“The GIFT OF
JESUS”
|
An address given at the Readings: Mt
1:18-25, Luke 2:1-20 |
You know what it is like to be lost in a big
city.
You ask the way. The first five people
you ask are visitors themselves.
Finally, someone who lets forth with a huge spiel –
Oh it’s simple - go up the road towards the bottom
of the hill -
about half way jiggle to the right and then left
past the alley by the pub -
Turn Left and right again
just after where the all night chemists used to be –
you cant miss it.
You set off, and needless to say end up more lost
than ever.
You ask again but they seem only to speak Serbo Croat
Finally you ask someone else and they say –
Well I’m going that way – come with me, I’ll show you.
And
God’s gift to us at Christmas is not a set of directions,
not a set of tablets of stone, or messages of wisdom,
nor a route map for life,
God
is not a distant politician faxing roadmaps for peace.
What
God gives us at Christmas is himself, himself with us,
showing the way, walking alongside us.
Someone once wrote to film star Peter Sellars
and asked him to send a singed photo of himself.
Peter Sellars was famous and was often asked for signed
photos –
clearly this fan had a trouble with her letters,
getting her gs and ns back to front.
Others
would have simply sent a signed photo.
But Sellars took the fan at her word and with Harry Secombe
they got a cigarette lighter and singed the 4 sides of a photo and sent it
off.
2 weeks later a letter came back –
”Thank you so much for photo –
However, would you mind sending another,
as the one you sent is signed all round the edges.”
God
doesn’t just send us a picture, signed or singed,
or a personalised message, he sends himself.
I remember seeing a TV
programme about Whooping cranes in USA.
They are an endangered species –
The programme was about a group
of naturalists
who had rescued some young crane chicks.
The trouble was that they needed to be reared,
and this meant that the humans had to take on the role of the parent crane –
So, the programme showed
people dressed up like cranes
running along flapping their arms to show them how to fly.
The humans had become parents & role models for
the cranes.
But then they became worried how the cranes would
migrate
without parents to show the way and find them safe feeding grounds.
So they put one of the naturalists in a microlite
to fly all the way from the Northern US to New Mexico
with the cranes following.
And because he had become a parent figure for the
cranes they followed –
and we saw pictures of him flying over the countryside
with the herons in formation behind him
So it
is that Christ comes and descends to our level, empties himself,
and becomes one of us that we might be saved, and travel safely.
That
is the gift of Christmas we celebrate today.
May
you all have a very joyful Christmas.
May
you know in your hearts the gift of Jesus in your life.
May
the Lord bless you and keep you,
May
turn his face upon you and give you peace,
May
you never be lost again
And
may the child of Bethlehem be your guide now and always.