith and acceptance of God’s will is one from which we can all learn, but this morning I want to think of something that we often overlook in this story, and that is God’s faith in us.
There’s a story about a kind British family who had made contact with a Romanian family who were struggling to cope in the severe economic crisis in that country. The British couple decided to send their new Romanian friends a Christmas parcel and thought it would be a good idea to include a traditional Christmas Pudding. For good measure, they added a sprig of holly on the top.
Some weeks later they received a thank you letter for the parcel which included the line, ‘thank you too for the plant, we watered it every day, but sadly it died.’
Missing the point of the gift of Christmas is all too easy – as we’ve thought so often it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and busyness of Christmas, but it’s easy to miss the complete point as well even when we focus on Jesus as the reason for Christmas.
We celebrate his birth, we give thanks for the life he came to bring, for the new life offered through his resurrection, for the example of his incredible teaching, the miracles in his life, the humility, and the constant love for people, even those who were out to hurt him.
It’s right to praise him for these things, it’s right to try and change our lives to seek to be more like him in all that we do and think and say, but even if we manage to do that we are missing out on one very important thing if we leave it there, and that is the trust that God has put in us.
His creation of the world was in many ways not a great success if we measure it by human standards – the people had often been guilty of doing things wrong, of rebelling against him, wars had taken place, people often didn’t get on with each other… he had given the gift of freewill but that freewill had very often been used badly….
And yet God didn’t give up. His love for the world and every one of us was, and is, so great that he was determined to give chance after chance to people to connect with him, and in Jesus he was giving us the example of his love…
He was saying to every one of us that he trusted us enough to see God in Jesus and respond to him.
One of the great joys of this time of year is watching some of the school nativity plays, and it’s wonderful to watch how much work goes into them, and what a great success they are, but I’m probably not alone in liking it a little bit when things don’t actually go according to plan – the forgotten lines, the unscripted words and so on.
Well in the drama that was the conception and birth of Jesus God really did leave a lot to chance – there was Mary, as we’ve already thought, a young girl. There was Joseph, a proud man, who could easily have allowed his pride to get in the way of allowing this story to proceed as it had to.
Then, as the story progresses there is Mary, almost nine months pregnant, having to travel the 75 miles to a strange place. The Bible doesn’t actually say anything about a donkey, so she may even have had to walk the whole distance. But even if she did ride, how many women would welcome bouncing along on a donkey’s bony back when they’re ready to give birth?
Then there’s the birth. No room at the inn, so it’s some kind of stable or outhouse in which the Saviour of the world would be born. Of course, even then it would be all sweetness and light ! We sing, “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given…” but naturally done, there are not too many silent births!
And then there are the shepherds and later the Magi or wise men. These were busy people - It would take some powerful motivation for those shepherds to leave their sheep unattended in the wild.
There were so many things that could go wrong, so many things that relied on human beings, and yet, despite everything, somehow, the miracle happened. God ignored all those things that could go wrong, and came among us.
And he is among us today, relying on us to be as St Ignatius put it, ‘God bearers, Christ bearers’. All around us there are signs of God’s presence and signs of his love for a world that although damaged, is not broken. Far beyond just loving us, he trusts us to be his presence, to be lights shining in the darkness.
Christmas is about Jesus – it’s about all those things that we thought about earlier, but in the wider picture, it’s also about God’s faith in us. As a loving Father, he could never have rejected the world. As a loving Father, he was always going to do everything he could to reconcile us to him. As a loving Father, we were never going to be left alone, abandoned, because for every rejection that hurts him so deeply, nothing can ever be better than someone turning to him and saying, ‘I love you, and I will serve you, and I will honour you and I will praise you in my words and in my actions.’
There’s a well known story which has lots of different versions, about the devout man who is caught up in a great flood. He climbed on to the roof of his house for safety. Along came a rescue launch and offered to take him off, but he refused, saying that God would help him. And as the water rose, a helicopter arrived and lowered a crewman – again he refused, ‘God will help me.’
After he had drowned he arrived in heaven and met God, and asked, ‘Why didn’t you save me?’ God replied, ‘I sent a rescue launch and a helicopter – wasn’t that enough?’
It’s so easy to forget the trust God puts in us. So easy to forget the huge amount of love and pride he feels as he looks at us – we are all different, but every one of us is special to him. Within us, and all around us there are signs of God’s presence, that we can see and feel and use for his glory – let’s make sure we don’t miss them. AMEN
This wasn’t supposed to happen with Channel 5 – there were to be no more Wimbledon interruptions, no more Royal Ascot interruptions, but now we have this ! Breakfast will not be the same !
