Leading up to
Christmas this year I’ve been inviting people to join in a family tradition
from back when I was young. Unpacking the nativity scene. We used to have a
nativity scene that was kept in a box with a blue lid and about the middle of
December it would be found, unpacked and placed on the mantle piece in the
lounge. During Christmas our attention would be drawn to many different things.
The growing pile of presents that made wonderful sounds when you shock them,
the bang of Christmas Crackers and those silly hats and the wonderful smells
that came from the kitchen before the family meal. But the nativity scene drew
us back to think again about Jesus and his birth. This year as we’ve unpacked
the nativity scene it hasn’t just been taking figures out of polystyrene packaging but looking at each of
the people that these figurines represent and what they have to say to us for
our lives and faith today.
We looked at Joseph a man of righteousness
and compassion and Mary, a woman of faith and courage. We saw these as the
qualities God chose in the parents that nurtured his son and that men and women
need to develop in there lives today.
The shepherds and angels told us that the one born in the stable was
Good News to be shared with great and small and the magi told us that this good
news was for all people and that we should seek to know the truth in Jesus
Christ. We looked at Herod and his storm troopers who are not in the
nativity scene but who cast a shadow over this otherwise happy scene and we saw
that in Jesus God came into the real world full of difficulties and strife and
set up an alternative way of living ‘the kingdom of God’.
In a nativity scene you will notice that
everyone one is looking towards a central spot and that is because the most
important person in this scene is the child in the manger; Because Christmas is about Jesus.
Luke and Matthew in their gospels focus on
the story of Jesus birth but John draws back and gives us a big cosmic picture.
He looks back not 2000 years but into time before time when there was only God
and he says that before the beginnings of anything there was the word and the
word was with God and was God and that through this word God created everything
that was made. When you feel that peace as
you sit by a lake or find yourself awed by a mountain vista or the panorama of
the night sky you are touching or being touched by the very unique breath print
of God word. In Jesus this word became flesh.
Then John changes metaphors and talks about
human being living in darkness and that God made a light to shine for them. We
tend to think with our modern street
lights and quarts halogen lamps we have banished the dark but there is still a
darkness that dwells in the hearts of humanity and it was into this darkness
that God chose to shine his light in the person of Jesus Christ.
Then John says that this light this word
becoming flesh and dwelling amongst us.
How more Kiwi can the bible get than to talk of the coming of God as a
human being as God pitching his tent in our neighbourhood? In fact it my very cheesy joke that New Zealand is really into the Incarnation at Christmas we all jump into our cars and head off to our summer holidays at the beach, we literally become an in car nation.
And if you’ve ever spent your summers camping
by the beach or in those temporary suburbs we call camp grounds you’ll now that
when all that’s between you and your neighbours is a few feet and a bit of
canvas that well you’re very much on display. John tells us that while no one
has ever seen God face to face in Jesus Christ we beheld him full of glory and
grace.
The idea of God being so vast and huge
makes its hard for us to comprehend and harder still to think that God cares
about us and could loves us. In fact when religions approach God is with the
idea of awe and fear., or we try and have rules and regulations and rituals to make our deity approachable. We often view God like Michael Angelo does on the Sistine
chapel ceiling. God distant reaching
down from a cloud towards Adam and almost touching figure tips with him. But
Christmas tells us that God is so much more approachable. That God draws even close, and we don't need our religion to bridge the gap, in Christ God became one of us.
When each of my four
children were born the most amazing thing I remember was putting my finger on
their hands and having them wrap their hand round it. They all had good grips.
That is how close God chose to come to us, in such an intimate and profound
touch. That’s how approachable God is. Those hands as Jesus grew would hold
Mary’s hand for stability as he learned to walk and would learn skill with wood
and tools as he worked alongside Joseph in the carpentry shop. Those Hands that
would invite people to come and follow him and reach out to heal the sick,
welcome children to him to be blessed, embrace the outcasts, gesture as he told
us God’s word. They are also hands that human being would nail to a cross and would
be folded over his dead body as it was buried. They are also Hands that would
cook fish for disciples and be touched and checked out when he rose from the
dead. The word became flesh and dwelt amongst us God is approachable.
This Christmas I hope that you might draw
close and touch afresh our approachable God, who in Christ pitched his tent in
our neighbourhood. Not just be reminded of him by a nativity scene or some
other family ritual but that you might embrace him and place him at the centre
of your life all year round. Christmas is time for family and as John reminds
us, in Jesus, God approaches us and invites us into his family, he came to his
own and to all who accepted him he gave the right to become the sons and
daughter of the most-high God. And that knowing him afresh this Christmas you
would allow him to use your hands your life to show his love to this world that
God loves.
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