Messages for Christmas
Advent themes are also covered in the 'End Times' section.
The power of the Nativity
This Christmas saw public controversy over whether a primary school should get kids acting out the nativity story. Much comment revolved around the need to keep religion out of our schools. So what do we really think about this story? Could it be dangerous for children? Is it myth, or history, theology or nonsense?
... What really fascinates me about all of these characters in the nativity drama is that between them they reach across the whole breadth of human society, from the lowest dirtiest homeliest shepherds to the rich and learned, scholars from a distant land. From the gold to the dung, they come to stand together at the manger, bringing with them all the breadth of humanity. No one is excluded. These figurines stand in for us, all of us.
And it’s not just the human, but all the created world also.
This Christmas saw public controversy over whether a primary school should get kids acting out the nativity story. Much comment revolved around the need to keep religion out of our schools. So what do we really think about this story? Could it be dangerous for children? Is it myth, or history, theology or nonsense?
... What really fascinates me about all of these characters in the nativity drama is that between them they reach across the whole breadth of human society, from the lowest dirtiest homeliest shepherds to the rich and learned, scholars from a distant land. From the gold to the dung, they come to stand together at the manger, bringing with them all the breadth of humanity. No one is excluded. These figurines stand in for us, all of us.
And it’s not just the human, but all the created world also.
Mary and Joseph and an inconvenient birth
Let’s ask questions of the old familiar story … Do you really know it as well as you think you do??
Here's an excerpt:
... But back to Joseph’s family in Bethlehem. How did they deal with the situation? Our traditional reading of scripture is that Mary and Joseph were not welcome at all. There was, we read, ‘no room at the inn’. Were Joseph’s family so callous that a 9-month pregnant woman would be turned away at the gate? Of course not, don’t be rediculous. This was a large and respectable family, and Joseph an important son. Of course they would have been welcomed in.
But there was a problem; overcrowding. So many members of the extended family had already arrived that there was no room in the guest room. The word translated ‘inn’ here is the same word translated ‘upper room’ later in Luke as the disciples are setting up for the Last Supper. It is not the word for a public hotel, which is a quite different word used in the story of the Good Samaritan, who pays for the wounded man to stay in a commercial ‘inn’.
What Luke describes as the setting of Jesus’ birth a normal house, a private family home. So when they arrived in the crowded home Mary and Joseph were brought right in to the very back of the house, down some steps to the room cut into the rock behind the house, just a cave really, where the animals slept the night. Every family had a stable in the back of the house where their animals would be safe from theft and cold.
Here, with lamps being lit and fresh water brought in, here surrounded by family, with the midwife coming running, here Jesus was born. Not ideal conditions, certainly, but with family.
But it was not Mary’s family though. She came into that house as a stranger, and not a very welcome one. ...
Tell me how Mary would have felt: she was not safe in her home town and not very welcome in Joseph’s home town. She has travelled all this way, been through labour with no familiar faces holding her through it. Her baby is born … what is Mary feeling?
And how might Joseph have felt? He is home again, possibly the place where he experienced great grief, with people he knows so well but who hardly know him at all any more, with this new young woman he loves passionately, and this baby that is not his but … what is Joseph feeling?
Let’s ask questions of the old familiar story … Do you really know it as well as you think you do??
Here's an excerpt:
... But back to Joseph’s family in Bethlehem. How did they deal with the situation? Our traditional reading of scripture is that Mary and Joseph were not welcome at all. There was, we read, ‘no room at the inn’. Were Joseph’s family so callous that a 9-month pregnant woman would be turned away at the gate? Of course not, don’t be rediculous. This was a large and respectable family, and Joseph an important son. Of course they would have been welcomed in.
But there was a problem; overcrowding. So many members of the extended family had already arrived that there was no room in the guest room. The word translated ‘inn’ here is the same word translated ‘upper room’ later in Luke as the disciples are setting up for the Last Supper. It is not the word for a public hotel, which is a quite different word used in the story of the Good Samaritan, who pays for the wounded man to stay in a commercial ‘inn’.
