Christmas Eve Midnight 2014.

Once a year, Christmas hits us with the weight of a sledgehammer – suddenly Jesus Christ is everywhere. He appears under every spreading Christmas tree and in every shop notice: you can accept him or reject him, affirm him or deny him, but you simply can’t ignore him. He is behind every carol sung – be they ever so sentimental or truthful. He rides every red-nosed reindeer, and is behind every trendy present. He lurks even in the most unlikely of places – like the anodyne ‘season’s greetings’. He is toasted in every cup of Christmas cheer. His holiness is seen in the holly and the ivy, and his pursuing love under every sprig of mistletoe. His chuckles of delight are heard in every excited child’s feverish tearing of wrapping paper. He is found in every Pantomime’s shriek of “behind you!” He parties with us at school, at work, amongst our families and friends. He is the hope behind every lighted candle, the good will behind every greeting card. Jesus ‘christmases’ with us everywhere. 

But he is also to be found weeping with those for whom Christmas is a miserable time: for those who have been made redundant; for those who have gone through the wretchedness of a marriage break-up; for those who have lost loved ones this past year; for those who are troubled in heart and depressed of mind. He comes close to strengthen the weak and the dying, to comfort the lonely and to be alongside the desperate. Jesus, knowing what hurts us most, loves us all the more. 

Think about it for a moment….That someone relatively obscure and unspectacular should attract such a varied and continuing response. Think of all the theologies written in his name. Think of all the works of art, the countless pieces of music all written in his honour, recounting some aspect of his life and ministry. Think of all the poems and stories written because he came. Think of all the hospitals that originated because he came. Think of all the universities that started because he came. Think how Christmas Day has been regarded as the central day of the world – the day that divided BC into AD, ‘before Christ’ into ‘anno domini’ – the year of our Lord. Think how this day has made all the difference between life and death, barbarity and civilisation. 

All the hopes and fears of all the years collided together in the birth of this baby. For goodness sake, why? Why is such a fuss made of this one event? Ah, you see, that wailing infant is none other than God made flesh – the God who is free of preoccupation with his own comfort, the God who came for us, to set us free, to be for us familiar and friendly.

Oh I know reason baulks at this. It says, ‘what a ridiculous thing that God should become man! Surely God would never do anything so base and so humiliating as that! Wouldn’t he rather be found at the end of scintillating thought and debate? Or at the end of a maze of intricate religious ritual?’

But NO! God is elsewhere, lying in an animal’s feeding trough, in some provincial backwater, behind a pub. He leaves behind the grand palaces and stately homes and he chooses to share his life among the dung and dirt of an animal shelter. “For while all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of her course, Thy Almighty Word leapt down from heaven from Thy royal throne.” There you must run; there you must hurry to find him. The baby lying in a manger is a human being, a boy, with a human brain and a human body; but he is also God. The finite and the infinite meet in this one tiny baby. The fashioner of galaxies is too weak to lift his own head, and needs his nappy changed. The freest, most unbound person in the cosmos has taken up temporary residence within the womb of Mary.

Listen to me…God has not come in the flesh, bone and blood obvious, down to earth, to cast you into Hell; much less for that purpose was he hung and crucified for you. NO! NO! NO! He has come that with great joy you may know him. He has come to be our truth, our hope, our comfort, our strength and our peace. “To YOU this day is born the Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.” You see, Jesus Christ is the clue to everything – not just church (that’s much too narrow!) He is the Life. He is the Truth. He is the Way. Life is only properly understood (and enjoyed) in Jesus Christ.

Our lives are made up of relationships, being born, growing up, loving, sometimes even hating, helping and being hurt, getting ill and recovering again, getting unhappy and happy, dying. Jesus knew all this from the inside, so to speak. And he addressed the real issues of every life: the flaming rows in families, the jealousy of one to another, the harshness of prejudice, the lack of sympathy, the way we mistreat and oppress, the demeaning ways we lust after what is not ours to have, the way we abuse the world, the capacity each of us has for doing wrong and the fact that we’d rather blame someone else than face the music personally ourselves. That’s where God came to live – among people who wanted nothing to do with him. He identified with us fully – he is God with us, God alongside us, God who has come to save us. 

You see, if I fall into the wildest, most raging of seas and I fear for my safety, I definitely DON”T need someone just to jump in alongside me to give me company! I need someone stronger than me, a better swimmer than me, one who knows how to help and rescue me. And that is like Jesus Christ. He dived into the raging torrent of our lives – only to pull us out safely onto the shore of God’s love. What difficulty can we face that is beyond the compassion of our Saviour? Where can we go that our God has not been? God is on our side. Love does such things.

The God of the Universe became a tiny baby – he entered our world to be like us. And when we think about it, a wild hope grips us: God does love us, after all. He stands with us and not against us. He knows what it is like to be troubled and depressed. He knows from the inside what it is like to be misunderstood and rejected by family and friends alike. He knows the emotional, physical, mental and spiritual pain of the elderly who are frail; of the enfeebled who depend on others; of those in harm’s way; of the lonely and the abandoned; of the fearful; and of the desperate. Jesus Christ stands within us, amid our demons and diseases and unbelief. He seeks to love us – whatever the taunts we direct against him. He stands with us in our pride, our jealousy, our sexual seductions, our violence, our religious exploitations, our racism, our hypocrisy and our guilt and shame. He stands with us as we peer into the emptiness in our souls. He sees how much we long and ache for significance. And because he knows and understands, he can stand alongside those whose lives are dark and bleak, and offer such help and hope.

Go on, this Christmas, “take the mercy, and accept the help”. Walk right up to the living Christ and receive what he is so willing to give. Don’t let this chance slip through your fingers. This is the response God wants from each of us.

Now is the right time to be helped, now is the time to be rescued, to be saved from all that would not only spoil your Christmas, but your eternal life. Don’t put it off, don’t frustrate the work God wants to do in your life by being too late. “O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray/ Cast out our sin and enter in/ Be born in us today.”