Christmas Day Message 2020, St Petri.

John 1:1-14

The Word became a human being and lived here with us.
We saw his true glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.
From him all the kindness and all the truth of God have come down to us.

Hebrews 1:1-4-12 

Long ago in many ways and at many times God’s prophets spoke his message to our ancestors.

This may be a Christmas in which you hear him more than you have for many. This might be so for you because of the year we have experienced that threatens to continue for some time into 2021.

When the going gets tough, the weak get praying!

Maybe this COVID experienced has finally shattered the cocoon we so easily put around ourselves in the usual comforts and movements of living life in beautiful Australia.

Two things have shattered this illusion of life under our own steam without serious reliance on the promises and presence of this boy in the manger.

  1. A silent enemy has done as it pleases with us, and still is. We have seen the end of our own abilities, our mortality, our lack of control over things, and
  2. We have felt the barbs of a super-power picking on us for not just reason.

Maybe in the usual rhythm of making your own way – making your own choices, building a life, coping with trouble without reference to a God who has gifts for your journey has finally been interrupted enough for us to actually pause at this little boy’s bed and wonder.

For all our illusions and self-attentions, the God of universe would be quite within his rights to walk away and leave us to ourselves.

He does not have to give his divine life of forgiveness of all mistrust, cleansing of all regret, cancelling of all shame, undoing of our wrong doing and the pain they cause everyone.

He could simply stay splendidly isolated in his holy heaven and either forget you or just watch you from above like a laboratory assistant watching the mouse getting worn out as he meaninglessly and endlessly turns the little treadmill for lack of any better ideas.

But it is Christmas Day. This God does not stay in his ‘bubble’. He enters the dis-ease, the dirt, the bacterial pot pouri at great risk to himself.

It is Christmas. Something has happened. Something in motion for a very long time has come. We might be more ready to take it seriously into the heart and mind than we have in a generation.

But now at last, God sent his Son to bring his message to us. God created the universe by his Son, and everything will someday belong to the Son. 3 God’s Son has all the brightness of God’s own glory and is like him in every way. By his own mighty word, he holds the universe together. (John 1)

“Your God reigns!” cries Isaiah (Isaiah 52:7). God returns to this world of trouble. Like a woman who could never leave her child, or a son who could never abandon his mum, or a child who has to put up with all the weird and wonderful friends and relatives in a full house at Christmas, God returns to you, now personally; now humanly, now unmistakably in this boy in the shed.

Someone saw this and invites you to truly see this boy; this gift; the hope.

The Word became a human being and lived here with us.
We saw his true glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.
From him all the kindness and all the truth of God have come down to us.

Babies in wombs leapt for joy when this Word in the flesh came near. Elizabeth got it right when Mary, the carrier of this man of truth in neutero came to her house.

“Blessed are you who believe what the Lord says he will accomplish in you”

Friend, as this COVID year ends and another unknown year begins,

“Blessed are you who believe what the Lord says he will accomplish in you”

COVID or not, we hear him today. Our heart skips a beat. Hope is alive. We are alive. God’s presence in my world is real and he is accomplishing this child’s mission to call them all in to come and see what the Lord has done will roll on into 2021.

Like the kids around the Christmas tree gift-giving, leap for joy today, not because you deserve anything good from God, but because he pours out his best goodness in his best boy to you today.

Whether you have been self-isolating from God or feeling like you have been in lock down from his presence, or whether you have been wondering whether God has anything good to say to you anymore, he has and is now.

“I have come so that you may have life, and life to the full.”   (John 10:10)

Life lived with peace in the heart, love in your words and deeds, hope in your now and tomorrow, meaning in the mess and calling in any chaos are his gifts under his tree. These have got  your name on them written large in his blood.

Pick the up and enjoy his gifts today! They are very costly for God but free for you. When received you will give your life to him and that will bring life to you and them.

And then walk away tall from his tree of life taking these gifts into your tomorrows.

His grace become your grace. His truth become your truth. Your words become his words and the gifts just keep giving.

By the cry of this little guy in the trough we are still together, and the world has a chance of life in any circumstance.

By the dying and rising of this boy who became a man, you are still together, and you have a life to live in any circumstances.

Let the news sink deep now

The Word is a human being who lives here with us.
We see his true glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.
From him all the kindness and all the truth of God are here with us.    (from John 1:1-14)