Monday
Luke 2.10 “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”
We underline words for emphasis. It’s a way of paying attention to what’s really important. The Christmas story has its own vocabulary, words that chime with our own experience, and shape this story of God’s coming amongst us. The shining glory of the Lord is not to terrify but to reassure – don’t be afraid, this is good news and great joy for everyone. What is about to happen is the hinge point of human history, when God pushes open the door and comes amongst us. Whatever else the shepherds witnessed, they saw heaven pouring down, luminous with blessing.
Tuesday
Luke 2.11 “Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”
It’s not as if there was no warning. For centuries prophets had said God would send the Christ to save his people. Those promises are now happening, here, now. Just as Isaiah said, “Unto us a child is born.” Born as a human baby, the Word became flesh and lived amongst us as one of us. The instincts that draw us to the midnight Christmas Eve service are because we know that the birth of Jesus is of momentous significance – as the angel said – “good news of great joy for all the people”, including us, and our neighbours, and our troubled world. There, 2,000 years ago, in Bethlehem, God kept his promise to his people, and to the nations, and to us.
Wednesday
Luke 2.11b “This will be a sign to you: You will find the child wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
You can’t have Christmas without a manger! Forget the sentimental Christmas card pictures. Jesus was born in the unheated downstairs level where the animals were kept overnight. The shepherds would be perfectly at home amongst the animals, looking in bemused wonder at a young woman nursing her new born child, there of all places. The hard part for them, and for us is making the link between this utterly dependent infant, and the Glastonbury lights and sounds on the hillside. God is here, not in trailing clouds of glory, but nestling in the security of a mother’s arms, amongst the household animals of the kind soul who said, “You’re welcome.”
Thursday
Luke 2.14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to all on whom his favour rests.”
Glory to God in the highest. But glory is hidden in a hayrack, wrapped in a blanket, and held in a mother’s arms. This child is the Prince of Peace, God’s gift of shalom. ‘Shalom’ is a welfare word, containing the promise of wellbeing, harmony, human flourishing, a world of recovered fertility, and of human communities where power is used to enable and not disempower others. But not now, and not yet. Still, in Christ incarnate, crucified and risen, God has set in motion his final purposes for creation. Whatever else the Church is, it is the reflected light of the Light of the World, God’s fifth column of reconciled reconcilers, God’s peacemakers and good news agents.
Friday
Luke 2.15 “When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened…”
The ordinary, overlooked, sheep-smelling shepherds, and the resplendent luminous angels, and a small rural town called Bethlehem. Never lose the sense of Christmas as entirely incongruous, the real happening of an impossible story. Those shepherds were nobody’s fools. Like all hard-working folk trying to get by, they had modest expectations of life. Until the angels interrupted their nightshift! We need the shepherds, the angels, the little town, as we need Mary, Joseph and the baby – together they create the time and place when Immanuel happened, God with us.
Saturday
Luke 2.17 “When they had seen him they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child. And all who heard it were amazed…”
There’s quite a lot of amazement goes on in the Christmas story. Mary’s annunciation; Joseph’s dream and the angel; shepherds ambushed by God’s choir; the shepherds’ gawking and gossip. And those who heard them were amazed. Why not? Angels and heavenly choirs, a baby supposed to be the Messiah, a young woman both scared and honoured above all women. The vocabulary of Christmas is full of big words – Jesus, Immanuel, Bethlehem, signs and prophets, child, manger, shepherds, glory, joy, peace, God’s favour, spreading the word. And it’s our story, and these words are our words, the vocabulary of God’s gift beyond all our telling.
Sunday
Luke 2.19 “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”
The modern carol, “Mary did you know?” seems to ignore this verse. Mary knew all right, in those deep places where a mother’s loves and hopes mingle with anxiety and determination to protect. Mary is taking in the significance of all that has happened to her. She holds them close to her heart in the secret intimacy of the risks she has taken. God knows what would happen next. Yes, God knows.
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