The change the Incarnation makes

Today, or rather tomorrow (as I have prepared this for Christmas Eve), is the day we celebrate the incarnation of Christ our Lord and Saviour as part and parcel of humanity. Not as something or someone that is remote and away from the average John or Jane Doe on the street but a person who is like you and me the average John / Jane Doe on the street. Luke's gospel gives the main seasonal account of the birth of Jesus the Christ child (2:1-20) and as we have heard it is as normal as any other birth in creation. Yes, the circumstances are somewhat lacking by modern circumstances, however, should you go to many impoverished countries around the world you would find birth occurring in similar circumstances. This very unremarkable birth in terms of human society is extraordinary within our own lives as a harbinger of what is to come and as a reminder of what we perhaps miss on an everyday basis, especially as we celebrate at this time of year.

The Incarnation confronts us with radical change - how will we respond?

The world has taken away the mystery of Christ's birth and left us with a commercial entity that begins even before the Advent season. It is the same in our everyday lives, the mystery and the richness that comes with new beginnings has been overtaken by a commercial outlook. Christmas is, at the end of the day, about an extreme change in how we are to see the world and our faith journey. Prior to this birth God was seen as something that was untouchable, unknowable and beyond our simple minds. In the Incarnation we see God's presence in humanity as something that can be touched upon rather than being held apart. Yes, God is and can never be truly known until we see God face to face but here in the Christ child we have the wellspring of the potentiality that allows us access to God's presence within our own lives. This is the hope that is present in the child as it is present in every child that is born into this world. Above all else this is a fundamental change in our own understanding of God's presence. A change that continues into Christ's life and must be taken up in our own Christian lives as we struggle within our ordinary lives.

In our own lives we can see that a new child brings change in the lives of the parents and family. How much more then does the Christ child's birth bring change into our lives and how we are to perceive God? The change from something somewhere to a presence within reach is mind blowing. A presence that shows to us what it means to be a God that is personified in Christ and the love that is found in the presence of a new born child. For we can all acknowledge that love is present at the moment of birth as the child becomes incarnate in the reality of this world. We cannot capture that love for we would all then be cuddling babies in a stagnant world which shows no future. The Christ child grows and suffers the vicissitudes of life just as we do demonstrating to us that love is ever pervasive and ever changing in a world that is filled with doubt. In adoring the child we become part of the ever changing story that is the growth of faith in our lives. It tells us that growth is not possible without change for us as part of God's creation who seek God in our human existence.

In the presence of the Christ child we find ourselves over awed, in the same way as the shepherds in the fields at the sight of the angels (Lk 2:9), as we are confronted with the immeasurable number of possibilities that are present in this moment. Our own response to the freedom that comes in the form of the Incarnation is indicative of our lives and our own yearnings. Are we able to encompass the possibilities or are we going to defer them becoming bound in the stone of our hearts as we are unable to let go of our past? Are we going to grow and change into what God is calling us to or are we going to become unresponsive to that call and see our faith and those around us become demeaned and belittled? God becoming human challenges us with these questions but leaves it to us to respond of our own free will. This Christmas, how are you going to respond as God calls us into the world through the Christ child's presence?

Joy comes in the morning

 Once again we have but a singular reference in Isaiah to the concept of joy (35:2) on a Sunday that is meant to speak about joy. For most of us joy is as ephemeral as all of the other things we have talked about such as hope and peace. In today's world there appears to very little joy as people no longer seem to have that concept of "joie de vivre" but rather there is an excellence at morbidity and 'downness' even when we talk of positive achievements. It takes a lot out of a person when we try to be over abundant with our lives when the world around us seems to be heavy and strained. Even when we have extended family around us we feel strained as if through a colander. (Not every one but I would say the majority at this time of year  put on a face).This is particularly so when relationships are strained within family and community. So, why celebrate something that there appears to be a lack of?

More and more we appear to be sinking into a morass of mediocrity that disallows the extreme feelings that come with joy and sadness and all those other emotions that we bandy about without really realising them to the fullest extent. We have lowered our expectations much as Christ chides the crowds when he asks them what they went out into the wilderness to see (Matt. 11:7-9). We do not live with great expectations and therefore we are surprised and, in some ways, negative to exuberance of life. Perhaps the issue is that those expressing such exuberance are only acting out so that they may achieve fame, fortune etc all for themselves. Genuine joy is a difficult concept to accept when we are so used to being in the depressed state that the world has conceived for us. Even John the Baptist, according to Matthew, is uncertain as to whether to celebrate with joy as he questions Christ's presence (Matt. 11:3). If John questions it is no wonder that in this current age we struggle so much with the possibility of joy in our world. Indeed we often turn towards the past to reflect on what was rather than to the future to see what is to come.