What Luke describes as the setting of Jesus’ birth a normal house, a private family home. So when they arrived in the crowded home Mary and Joseph were brought right in to the very back of the house, down some steps to the room cut into the rock behind the house, just a cave really, where the animals slept the night. Every family had a stable in the back of the house where their animals would be safe from theft and cold.
Here, with lamps being lit and fresh water brought in, here surrounded by family, with the midwife coming running, here Jesus was born. Not ideal conditions, certainly, but with family.
But it was not Mary’s family though. She came into that house as a stranger, and not a very welcome one. ...
Tell me how Mary would have felt: she was not safe in her home town and not very welcome in Joseph’s home town. She has travelled all this way, been through labour with no familiar faces holding her through it. Her baby is born … what is Mary feeling?
And how might Joseph have felt? He is home again, possibly the place where he experienced great grief, with people he knows so well but who hardly know him at all any more, with this new young woman he loves passionately, and this baby that is not his but … what is Joseph feeling?
Christmas and our environment
Bible Reading: Luke 1:46-55, the Magnificat
The problem is, Christmas has become bad for our environment. Millions of children the world over will be given plastic toys which will quickly break and be thrown in the bin, mountains of rubbish, used for a few minutes or hours and then taking hundreds of years to break down.
Santa is the god of the disposable. Our Santa myth drives our consumer world. In the Santa myth the elves manufacture and produce from an infinity of resources, with no care or concern with what happens to all the stuff once it’s delivered.
Our world is not an infinity of resources. Our world cannot cope with all the stuff we are thowing away.
I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make you feel bad, especially at Christmas time. Or maybe I am trying to make you feel bad, because actually I think we have to feel bad. It’s not OK for this to be somebody else’s problem. All of us, every human on the planet, has a share in this problem, and in finding solutions.
... linking back to Mary and her song magnifying the Lord
At Christmas time we focus our gaze in one tiny spot, a baby lying in a manger. And somehow this tiny spot magnifies all of God’s unutterable greatness.
Bible Reading: Luke 1:46-55, the Magnificat
The problem is, Christmas has become bad for our environment. Millions of children the world over will be given plastic toys which will quickly break and be thrown in the bin, mountains of rubbish, used for a few minutes or hours and then taking hundreds of years to break down.
Santa is the god of the disposable. Our Santa myth drives our consumer world. In the Santa myth the elves manufacture and produce from an infinity of resources, with no care or concern with what happens to all the stuff once it’s delivered.
Our world is not an infinity of resources. Our world cannot cope with all the stuff we are thowing away.
I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make you feel bad, especially at Christmas time. Or maybe I am trying to make you feel bad, because actually I think we have to feel bad. It’s not OK for this to be somebody else’s problem. All of us, every human on the planet, has a share in this problem, and in finding solutions.
... linking back to Mary and her song magnifying the Lord
At Christmas time we focus our gaze in one tiny spot, a baby lying in a manger. And somehow this tiny spot magnifies all of God’s unutterable greatness.
God pitched a tent
"And the Word became Flesh, and pitched a tent among us"
John 1
Interactive all-age: put up a tent in church for the children to play in, and talk about tenting.
The incarnation is pretty much like that camping in a tent. In being born as a baby God chose a thin layer between himself and the world; a huge vulnerability. He pitched a tent in the stable, in the village, by the lake, in the temple, in the court, and felt and heard this crazy world of ours in the first person, as one of us.
And he came in order to be on the move. He rejected the temple with it’s great walls and gold and chose a manger – he chose a donkey rather than a chariot – he chose to walk everywhere. Because he chooses to walk with us.
And he chose intimacy, connection, being with people and enabling a whole new way of being with each other, a living in community, a love for one another to be the defining characteristic of his people.
"And the Word became Flesh, and pitched a tent among us"
John 1
Interactive all-age: put up a tent in church for the children to play in, and talk about tenting.
The incarnation is pretty much like that camping in a tent. In being born as a baby God chose a thin layer between himself and the world; a huge vulnerability. He pitched a tent in the stable, in the village, by the lake, in the temple, in the court, and felt and heard this crazy world of ours in the first person, as one of us.
And he came in order to be on the move. He rejected the temple with it’s great walls and gold and chose a manger – he chose a donkey rather than a chariot – he chose to walk everywhere. Because he chooses to walk with us.
