What
exactly is it that we celebrate at Christmas? The birth of the Christ of
course, the one anointed by God, but what does his birth mean? First of
all it means that God is among us in the ‘messiness’ of our human condition.
God took on our humanity as it is. He lived and walked among us with all
the chaos of our world, which really hasn’t changed that much since then. We
still have plenty of corruption and violence, just as there was in the time of
Jesus. Palestine was an occupied country at the time, occupied by the
Romans who were known for being extremely brutal. And yet Jesus comes into
the middle of this. So he knows what it is like to live in the middle of
chaos, injustice, sickness and all the difficulties that we live with. He
is with us in this.
The event
of Christmas also shows us that He came in the most unexpected way. The
Jewish people were waiting for the Messiah, the anointed one of God, but He
came in a way that they did not expect. He was as great as they hoped for,
but not in the way that they were expecting and so He went largely unnoticed
and in fact the Religious leaders rejected him because he didn’t fit their
picture of what he should be like.
All
through the Bible there are accounts of people whom God chose to work and speak
through. They are nearly always people that we would consider weak and
unimportant. It seems that God likes to do this, no doubt to remind us
that God doesn’t need human strength, greatness or ability. God works
through whomever He will so long as we are open to it. One of the
beautiful things about this is that it means God is accessible to all of us,
from the simplest and least educated to the most brilliant minds. No one
is excluded. It says in the first reading, ‘You Bethlehem Ephrathah, the least
of the clans of Judah, out of you will be born for me the one who is to rule
over Israel’ (Micah 5:1). This is an ongoing theme that we find everywhere
in the Bible. The Lord uses the least of us, the ones we would never think
of choosing.
The event
of Christmas is also the beginning of a new kind of hope for humanity. Jesus
would offer his own life for the sins of humanity, so that we could reach the
happiness that God created us for. You could say that Christmas and Easter
are really two halves of the same event. And the reason it is an event of
great joy is not only because humanity is once and for all set free from the
prospect of eternal death, but also because Jesus taught us what the meaning of
our life is; why we are here. We are created out of love, to share in the
happiness of God. That happiness hopefully begins in this life but will be
fulfilled in the world to come. Our life here is a time of love and
service. We are free to love or not love, to choose for God or not. God
has given us that freedom and the responsibility that goes with it, but to know
that our life has a purpose is all important. What keeps us going when we
are struggling if we feel that our life has no meaning, no purpose? We
need to know that we have a reason for being here, and we do. That is why
Jesus is the Light of the world. Light shows up what is there in the
dark. With light you can see where you are going. Jesus who is this light
is the one who helps us to see why we are here.
The
preparations for Christmas all around us are wonderful and magical. It is
beautiful to suddenly have our town and homes lit up with coloured lights,
candles and decorations. All of this is to celebrate the coming of the
Saviour and the event that set us free. Even though many people will
celebrate Christmas without knowing what they are celebrating, yet in a strange
way God is still glorified in all of this. Our society will celebrate the
coming of Christ even though many will no longer realise that that is what they
are celebrating.
There is
a line in one of the Psalms which says, ‘Man’s anger will serve to praise you’
(Psalm 76:10). It seems like an unusual thing to say. How could man’s
anger be a source of praise to God? Perhaps what it means is that
ultimately all of God’s creation gives praise to God just by the fact that it
is there. All the celebrations of Christmas give praise to God, even if
many people aren’t even aware of what they are really celebrating. It is a
reminder to us that God brings good out of everything, even when it is done for
the wrong reason.
So as we
celebrate Christmas maybe we can take a moment at some stage to give praise to
God in our own way, for all that God has done for us; giving us hope, light,
purpose and the promise of eternal happiness should we choose it.
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