Its 9:30am on Christmas Morning and maybe after a late night
of wrapping presence and wrestling with those deceptive words ‘some assembly
required’ you’ve been up early you’ve been awake for hours. How can you sleep with the kid’s excitement:
the joy of children wanting to open gifts and there has been lots of running
round and exuberance. Then to get here you’ve had to gather that energy and joy
up, brush hair and teeth bundle them into
the car. But you’ve come to acknowledge
Jesus birth the fact that God is here with us.
It’s 9:30am on Christmas morning. You’d worked hard and long
to make sure everything was done for the holiday and for the end of the year.
So you could get away for the sun and the sand and the surf, to catch up with
the family and friends. You just want to stop and catch up with yourself. You
could really have done with a sleep in till you had to go round to the family
for Christmas lunch. But you’ve come to worship Christ the new born king… to
celebrate the fact that God is here with us.
It’s 9:30am on Christmas morning and there’s still so much
to do. Hope he doesn’t talk to long. But
there’s the turkey to be cooked and the cream to be whipped, salad to be made.
You’re going away first thing in the morning and you’ve still got to pack and
you hope the weather holds. But it’s good to stop for a moment and reflect on
the Christmas narrative… God is here with us
Its 9:30am on Christmas morning and so many other things
could be going on. Christmas is the time when you remember they have gone and
it is the loneliest time. Your thoughts are on juggling families broken and
blended. It’s just another work day as the person who served me lunch yesterday
said. It really does not help with the finances. There are some big things
looming in the New Year. But even in the
midst of that Christmas reminds us of the amazing truth that God is here with
us.
Luke’s gospel had the ring of everyday life carrying on and
into those steps the saviour that God’s people had been looking for, waiting
for so long. Into that is born a child who we are told is Christ the Lord. The
light has come in to the world.
The reading we had this morning starts by talking of who’s
in power, Augustus Cesar, and who the local administrator is. That in order to
gather taxes there is a census. This means that everyone is on the move going
back to the town where they are from, to be registered. It politics as usual
it’s the powers of this world going about their business. Last night we looked
at Matthews’s nativity narrative, we saw how similar it was then as it is now…
Matthew focuses on Herod the local dictator so desperate to hold on to power
that he sends death squads to kill his own citizens. All baby boys under two.
That Mary and Joseph and Jesus become refugees fleeing from that tyranny and
violence. And amidst the swirl and whirl of human history we are told that God
steps in to our world. The Kingdom of God is established in the realms of
humanity. Not in a big bold flashy way, but in a way that there is no room for
to be born because of the upheaval and disruption. The son of God s born in a
stable and laid in a animal’s feeding trough. God is here with us and his
coming identifies with the poor and the lowly.
The first to hear the good news of Jesus birth are shepherds…Shepherds
on the night shift. Doing what they always do… washing their socks… I mean
watching their flocks. They are told the good news of the saviour’s birth and
see what must be the greatest production number of all time as the heavenly
armies gather to sing God’s praise. Maybe for us shepherds in fields is an
exotic and romantic picture… In our world maybe it would best to see it being
like… when we came home late one night on the train and we saw lights on in
tall offices buildings along the tracks. They were on because the cleaners,
that often unseen group of people, were working, minimum wage jobs, trying to
make ends meet. Maybe in our urban twenty first century world they would have
been the ones to hear the news, be visited by angels. Luke tells us Jesus
coming was indeed good news for the poor.
The shepherds go and see that what they had been told was true and then
had to head back to their work, now filled with joy and giving praise to God.
Christmas says God is here with us, came in the person of
Jesus Christ, born into everyday life. But this baby Jesus would change
everything. Because of his life, teaching, death and yes his resurrection.
God’s kingdom, God’s love, forgiveness and peace would break into this world.
We can be forgiven reconciled to God and to one another. Broken can be made new
and whole again.
God is here with us. This child’s birth means God can step
into the everyday live that we have and make them something new and sacred by
his presence. God is here with us and if we allow this Christ to be born in our
lives that love, that forgiveness, that wholeness, God’s justice and
righteousness can come into our lives, our brokenness can be made whole, our
lives given purpose and meaning, we can be enabled and equipped to love
extravagantly and sacrificially.
God is here with us and if we allow his Son Jesus to be born
into our lives today, god’s presence and love can come into the everyday world
around us through our kindness, our forgiveness our sacrificial love.
In Jesus God is here with us…
My friend Malcolm Gordon and his son Sam wrote a song and with cameraman Jason Williamson have put together the gift of a wonderful Christmas song and video that sums it up the Christmas story up beautifully and also the wonderful truth that God is wanting to be here in this world through us...
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