He's on his way...

I am just loving this new poster designed by www.churchads.net.

Many soon to be parents proudly show their scan photos to all and sundry, some even post them on Facebook. It seems odd to me because in so doing, something so intimate and private is made public... Just like the Christmas story...

I know that there is already a bit of controversy about the campaign, but I love it because at it's heart we are reminded that Christianity takes our humanity seriously. In Christ, God takes us as we are...

Candlemas Thankfulness

Well I hope you have taken down your tree and packed away the lights, cards and crib, for today finally and formally brings to end our celebrations of the birth of Jesus. Christmas, the annual time for people to coo and ahhh over the soft-focus story of the birth of a beautiful baby some 2000 years ago. But we should not be taken in by the tinsel and pretty lights: Christmas has been more serious than that. The question we are left with is: what really happened?

Candlemas is a festival that the Church of England tended not to make too much of up until the very recent past perhaps because of it’s Mediaeval focus on the purification of Mary and not the presentation of Jesus as the first born son dedicated to God. Latterly the Church realised how significant this major feast is in her the worshipping life, because, like a steep hill on a good walk, Candlemas provides us with a vantage point enabling us to look back to the Christmas celebration of the birth of God in our midst from where we have come, and forward to the destination of our journey - the cross and death PAUSE... and resurrection.

The Gospel story tells of the Holy Family’s trip up to Jerusalem, to visit the Temples. They went to carry out what was necessary under the Law. Firstly they went so that Mary could be made ritually pure 40 days after childbirth by the offering of the appropriate sacrifice.

The book of Leviticus outlines very clearly the correct sacrificial practice in various circumstances. If you suffer from insomnia I suggest it as a cure, but the book makes it clear that the poor, should sacrifice a pair of young pigeons or a a pair of turtle doves in various circumstances. Luke is making a very important point here. Throughout the Old Testament, God again and again identifies himself with the poor, downtrodden and the outcast. Luke’s point is clear - with the coming of the Messiah, God’s eternal attributes of love and justice have not changed. As the King of the Nations, the Prince of Peace, God’s Son comes to the Temple he comes not just identifying with the socially, spiritually, emotionally and financially poor, but as one of them.

Secondly, the family went to have Jesus dedicated to God. Again the Levitical Law is clear and Luke quotes it for us - every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord. Luke is making another very important point here. This child will be dedicated to the service of God, like every firstborn Jewish male, but the service he will undertake for God will transform the world.

The other key players in this drama set in the heart of Israel’s spiritual life, the Temple, are Simeon and Anna. Simeon clarifies what God has planned to achieve through this little baby, things that Luke’s readers already know about but now have confirmed through the mouth of a pious and faithful Jew. Simeon had been promised that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah. How Simeon knew that this firstborn male was what he had been waiting for all these years we will never know. But as he holds Jesus (whose name literally means ‘the Lord is my salvation’) in his arms he holds God’s salvation itself. As a result he may depart in peace - he can die happy , knowing that what had been promised to him had been fulfilled, and also knowing that shalom, God’s peace was about to break though in a new way to the whole of creation bringing reconciliation, forgiveness, healing, love and justice to reign on earth through this child. Simeon does here what neither Moses or Elijah or the other great prophets of God could do - as he looks lovingly at that newborn he sees the face of God Almighty the Creator - and lives.

Many of Israel, like Simeon and Anna - are pious and faithfully waiting the redemption of God through this child. Many are not and there will be those who will hate Jesus and in the end they will crucify him. Even here in the temple here is the shadow of the coming cross.

At Christmas we recall the greatest mystery - that God became human like us. The Incarnation, the birth of God amongst is surely about God identifying not only with humanity but with everything created, not to understand it so as to apprehend it, but to love it into eternal life. At Candlemas as Jesus God’s own Son is presented in the Temple and dedicated to God, Jesus offers back to God his humanity, our humanity, and reconciles everything that is created to it’s Creator for his use and his glory.

