The season in the church calendar called Advent has arrived. Advent – meaning ‘arrival’. The arrival of the Messiah – the birth of the one sent to be Saviour of tall the world. Some years ago, I read this reflection of the Christmas narrative by a guy called Paul Hewson. To most, he’s better known as Bono – the lead singer of the rock band U2.
“The Christmas Story – the idea that God would seek to explain himself is amazing enough. That it would seek to explain himself and describe himself by becoming a child born in straw poverty, in cow and sheep dung and straw … a child … Wow! What poetry … unknowable love, unknowable power, describes himself as the most vulnerable in all the world. There it is. For the first time, I saw the genius of this, the utter genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this series of historic events. Love needs to find form; intimacy needs to be whispered. To me, it makes sense. It’s actually logical. It’s pure logic. Essence has to manifest itself. It’s inevitable. Love has to become an action or something concrete. It would have to happen. There must be an incarnation. Love must be made flesh.”
Do you remember that moment when it first hit you with all its impact – when God’s grace extended to you was embodied in this extraordinary act of love first witnessed at census time in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago?
For Bono, it was ‘logical’. For others, it’s beautiful. For all of us, it’s incredibly humbling. It’s not the beginning of the story – it fulfils prophesy spoken for thousands of years before, but it is a physical beginning – of 33 years of God’s love incarnate on earth. But more about those aspects of Jesus’ life amongst us in the weeks ahead …
In the hype and excitement of the annual festive season, let us not forget what started this all off. We celebrate because we have been released. We have been released from not knowing our creator God – what’s more, he wants us to know him in the most intimate of ways.
To do this, he made himself known to us – at first, born amongst animals and their waste, later, to die amongst criminals nailed to a cross? Because it had to happen. Because God loves us more than he loves his own well-being.
God’s request of us is simple – honour him at all times. Christmas time should remind us of this, afresh. What does that mean? There’s a song released by U2 a little over 10 years ago, called Yahweh, which gives a few hints.
Take this soul, Stranded in some skin and bones, Take this soul, And make it sing
Take these hands, Teach them what to carry, Take these hands, Don’t make a fist
Take this mouth, So quick to criticize, Take this mouth, Give it a kiss
[http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/u2/yahweh.html]
As we contemplate the good things we have, the people we will celebrate with this year at Christmas, the beautiful bounty of our riches, let’s not forget what the original reason for the season asks us to do in response. A heart of thankfulness for what we have, a mind to help those that are less fortunate that we are, a preparedness to give to others until it hurts.
For one of my friends, this involves her, every Christmas morning, going and serving the homeless men of Melbourne lunch before she returns to her own family for Christmas dinner. We need to go against our selfish instinct and use our bodies and souls, God given to each of us, in the service of others.
Ultimately, it requires us to have a clean heart – one which can be inspired by the beautiful simplicity of God’s acts at that first Christmas and use that inspiration to do acts which bring that same love to all, including the unloved and unlovable. That may well be our greatest challenge this Christmas.
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