It is in rising to a new day that we find the future joy is here

We often yearn for a future that is filled with the joys of the past and the friendships that have been created.  What we never realise is that those joys that we are sunk into remain in the past and so we never have the ability to engage with the present to create new joys out of what we perceive to be endless sorrows.  It is only when we recognise that by dwelling in the past and attempting to re-create that past in the present we are creating our own melancholy and inability to move into the future.  In this recognition we begin our return to new life and the joy of Christ in the world.  By retreating to the past and attempting to recreate it in the present we are playing a political game that is only for our benefit, our control of the world around us, our drug of choice that pushes our own agendas without thinking of the greater whole or of Christ's life, death and resurrection. In the incarnation as it comes towards us we are reminded that we are mortal for God has created us and has become created with us so that we can live into the future.  A future that as we know involves dying and in dying we let go of the past.  In living into the future we recognise the elements of re-birth and newness of life as we co-create the joy of God's love.  It is only when we recognise the elements of death within our own lives that we can start to let go and let God's love in recreating joy, happiness and life.  It is through this healing power of understanding and anamnesis as we re-live the path of Christ that we come to the joy of new life.  This letting go and re-membering needs to occur within all aspects of our life.  We become hypocrites when we allow our past activities and politics to guide our present activities without first going through death to create new paths and new joys.

If we do this correctly, we mourn each death and move on into new life, this applies to parish life as much as to our lives in community.  This is the upside down world of God's coming kingdom, it is we who have to mourn not others, it is we who have to suffer the death of ourselves not others, it is we who have to forgive ourselves not others.  Christ gives us a clue to what healing in God's kingdom means as he proclaims those deeds that have been undertaken.  The poor and the outcast are given hope and joy.  The vicissitudes of life are not imposed by others but by by our own wants and needs our own rejection of the joy that is around us if we open our hearts to the other.  God's kingdom comes in the irruption of newness within the fecundity of our lives as we understand ourselves and so come open our eyes to joy and love in relationships we build into the future.

Preparations for peace

 Today, we are confronted by the violence of war, most directly in the Ukraine. A war that has been brought about purely and simply the result of greed and pride. Both of which have been misplaced to massage the ego of one person. Just like the majority of wars this one has been a grasping for power over the perennial understanding of how to advance in modern society. Indeed in the latest news bulletins it appears that even nature is being used as a lethal weapon towards those who do not bend to tyrannical power. These actions and those of various groups around the world are all founded on the concept of power and authority being based on the use of physical violence to topple those least able to fend for themselves. So, from where do we even begin to derive peace in such situations?

If we consider that war is apparently on top of the world's agenda then its opposite should also be on our lips that being peace. In saying this we need to really understand what it means to say that peace is the opposing force to the greed of war and along with that we need also to confront for ourselves what it means to be in a state of peace and to be part of the process that brings about this state. So what does peace mean to you and me or rather what does it mean for most people if we bandy around words like peace as opposed to war. I am of the opinion that most people associate peace with the absence of violence or war rather than anything else. Yes, I would probably tend to agree that there is a sense of peace that comes with the absence of violence and war and it is probably the most recognised understanding of what peace is. However, I believe that we are actually limiting our understanding of the concept by rigorously seeing it as an apposition to war, war's antonym so to speak.

War and peace are dichotomies that destroy our ability to seek true justice and peace

Isaiah's passage at the beginning of chapter 11 when speaking about the coming Messiah (1-10) does not contain the word peace but is focussed upon a relational understanding that brings about justice. This aspect is rarely dwelt upon when talking about peace. Even when John speaks about preparing the way he refers to relational understandings (Matt. 3:3) and indeed there is a somewhat violent image of Christ's coming (Matt. 3:11-12). In this case peace is reflected in an attitude in which we approach our relationships to achieve God's peace. God requires us to interact in a manner that serves to enhance our relationships so that we can achieve justice and an ability to interact with each other in such a manner that we do not break our relationships. This is the foundational essence of what it means to have peace. War and violence is an extreme example of what it means to break those relationships. It is not the opposite of peace but rather a symptom of our inability to achieve a good relationship when dealing with the other who is unlike us.

In Romans, Paul tackles this subject and speaks about our attitudes in welcome and relationship (Rom. 15:7). He does not speak about war and violence but rather about how we interact with people to bring about the harmony that is inherent in our relationships when we are in true community with each other. This is the alternative that God offers us through the incarnation and the presence of the Christ in our lives. The secular world promotes our own selfish needs and thus in the end it promotes violence and violent opposition to the other who is not us. God's commandments and God's requirements of us as followers of Christ and who are deeply immersed in faith, is that we walk the way of truth and love. In doing so we will inevitably promote the needs of the other, irrespective of whom they might be, rather than pouring denigration and scorn that results in violent rejection and a continuation of all that is opposed to God's love. It is clear from the Romans passage that the ability to listen and to interpret a situation is a valuable way of moving forward. Speech can render people compliant but it can also rouse them to great effort. In caring for God's people we need to ensure that our words are words that create peace rather than the conditions for violence that we so often succumb to in everyday life. By holding to the precepts of God we bring justice and peace into the world as harbingers of peace in the advent of God's kingdom.