This is the message from Christmas day 2019 at HopeWhangarei here is a link to the audio... Hope whangarei
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 we knew Christmas was
on the way when 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 and tissue paper 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 their 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.
In a nativity scene
you will notice however that while these figures are big and take up much of
the room that everyone one traditionally 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, and boy we could spend a lot of time
simply unpacking that one sentence. 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, or the pillars of creation in the eagle
nebula, dust clouds of a previous comic event, through the Hubble telescope you
are touching or being touched by the very unique breath print of God’s word in
creation. In Jesus, john tells us, this eternal creating Word, that was with
and was God, became flesh.
John uses a metaphor
to explain this coming. He speaks of human being living in darkness and that
God has made a light to shine for them. He is looking back to a prophecy about
the coming of God’s messiah, a saviour and righteous king from the book of
Isaiah and saying in Jesus this Hope this promise has come true. We tend to think with our modern street
lights, quarts halogen lamps and LEDs that 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 God word become flesh and dwelt amongst us. The big word is
tabernacled, which brings to mind the tent used to acknowledge the presence of
God with the people of Israel during their wilderness journey. In john’s
prologue it’s as if we have swept across the whole of the Old Testament
narrative and that it is fulfilled in Jesus born at Bethlehem. Yet also 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 know 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 it hard for us to comprehend that God cares about us and
could love 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,
man and almost touching figure tips with him. But not quite, there is still
this distance… In fact in the image of that part of the painting you can see
cracks appearing between the almost touching fingers. However Christmas tells
us that God is so much more approachable. That God draws even closer, and we
don't need our religion or ethics or philosophies to bridge the gap, in Christ
God became one of us and bridged the gap himself.
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.
It made me feel wonderful to have this connection with what up to know had been
a wriggling bump in their mothers mid-drift. It wasn’t even spoiled when
someone told me it was simply a reflex action not a genuine connection. That is how close God chose to come to us, in
such an intimate and profound touch. That’s how approachable God is. A baby
grasping a figure, 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, knowable.
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. You’ll notice that in the
image we’ve been using for the whole series the manger is empty and so is the
cross in the background. Christ was born, Christ lived and died, but is raised
to life again and we can meet and know him in our lives by the Holy Spirit, not
just in here but in our everyday life… Immanuel God with us… 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment