The present(s)/(ce) - is what we are all waiting for! Well, we can take that statement a number of ways within the context of where we are and what we are doing. I wonder what you thought of when I said the present(s)/(ce)? Where you thinking of time or where you engaged with wondering about what you are going to get from beneath the tree tomorrow. I suspect none of you really heard "presence" but concentrated on presents. All three are in fact applicable to one degree or another but it is perhaps the difference between presence and presents that need to be highlighted today. Unfortunately no matter how well we know the story of the birth of Christ we also realise that this is a very European interpretation of the events that are detailed in the narratives of Christmas and as such tend to lead us away from where we need to be looking at Christmas. Early interpretive efforts have cumulated with the historically inaccurate story that we entertain today. Is this shock and horror, blasphemic utterations or do we need to clearly understand the incarnation in today's world beyond some of the colonialistic impositions placed on us by old interpretations?
We are often focussed on Mary, shepherds and the stable all of which are to one extent or another convenient European conventions and imaginations of one sort or another which we actually need not go into. Our main focus should indeed be the incarnation. No matter how we try to explain it we need to understand that the event we celebrate is the coming of God's presence into the Christ child. This is the need to focus on God and God's will being present in the Christ child so that we can understand that it is in the lowly and the abused that we find Christ's presence. For it is in this position of weakness we see the presence of God. We do not see God's presence in the powerful but in the lowliness of a human child. This is the wonder that we see in each child that is borne, this is the wonder that is on every mother and father's face at the birth of their child. Unfortunately we truly abuse this wonder as the child grows up into a society that rejects God's presence and engages and promotes a selfish attitude rather than God's selfless agape love.
This is the present that we receive each Christmas. It is the present of understanding that God comes to us in the form of each child that is born, if we were only to recognise it as Mary and Joseph and all the other hangers on in the tale show. Yet, after each Christmas we forget so easily the wonder that is revealed in the incarnation. It is a present that is given to us every year so that we can each find joy in the presents that God gives us in this insight. Truly, God's son is born this night/day but God's daughter / son is also borne in the present, no longer confined to a single occasion but is shown on multiple occasions as we celebrate God's presence in our hearts. This is worth celebrating. In gathering together today we gather to remind ourselves of this self giving of God and that God is truly present in the present. We are reminded that God presents us with a gift each year a reminder of the fact that God has been and will be present in us if we accept God's love in our hearts. It is a time to have great joy even in the midst of our own sorrows at this time of year.
It is only in our present that we can find God's presence. We can open our hearts with joy and we can do all those things that are required of us, especially at this time of year, but it is only when we actually see God in those around us and in our present situation will we be welcoming of Christ's incarnation into our presence. This is the present that is given to us at this moment in this present time not in some future but here and now is when we will be judged. It is now that we stand up before God's presence to be judged for we are all asked to give glory to God's presents to us. It may be the same present but in accepting Christ's incarnation into our hearts we accept God's presence and present, So when we celebrate this day in front of the tree, whether this has happened or it is about to happen, we need to remember the present that has been given to us on a tree in the form of God's love and presence sacrificed for us at the moment of the incarnation.
No comments:
Post a Comment