And he chose intimacy, connection, being with people and enabling a whole new way of being with each other, a living in community, a love for one another to be the defining characteristic of his people.
The names of Jesus: Christmas Day message 2017
Sermon on Matthew 2: Jesus is Saviour, Jesus is Emmanuel, Jesus is Christ
with full order of service.
God is at work
In Advent we get the toughest Bible readings. They are tough because they speak of the ending of things. Life as we know it is framed by God, from the origins of time to an ultimate consummation of time, which Jesus described in the most vivid of ways:24 “In the days after that time of trouble the sun will grow dark, the moon will no longer shine, 25 the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers in space will be driven from their courses. 26 Then the Son of Man will appear, coming in the clouds with great power and glory. 27 He will send the angels out to the four corners of the earth to gather God's chosen people from one end of the world to the other.”
We don’t tend to focus much on “the days after that”, though there are many in our world today who believe that we are living in these ‘end times’. I am not particularly apocalyptic in my theology. But to me this is an important frame for all reality, that God is Lord of all, Lord of time and space and destiny, and that in due course Jesus Christ will return and the stars will fall and the full power and glory of God will be blatantly obvious, fully revealed. It is within this frame that we must learn to see the work of God in the here and now.
Order of service includes ‘Song to the Holy Spirit’, by James K. Baxter (excerpt)
The Opposite of Happiness
Sadness? No, actually anxiety:
Christ was born into an anxious world.
God’s in-breaking into the world was met with fear.
Each time God spoke with angel voice
the first words were “Be not afraid”.
Short reflection for a nativity service
Sermon on Matthew 2: Jesus is Saviour, Jesus is Emmanuel, Jesus is Christ
with full order of service.
God is at work
In Advent we get the toughest Bible readings. They are tough because they speak of the ending of things. Life as we know it is framed by God, from the origins of time to an ultimate consummation of time, which Jesus described in the most vivid of ways:24 “In the days after that time of trouble the sun will grow dark, the moon will no longer shine, 25 the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers in space will be driven from their courses. 26 Then the Son of Man will appear, coming in the clouds with great power and glory. 27 He will send the angels out to the four corners of the earth to gather God's chosen people from one end of the world to the other.”
We don’t tend to focus much on “the days after that”, though there are many in our world today who believe that we are living in these ‘end times’. I am not particularly apocalyptic in my theology. But to me this is an important frame for all reality, that God is Lord of all, Lord of time and space and destiny, and that in due course Jesus Christ will return and the stars will fall and the full power and glory of God will be blatantly obvious, fully revealed. It is within this frame that we must learn to see the work of God in the here and now.
Order of service includes ‘Song to the Holy Spirit’, by James K. Baxter (excerpt)
The Opposite of Happiness
Sadness? No, actually anxiety:
Christ was born into an anxious world.
God’s in-breaking into the world was met with fear.
Each time God spoke with angel voice
the first words were “Be not afraid”.
Short reflection for a nativity service
Layers of meaning in the Nativity
Jesus’ birth was God come down, God-with-us, the inbreaking of God into human history.
When I see a nativity set I see 5 layers of reality woven together to form together the incarnation.
First, the stable and the star, the setting in space and time, the cave, the home, the stable together with the star above encompassing all the world that God has made, earth and sky, our own immediate place in the vast universe, this is where God enters in.
Second, the ox and ass, the sheep and the camel, the animals who ate from the manger and who grazed on the hill, these have a central place in the nativity, bringing with them all living things into the purposes of God. The animals connect us with our own bodies, as we share the need for food and warmth. In the physicality of a manger God enters in.
Third, the angels. Ah, the angels. Through half-remembered dreams, through confronting surprises, through sky-splitting glory the angels at our nativity express the spiritual layer of reality, no more and no less real than the manger. Through mystery and majesty God enters in.
Fourth, the shepherds and the wise men come, to represent all of human community, from the lowest of the low to the heights of weath and education. The shepherds and the wise men bring with them humanity, from our near neighbours to those far away, both global and local. In the complexities of human society, God enters in.
