The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us’. (Mt 1;23)
Today we celebrate the greatest of wonders, wrapped up in something so ordinary: the birth of a baby. We celebrate the baby who is the fulfilment of prophecies and promises throughout the ages, the infinite become and infant, the baby who is God’s Son.
This wonder, I find, often best expressed most simply as Poet John Betjeman wrote in his poem, ‘Christmas’
And is it true? And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?
It is an astonishing claim that the maker of the stars and sea, God eternal, willingly constrains Gods being within tiny newborn flesh and blood, utterly needy, dependent.
Someone has said that God couldn’t possibly make himself bigger in order to impress us, so God became smaller to attract us. God doesn’t come with pomp or status or noise demanding attention. God isnt trying to bully or force us into anything, but rather, to invite our loving response. This birth is so humble that no one need feel excluded. The manger is so low that children can look level eyed into the face of God. Slide 2 Local shepherds rub shoulders with rich foreign visitors. In this painting by Dante Rosetti, in LLanduff cathedral, you can see the lowly shepherd who kneels in the middle of the scene, kissing the hand of the Christ child, while the great king also kneeling, his crown off his head in his right hand, kisses the infants foot. Kings kneel as humbly as shepherds.
The painting that you’ve just seen was nominated this year by the Dean of Llandaff as his favourite object in the cathedral. Every Cathedral Dean was invited this year to chose an object from their cathedral to nominate, for inclusion in a new book, (you may like to know, I nominated the extraordinary Winchester bible, beyond compare). However, the image from the book that stopped me in my tracks is from Wakefield Cathedral chosen by the Dean there, A very simple, very arresting, sculpture of the Madonna and Child by Ian Judd. Mary gently cradles her child, the baby wrapped in rough, warm cloth. If you look at the face of the child, you can see that the little sleeping face is tender and appealing. People instinctively reach out and touch him. There is no sign telling them not to. Little objects are left with him, you might see here, just under his chin two little stones. And the touch of human hands has left its mark, there’s a patina on the stone, on the child’s head and on the cloth, from all the hands, perhaps not particularly clean, who’ve reached out.
You can see how powerfully the touched sculpture expresses the message of Christmas, that God has come among us, Emmanuel, to be touched, and to touch our hearts, to bring love to lonely hearts, healing to hurting hearts. The way that people have responded to this sculpture speaks of our longing for love.
The Creator of all things becomes embodied, and the baby is loved and cared for, and as he grows people reach out to touch him for healing, but he’ll also be touched by hands that are cruel. He will be grabbed, beaten and whipped and in the end nailed to a cross. God knows what we are capable of, knows our best and our worst. Our kindness and cruelty. And we know, in the miracle of the resurrection, that Gods love overcomes every evil we can inflict, and there is hope.
And Christmas makes a difference when we see the wonder of the Christ child in every child. For every child is a precious child of God. Christmas becomes real when we can see others, friends and strangers, as God’s beloved children and can reach out a helping hand, a kind hand, to those in need. This is how love becomes real.
I’ll close with words of Oscar Romero, archbishop of El Salvador martyred 42 years ago, spoken one Christmas Eve. The Archbishop said that Christ’s birth shows us that God is now with us in history, we are not alone, and our longings and aspiration for peace, for justice, for something holy, may seem far from earth’s reality, but we can hope for these things, ‘not because we humans are able to construct the realm of happiness which God’s holy words proclaim, but because the builder of a reign of justice, of love and of peace is already in the midst of us.’ May we embody this hope of justice, love and peace this Christmas and always.
Amen.
