24th December - Reverend Jo Jones

O Lord our God, as the dawn from on high breaks upon us, open our hearts to receive the love of him who is your living Word made flesh, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

Some of you will know that we’ve got a new baby Jesus in the crib this year; Stephen and I had a bit of discussion about finding one that looked anything like Jesus might have done – an olive-skinned black-haired baby rather than a blond blue-eyed boy. In the end we had to have one that was the right size to fit in the crib without being bigger than the ox and the ass!

Of course, Jesus being born a Jew is important in the narrative of his whole life, but at Christmas, it’s really his being born that captures our attention. 

But before we consider Jesus’ birth I want to go back to the beginning of creation, when, as John says, all things came into being …… if you know it, perhaps you can picture Michelangelo’s famous painting on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel – called ‘the creation of Adam’ – God's right arm is outstretched to impart the spark of life from his own finger into that of Adam, whose left arm is extended in a pose mirroring God's, a reminder that we are created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26). Adam's finger and God's finger are not touching. God, the giver of life, is reaching out to Adam and Adam is receiving the gift of his human life from God. Here is God our creator, the source of life itself, the all-powerful God who has created all things but exists beyond his creation and yet is God in whom we live, move and have our being …..

Now come back to the crib and look at God again. This time, when we extend our finger, Jesus responds with a primitive human instinct and closes his tiny hand around our finger and grips it and holds on tightly, holds on for dear life. And perhaps we can imagine that moment actually happening to us ….. a moment of recognition and connection when we feel some of the cynicism or hardness of our hearts melt away …….. and perhaps our deeply human longing for love and acceptance is uncovered in response to the trusting love of the Christ-child ………

So here is a mysterious wonder to ponder – we worship a God who comes to us as a fragile human infant, a baby utterly unable to survive without human help, a boy who won’t become everything that he is unless his family nurture and care for him, unlessMary and Joseph love him into adulthood. And this is the good news at the heart of this story, the tidings of comfort and joy that Isaiah announces.  That God himself enters into the life of his own creation in the fullest way possible – by sharing our humanity with us. The Word of God is made visible, not just present in the unseen heavenly realms, but able to be touched, seen, heard in the ordinary physical world. Jesus is the embodiment of God’s eternal love for us, of his longing for relationship with us; Jesus demonstrates God’s willingness to give everything to make that relationship possible.  

Two images then, to take away and reflect on through Christmas and into Epiphany.  God -all-powerful and divine, able to create us and the world, to create and sustain the evolution of untold universes. And God who is also human, Jesus, Immanuel, God with us and in whose image and likeness we are made. In Jesus our God touches us and is touched by us; in Jesus the same God whose everlasting arms holds the whole of creation in existence comes as a baby to be held in our arms, with all the risk that entails.

Jesus, this baby who is also the crucified and risen Christ, knows what it means to be human, and who shows us what being human is meant to be. And when we look into the crib and imagine looking into the same eyes which saw the beginning of space and time and which look on us with limitless unconditional love - what might we become if we allow the humble love of Jesus to touch us and fill our lives with his grace and truth?