5th and perhaps the most important, Mary and Joseph holding their newborn baby; the most intimate of human relating, woman and man becoming husband and wife, woman giving birth and breast feeding, father holding newborn child. In the touch and smell and depth of human love God enters in.
Physical and spiritual, contextual, communal and personal, these are woven together in our Christmas story and are together the mat on which Christ is born. This is how God is with us.
Jesus’ birth was God come down, God-with-us, the inbreaking of God into human history.
When I see a nativity set I see 5 layers of reality woven together to form together the incarnation.
First, the stable and the star, the setting in space and time, the cave, the home, the stable together with the star above encompassing all the world that God has made, earth and sky, our own immediate place in the vast universe, this is where God enters in.
Second, the ox and ass, the sheep and the camel, the animals who ate from the manger and who grazed on the hill, these have a central place in the nativity, bringing with them all living things into the purposes of God. The animals connect us with our own bodies, as we share the need for food and warmth. In the physicality of a manger God enters in.
Third, the angels. Ah, the angels. Through half-remembered dreams, through confronting surprises, through sky-splitting glory the angels at our nativity express the spiritual layer of reality, no more and no less real than the manger. Through mystery and majesty God enters in.
Fourth, the shepherds and the wise men come, to represent all of human community, from the lowest of the low to the heights of weath and education. The shepherds and the wise men bring with them humanity, from our near neighbours to those far away, both global and local. In the complexities of human society, God enters in.
5th and perhaps the most important, Mary and Joseph holding their newborn baby; the most intimate of human relating, woman and man becoming husband and wife, woman giving birth and breast feeding, father holding newborn child. In the touch and smell and depth of human love God enters in.
Physical and spiritual, contextual, communal and personal, these are woven together in our Christmas story and are together the mat on which Christ is born. This is how God is with us.
Last year I got to visit the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and was stunned by how amazingly important this has been in world history, and how complex. The birth of Jesus is possibly the single most celebrated event through human history. The historical site of Jesus’ birth is one of the most visited places on the planet. It is a seriously bizarre place, packed with crowds, a huge and very ancient church rising above, you push through the squash of crowds, step down into a stuffy small hot womb-like space hung with candles and paintings and gold fabric and you bend down for the shortest moment and touch a big silver cross on the floor under an altar set into the rock and then you’re pushed on out and through and you’re left feeling like you’ve been hit by a truck.
That silver star, I’m told, sparked the Crimean War in 1858.
The Church of the Nativity embodies all the contradictions and paradoxes of our faith; the conflict between Palestinian and Israeli; the tension between the simplicity of Jesus’s birth and the global faith he founded; Jesus born in a manger and Jesus who rejected earthly fame and wealth and the wealth and power of the church that carries his name; the vast heart of love shown by God in being born in Christ, and the conflict and division that continues to split his people.
That silver star, I’m told, sparked the Crimean War in 1858.
The Church of the Nativity embodies all the contradictions and paradoxes of our faith; the conflict between Palestinian and Israeli; the tension between the simplicity of Jesus’s birth and the global faith he founded; Jesus born in a manger and Jesus who rejected earthly fame and wealth and the wealth and power of the church that carries his name; the vast heart of love shown by God in being born in Christ, and the conflict and division that continues to split his people.
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Photos of the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem: the tiny external door through which every one must enter and exit, and the mind-numbing chaos inside the main church, crowded with hundreds of people.
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Classic Isaiah texts for Christmas:
Isaiah 9: 1-7
"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light"
"For a child will be born to us, a son given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders,
and he shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace."
Isaiah 52: 7-10
"How lovely on the mountains are the feet of the herald who proclaims peace, who brings new of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns!'"
"The Lord has comforted his people ... and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God."
Isaiah 62
"Instead, you will be called "My Delight is in her'"
"God will rejoice over you"
"Look, your salvation is coming"
Isaiah 9: 1-7
"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light"
"For a child will be born to us, a son given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders,
and he shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace."
Isaiah 52: 7-10
"How lovely on the mountains are the feet of the herald who proclaims peace, who brings new of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, 'Your God reigns!'"
"The Lord has comforted his people ... and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God."
Isaiah 62
"Instead, you will be called "My Delight is in her'"
"God will rejoice over you"
"Look, your salvation is coming"