Christ Church

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour,
who is Christ the Lord”

Christmas is rich in images. Yet all of the many, many images that belong to the Christmas story circle around one place, little Bethlehem; little and yet great, a fitting place for the coming of “God’s great little one”. But it is only on Christmas morning that we first hear of Bethlehem in the Scripture readings in the Angels’ words to shepherds in their fields.

A place of insignificance, the place that is the least of the clans of Judah, as the prophet Micah, puts it; and yet the place that is not the least of the princes of Judah, as Matthew puts it. A contradiction in the Scriptures? A mistranslation by Matthew?  Probably. And, yet, by no means the only contradiction or error, if you will, in the Scriptures. What? How can that be and the Scriptures still be true? Or is all just a tale for a winter’s morning? A quaint and touching story that somehow touches human hearts?

That won’t suffice, I’m afraid, to account for the quiet wonders of Christmas morn. The apparent contradictions and errors of a factual nature often turn on a number of things; one source juxtaposed with another and yet placed side-by-side in the Scripture texts thereby defying the most prosaic of human minds; and then there are matters that can never be known with any degree of historical accuracy, such as the actual date of the birth of Christ, and, hence, of Christmas itself; and even more there are other details that simply admit of complementary interpretations. Micah is right about Bethlehem as the place of the least of the tribes of Judah; Matthew is right with respect to the honour belonging to Bethlehem as the place of Christ’s holy birth, and therefore, not the least. There is nothing new about this except our cultural and intellectual forgetfulness.

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“And the Word was made flesh”

Christmas parties ought to come with an advisory, a cautionary warning, not about the dangers of drinking and driving – but, of course, do be careful! – but about the Christian faith itself. Recently, I was at one such gathering at which Christmas carols were sung, quite lustily and in good cheer, in fact, but after one carol – I forget exactly which one – someone cried out, “Doesn’t sound very Christmassy!” Though perhaps a wee bit tipsy, he was right!

In a way. But here is the problem and, hence, the need for an advisory. Christmas carols are often quite direct and clear about the realities of the Christian faith, about the meaning of Christmas itself, we might say. And no, don’t worry! I am not going to go down that rather over-worn and obvious path about Jesus being “the reason for the season”! Of course, he is. It is Christmas, after all. And yet, it is the sad reality that in a recent survey among school children, Christmas is associated with everything except Jesus Christ and his birth. Santa Claus wins out. Not enough Christmas carols, it seems. The point is who is this Jesus whose birth we celebrate? Can we really ignore the rich images of this season and its profound message conveyed through music and song, through story and service, especially in worship and in all the rich trappings of this season? I don’t think so.

There is hardly a Christmas carol that doesn’t proclaim Jesus Christ as the Son of God become the son of man for us and for our redemption; hardly a carol that doesn’t allude to sacrifice and death, to sin and grace, to our darkness and the light of Christ, to God and man. They go to the very heart of Christmas, but if we think of Christmassy things as just being happy thoughts and bonhomie, then, of course, these things may seem, well, ‘unChristmassy’. They may even disquiet and disturb us.

That may be a true Christmas blessing. (more…)

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“As you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me”

Matthew’s strong and disturbing words are apocalyptic. They are part of what is sometimes called the Matthaean apocalypse. The opposite of apocryphal, which is to say, the things that are hidden, apocalypse refers to what is unveiled, unhidden. As such it belongs to an important and fundamental feature of the season and of the Christian religion, namely, revelation. God makes something known to us about himself but also about ourselves. Apocalyptic writings especially belong to the revealing of things in this world as seen from the viewpoint of God, from a standpoint of ultimate judgment. This cannot not be disturbing; neither can it be ignored. It is powerful stuff.

The words of Matthew are meant to challenge us and to make us reflect on our lives in relation to God and to one another. They are meant to make us think more deeply about the radical meaning of Christ’s coming, the Advent of Christ.

Advent signals the coming of God towards us in a variety of ways: his coming as Judge and Saviour; his coming in Word and Sacrament; his coming as the Babe of Bethlehem and the Christ of Calvary; his coming in the flesh and in the many acts of kindness, random or otherwise, in human lives. Judgment is inescapably part and parcel of the Advent, whether that judgment is looked at from the standpoint of the endtime, a kind of final or last judgment, or as an ever-present judgment. Indeed, the two are very closely intertwined. For this ‘last judgment’, as it were, sounds a very strong and convicting note of judgment for all of us right now. A kind of moral imperative arises out of this apocalyptic vision.

The challenge has to do with how we have acted towards one another, towards all the forms of humanity in our midst and in the larger world from which we cannot escape. We are all very much members one of another in the so-called global village, though that is but a small part of what it means to be “members one of another in the body of Christ”, which is cosmic and universal, embracing the multitudes of generations before us. We are inescapably neighbours to everyone in the whole of our suffering world. The question is not, it seems to me, what can we do so much as what do we do? Something or nothing? And what are the principles which animate our actions? These are the questions which occupy our imaginations, whether globally, as in Copenhagen this week, or locally, in our daily lives here in Windsor.

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“Behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world”

We have come full circle, it may seem. Today’s Gospel ends with where we began on The Sunday Next Before Advent. In a way, Advent captures the whole of our lives in faith.

It signals the coming of God towards us. That is the first note. It signals as well the heightened awareness on our part about the coming of God towards us. That is the second note. Advent is simply and entirely holy waiting and holy watching – our watching and our waiting upon God, upon the God who comes to us with grace and salvation, with healing and forgiveness. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” John the Baptist says in today’s Gospel.

Such is our beginning and our ending to which this week of the darkest night would bring us. It would bring us to Christ, the Lamb of God, the Word and Son of the Father who comes to us as the Son of Mary, the Word made flesh, the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world whose birth marks the beginning of the way of sacrificial love. He is the light of the world in every sense.

We can only watch and wait. It is the hardest thing for us, I fear, and yet, as always, the hardest things are the things most worth doing. We watch and wait upon God. There is our heightened awareness, our heightened expectancy – all of which are concentrated for us on this day.

But what makes this watching and waiting so hard? Because it is a watching and a waiting upon God. Without that all our advent preparations for Christmas are but tinsel and wrap, sounding brass and clanging cymbal, empty show and vain illusion. We so easily get lost in the busyness of our Christmas preparations. We are, I am afraid, simply too much with ourselves and not enough with God.

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