The minister writes… from our December 24 January 25 newsletter
Dear friends,
Last month I wrote about surprises and I said that this in this letter I would share with you the most surprising four words in the Bible. They are these: ‘The Word became flesh.’
From the prologue to John’s gospel comes the most amazing statement of faith: that the Word, which was One with God and was God, should come to earth and be born as one of us. Wholly human with all our frailties and limitations, but without sin. Yet still, somehow, miraculously, in a way we cannot comprehend, wholly divine. It boggles our minds when we try to understand it, but there are mysteries of theology we are not expected to fully grasp, only called on to believe and wonder at. God-with-us, Immanuel. Wow!
Rather like the Nativity story which we hear retold every Advent and Christmas, we welcome the familiar words without worrying about the historical detail. Which year was Jesus born? We don’t really know. Our calendars work from a date that probably isn’t correct; scholars believe that Jesus was actually born around 4 – 6BC. Was he born on the 25th December? Almost certainly not! But it was a convenient date in the middle of our winter, when the days are shorter and darker, to superimpose a Christian feast day onto the hitherto pagan celebrations around the winter solstice.
Of the four gospels, only Matthew and Luke tell the story of Jesus’ birth and they focus on very different details: angels and shepherds in Luke, and dreams and magi in Matthew. Put them together and perhaps we have fuller picture but they are an awkward fit at times. Our Nativity tableaux have our wise men assembled around a stable, yet, when we read Matthew with a keener eye, we discover that the magi appeared some considerable time after the birth event – at a house, not a stable, and worshipped a child, not a baby. And, despite the words of the well-beloved carol, ‘Little Donkey’ there is no mention of a donkey in the birth story of Jesus although (maybe comfortingly?) it is reasonable to assume there would have been one.
Does any of that really matter though? Perhaps, like Mark – who begins his gospel with Jesus’ baptism and temptation – we could simply rejoice that Jesus did come, and not be too diverted with how it happened. Or, if we want to feel afresh the wonder and delight of his coming, then we can read again these amazing, surprising words of the opening to the fourth gospel:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. Amen.
May the joy of the coming of Jesus surprise you this Christmas. May the Light of the World fill your lives and dispel any darkness. And may the Christchild gently lead you by the hand into whatever 2025 holds for you.
With every blessing, Sharon
The Coming by RS Thomas
And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look, he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows; a bright
Serpent, a river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.
On a bare
Hill a bare tree saddened
The sky. Many people
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.