Old Story, New hope

The birth of every child is a gift of life. God’s original blessing is the gift of life: in a baby we can see the blessing of God. A child who did not request life receives the gift of beginning grows to crave for life, fight for life, struggle to preserve life. To be born is to be gifted by a God who is Life itself, and that is why reverence for human life is reverence for the God of life. 

The birth of every child is a small protest against the tired view that there is nothing new under the sun, that we are condemned to a future which only repeats the stupidities of the past. And the birth of Jesus is God’s protest against letting things be, abandoning people to their own devices, leaving people to fall back on the poverty of their own resources. Jesus is the help of God among us; he is the one Word on God’s telegram of hope.

  No one knows what any child will turn out to be. But by the time the Gospel is written, long after Jesus’ mission has been completed, the Christian community can celebrate the true identity of Jesus. That is why Luke can begin his Gospel with the celebration of the birth of the Messiah. Luke knows who this child has turned out to be, so there is no obscurity about the birth story. He dates back in time what the Christian community has come to recognize in the power of the Spirit: that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, the gift of God’s own life.

  It is difficult to imagine the celebration of Christmas without the help of Luke’s Gospel. It is the artist Luke who puts us in touch with the young virgin with child, Joseph her husband, the surprised shepherds, the jubilant angels announcing the good news. We are drawn into a drama that is larger than our own; we are invited to share the mood of joy and hope; we are asked to take our own place in the dark of the manger and behold the gift of God, wrapped in swaddling clothes. Luke’s invitation, which has been extended to all believers down the centuries, reaches us again tonight: to come and worship, to see for ourselves the fragility of God, the littleness of the mighty one, the sheer tenderness of a love that is offered to all peoples.

With the birth of this a new adventure in faith begins. A new approach to God is opened for us, a new way of relating to each other is asked of us. Because this child becomes for all of us the Way, the Truth and Life. 

That is why we make the journey back to Bethlehem each year: to rediscover our own roots in the gift of Jesus. For us, it is a journey home. As G.K. Chesterton wrote: “To an open house in the evening, home shall men come to an old place than Eden, and a taller town than Rome. To the end of the way of the wandering star, to the things that cannot be and that are, to the place where God was homeless, and all men are at home.”