Today as Jesus is presented to God in the Temple, God presents creation with his peace, the Shalom that Simeon knew, in his Son, to which creation responds with thanksgiving knowing that soon pain, suffering, sin, and evil will be banished and all will be restored into the life of God. My friends it is this that marks us Christians out as distinct from the rest of humanity - our part in the great thanksgiving of all created things, a thanksgiving that knows that God will free the world from sin and it’s affects - sin that makes people lie, murder, cheat, abuse, and corrupt. As Christians, as children of God, our lives are a visible thanksgiving to God from the people of Leverstock Green for all that he gives us in Creation and all that he promises Creation in Christ - to be free from the power of sin. Secular humanity find it so hard to give thanks when they do not know whom they should be thanking, and very often can see nothing to be thankful for. My friends I believe our secular friends and neighbours need us. We must not let them down.

The Nativity - God's protest song...

Well who would have thought that Rage Against the Machine would have the Christmas number one, especially as for the last few years at least, the winner of the X-Factor has been pretty much guaranteed the number one slot.

‘Killing in the Name’ could not be a more unlikey choice for the top slot this or any other Christmas... not a saccharine syrupy lyric in sight, a great guitar riff, and very very political (and fairly colourful) lyrics. It is a heartfelt cry for justice. The song is about the then campaign against corruption in the US police forces, trying to expose and remove officers who were also members of the Ku Klux Klan, and American society’s unwillingness to act against this clear abuse of power.

‘’Killing in the Name’ is a cry for justice that is echoed down the corridors of history: in the recent Climate Change protests, the ‘Stand Up’ anti-poverty campaign, the Make Poverty History and Jubilee 2000 campaigns, Band Aid, CND, the Suffragettes the anti-slavery movement, and so on... Things just should not be like this. We know they shouldn’t. God knows they shouldn’t... and yet they continue to be so, we continue to be so...

In a year of the failed Copenhagen summit, global recession, mass unemployment, flooding nationally and internationally, banking crises, and more fighting and dying in Afghanistan it is no wonder that we might think that God had gone on an extended holiday and left us to our own devices and our self-made mess... In that context ‘Killing in the Name’ seems a most appropriate anthem this Christmas.

We so easily approach the events that we recall tonight as though they were a scene from many of the Christmas cards that we have received or sent. The Holy Family surrounded by animals, shepherds, maybe an angel or wise man or two all enveloped in the divine light of God. A soft focus Nativity, and yet our first reading tonight could not be a more sharper contrast.

The prophet Isaiah speaks to Jerusalem has been ransacked and laid waste. It has been waiting for it’s day of liberation. Those who guard the city’s shattered buildings and nearly empty streets are scanning the horizon. They have to be especially wary as the Babylonians have undermined the city’s walls leaving the it defenseless. Suddenly, off to the east, they spot someone on the crest of the Mount of Olives. They can barely make out the person’s faint cries. As he makes his way down the mount they hear, “Your God is King!” The messenger is from Babylon and has made the 500 mile trip across the desert to bring this hopeful news to Jerusalem. God is returning to making the city holy by His divine presence.

We gather again tonight, looking out for hope and life too, for many of us feel hopeless. Yet over the brow of the year comes the Christmas story... and our hearts sink. The soft focus, saccharine stories of the God who fails to make a difference... And yet, have we really heard the Christmas story at all? Strain with me to hear again what St John says. The Word, who pre-existed with God, has brought all that is into existence. The life that he lives is like a beacon of light to people - a blinding light that cannot be extinguished. He lived that Divine light and life amongst us, but we did not see him or recognise him, but those who do are offered the life of God, life with God. Who or what is this Word? He is the one who speaks of, acts out and lives the very life of God Himself... Not a mention of global recession or unemployment, Afghanistan or climate change, but there is talk about light, life and an over-riding sense of hope...