Of course, life changing though this may be for me – it’s not quite as life changing as the news Mary received in the gospel reading today (Luke 1:26-38) – still really a young girl, not married, a virgin, but the angel had visited and told her she was to have a child.
Mary’s acceptance was incredible – she could have panicked, she could have simply refused to accept this – nobody could have blamed her. Her example of faith and acceptance of God’s will is one from which we can all learn, but this morning I want to think of something that we often overlook in this story, and that is God’s faith in us.
There’s a story about a kind British family who had made contact with a Romanian family who were struggling to cope in the severe economic crisis in that country. The British couple decided to send their new Romanian friends a Christmas parcel and thought it would be a good idea to include a traditional Christmas Pudding. For good measure, they added a sprig of holly on the top.
Some weeks later they received a thank you letter for the parcel which included the line, ‘thank you too for the plant, we watered it every day, but sadly it died.’
Missing the point of the gift of Christmas is all too easy – as we’ve thought so often it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and busyness of Christmas, but it’s easy to miss the complete point as well even when we focus on Jesus as the reason for Christmas.
We celebrate his birth, we give thanks for the life he came to bring, for the new life offered through his resurrection, for the example of his incredible teaching, the miracles in his life, the humility, and the constant love for people, even those who were out to hurt him.
It’s right to praise him for these things, it’s right to try and change our lives to seek to be more like him in all that we do and think and say, but even if we manage to do that we are missing out on one very important thing if we leave it there, and that is the trust that God has put in us.
His creation of the world was in many ways not a great success if we measure it by human standards – the people had often been guilty of doing things wrong, of rebelling against him, wars had taken place, people often didn’t get on with each other… he had given the gift of freewill but that freewill had very often been used badly….
And yet God didn’t give up. His love for the world and every one of us was, and is, so great that he was determined to give chance after chance to people to connect with him, and in Jesus he was giving us the example of his love…
He was saying to every one of us that he trusted us enough to see God in Jesus and respond to him.
One of the great joys of this time of year is watching some of the school nativity plays, and it’s wonderful to watch how much work goes into them, and what a great success they are, but I’m probably not alone in liking it a little bit when things don’t actually go according to plan – the forgotten lines, the unscripted words and so on.
Well in the drama that was the conception and birth of Jesus God really did leave a lot to chance – there was Mary, as we’ve already thought, a young girl. There was Joseph, a proud man, who could easily have allowed his pride to get in the way of allowing this story to proceed as it had to.
Then, as the story progresses there is Mary, almost nine months pregnant, having to travel the 75 miles to a strange place. The Bible doesn’t actually say anything about a donkey, so she may even have had to walk the whole distance. But even if she did ride, how many women would welcome bouncing along on a donkey’s bony back when they’re ready to give birth?
Then there’s the birth. No room at the inn, so it’s some kind of stable or outhouse in which the Saviour of the world would be born. Of course, even then it would be all sweetness and light ! We sing, “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given…” but naturally done, there are not too many silent births!
And then there are the shepherds and later the Magi or wise men. These were busy people - It would take some powerful motivation for those shepherds to leave their sheep unattended in the wild.
There were so many things that could go wrong, so many things that relied on human beings, and yet, despite everything, somehow, the miracle happened. God ignored all those things that could go wrong, and came among us.
And he is among us today, relying on us to be as St Ignatius put it, ‘God bearers, Christ bearers’. All around us there are signs of God’s presence and signs of his love for a world that although damaged, is not broken. Far beyond just loving us, he trusts us to be his presence, to be lights shining in the darkness.
Christmas is about Jesus – it’s about all those things that we thought about earlier, but in the wider picture, it’s also about God’s faith in us. As a loving Father, he could never have rejected the world. As a loving Father, he was always going to do everything he could to reconcile us to him. As a loving Father, we were never going to be left alone, abandoned, because for every rejection that hurts him so deeply, nothing can ever be better than someone turning to him and saying, ‘I love you, and I will serve you, and I will honour you and I will praise you in my words and in my actions.’
There’s a well known story which has lots of different versions, about the devout man who is caught up in a great flood. He climbed on to the roof of his house for safety. Along came a rescue launch and offered to take him off, but he refused, saying that God would help him. And as the water rose, a helicopter arrived and lowered a crewman – again he refused, ‘God will help me.’
After he had drowned he arrived in heaven and met God, and asked, ‘Why didn’t you save me?’ God replied, ‘I sent a rescue launch and a helicopter – wasn’t that enough?’
It’s so easy to forget the trust God puts in us. So easy to forget the huge amount of love and pride he feels as he looks at us – we are all different, but every one of us is special to him. Within us, and all around us there are signs of God’s presence, that we can see and feel and use for his glory – let’s make sure we don’t miss them. AMEN
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