If you came tonight to coo over a baby, born in conditions that the Social Services would have a fit about, but to go ‘ahhh’ at the Christmas story nonetheless, then you will find that child on the front of many a card at home. Through the child born in the manger in Bethlehem, tonight God speaks to us His Word, He blinds us with the light of justice and He deafens us with His protest song of hope.

Friends I am not naive enough to realise that this sounds all too utopian, a Christmas sticking plaster over the gaping wound of my life or our lives together - yet tonight I am reminded in the midst of political, financial and environmental turmoil this baby is born. The Word made flesh. God himself amongst us, returning to make the city, this village, our workplaces, our families, our lives, holy by His divine presence.

A colleague of mine was once describing the beauty of the world to some children, when one child popped up with, ‘He could not have done it without the council,’ meaning the workers of which his Dad was one. The child knew that without us, God will not, without God we cannot. Or to put it another way, ‘Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born, if he is not born in you, you a still forlorn. Want a better life? A better year? Some good old fashioned hope? It begins at the manger. But we have got to accept what He offers. This baby comes to make us holy, to forge a friendship between us and God, to offer us light, hope and life, to transform our lives and together, our world. Amen

Unto us a Child is Politically Incorrect

I hadn't expected to do another blog on Christmas, but as often happens I got inspiration. This time it came from a wonderful blog called Say Hello to My Little Friend. This audio is timely and funny. Really funny. So enjoy it. It is a story of all the Birth of Christ and the various nonsensical reactions to it from the secular world.

There is one thing I would like to comment on. At one point in the various people who come to Mary with grievances, one lady has this to say:

Religious holidays are important, but can't we learn to celebrate them in ways that unite, not divide? For instance, instead of all this business about 'Gloria in excelsis Deo,' why not just 'Season's Greetings'?"

This quote so wonderfully sums up how much of our culture views the holiday. I am sure that many of Christian peers reading this that are already annoyed with it. I am too. Yet I thought I'd post a few things why. I don't doubt that we call list of plenty of things that we think motivate this seemingly pious approach to a holiday. I'll offer two, and I invite everyone to add their thoughts in the comments.

First, I think there is an idea of "neutrality" towards religion as kind of a virtue in and of itself. It is this: we like the idea of our government being "neutral" towards religion. I am sure most Christians like that too. The problem is when people think that because the government is "neutral" towards religion, the rest of society should be too. If people start asserting their own religious communities to much in public, that might mean people are divided and it won't be long before we start killing each other or something.

Secondly, I think there is a kind of capital "P" religious Pluralism that motivates "Season's Greetings." All religious make people nice and happy. They all make people good. So lets all give eachother presents and have a nice "good will towards men" and cut out the messy religious dogma that we don't all agree on. Let's all agree the "God" is vague anyway.

Did I mentioned that I get annoyed at this kind of thing?

When someone is worried about division, I wonder what kind of division they talk about. When I say "Gloria in Exclesis Deo" I am not saying it with anyone except those who are already in my religious community. I am not expecting those outside to understand it. Is this divisive? I don't care. The holy day of Christmas is for Christians and by Christians. I'd rather not have anyone outside of the community offer me ways to improve my own religious devotion. I don't scorn people outside of it, but please mind your own businesses.

Additionally, I don't care much for capital "P" religious Pluralism. This is largely because I am not offended or threatened that there are people who are out there practicing religions other than my own. I am not bothered by Hannukkah or a pagan winter solstice celebration. In fact, by all means, celebrate away. I fully support little "p" pluralism: that there are several religions each with own distinctive practices and mutually exclusive claims. Why should I, a committed Christian, feel offended by other religions? Does the devotion of a winter solstice affect my ability to celebrate Christ's birth?

In truth, I think that the politically correct "let's not divide on the holiday" approach is really plain insecurity on part of those who endorse it. People either have such little devotion to their own traditions, that they are threatened by those who are deeply dedicated to different faiths. This in turn creates the need for "neutrality" in the public space because they can't handle it. It seems to want to take the life out of the faith of others because of the lack of faith on their part.

But Merry Christmas.

Anyone else annoyed with "season's greetings"?