Both passages today are about new babies. Galatians tells us about being received into a new family by adoption and Luke tells us of the birth of the baby Jesus and something of his first eight days of life. When the shepherds were looking after their flocks during a normal working night, they experienced an unexpected, extraordinary experience. “An angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them and they were terrified.” They were extra scared. We can only imagine what they saw and experienced that night. Most of us haven’t seen angels. Some of us may have experienced something of the glory of the Lord but my guess is that we haven’t seen it. If you have seen either an angel or the glory of the Lord, please encourage me by talking to me about it. The angel then spoke to the shepherds. He told them not to be afraid. I guess at the time that probably didn’t make much difference. He them spoke to them of good news for all people. Unto them, personally was born this day in the city of David, a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord. A sign for them would be that they would find a child wrapped in bands of cloth lying in a manger. When the shepherds got over the shock, they must have had great difficulty in believing what they were seeing. They were in a field that was probably full of sheep poo. They worked in the dark when most people were asleep in their beds. They were despised by the ordinary people of the day because they were unable to keep the details of ceremonial law, the hand washings and the rules and regulations even though the flocks near Bethlehem probably provided the sheep from which the Temple sacrifices were chosen. William Barclay writes, “It is a lovely thought that the shepherds who looked after temple lambs were the first to see the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Whilst the shepherds were still recovering from their fright, suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying as we will later in our communion liturgy, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours.” The experience of the shepherds shows us that God can reveal something of his glory everyone. Most of us however don’t talk about these experiences. We’re afraid of not being believed or of appearing to be proud. We don’t want to be thought of as special because we are only as special as everyone else for whom Jesus died. The shepherds didn’t seek a special experience. What they saw and experienced left them in fear and changed their lives. They had a decision to make. What had happened to them might have been mass hysteria, a hallucination, a message from the evil one. To find out if what the angel said was true or not they had to act on what they heard, leave their flocks, with all the risks to their safety that meant and travel to Bethlehem. They went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby as the angel had said. They immediately started sharing the good news. Jesus was born to be Saviour and King not just for the Jews, but for everyone. Whatever our background, status or gender, Jesus came to save us from our sin. He was called Jesus, Yeshua from Joshua which means Saviour. As unlikely as it must have seemed, the tiny baby in the manger was the Messiah the Jewish people had been waiting for, the one their scriptures pointed to. Jesus came to save those shepherds and he also came for you. What wonderful news! All who heard what the angels told them were amazed. We don’t know whether they believed as a result. Mary, however treasured their words and pondered them in her heart. The Shepherds confirmed what she had been told by the angel. When God reveals something to us, it is for passing on. Our words may challenge or encourage. People may come to faith through what we say or think we are bonkers. Good news is for sharing. The shepherds returned to their flocks changed. They glorified and praised God for all they had heard and seen. They may never have seen angels again this side of heaven, but they knew that Jesus was their Lord worthy of our love and praise. The more we praise and glorify God, the more we will want to share him with others. It’s vital that we share both our experience and knowledge of Jesus sensitively with others. Paul says in Galatians that God the father sent his only begotten son, born of a woman under the law, to redeem us, to set us free from the slavery of sin. He also sent his son so that we might be adopted as his children and have a tender relationship with our heavenly Father. Under Roman law, adopted children had the same legal status and inheritance rights as biological children. Paul does not identify Jews with biological children and Gentiles with adopted children. We are all adopted. None of us have any prior claim on the father. Our adoption as God’s children is pure gift. Jesus alone is Son of God from birth, but he deigns to share his kinship and inheritance with us. Because we are children (huioi = sons), God sent has sent the Spirit of his Son (huios) into our hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!'” The Spirit links us with God’s Son as fellow children of God, and enables us to call upon God with the same intimate language Jesus used. Being a child and an heir of our heavenly Father means that the tiny baby born is Bethlehem is our brother. We belong to the same family. When we accept Jesus as our Saviour we are loved and forgiven even though we don’t deserve it. Like all children, we continue to be loved and forgiven as we remain in relationship with our heavenly Father. Our relationship changes our attitude to worship and service. We no longer serve because we have to. We do it out of love. Everybody should have the opportunity to become part of our wonderful family. Like the shepherds, let us give our personal testimonies of what God had done in our lives, let us share the story of Christ coming to earth to save us and lets glorify and praise God for all he has done and will do in the future.
Both passages today are about new babies. Galatians tells us about being received into a new family by adoption and Luke tells us of the birth of the baby Jesus and something of his first eight days of life. When the shepherds were looking after their flocks during a normal working night, they experienced an unexpected, extraordinary experience. “An angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them and they were terrified.” They were extra scared. We can only imagine what they saw and experienced that night. Most of us haven’t seen angels. Some of us may have experienced something of the glory of the Lord but my guess is that we haven’t seen it. If you have seen either an angel or the glory of the Lord, please encourage me by talking to me about it. The angel then spoke to the shepherds. He told them not to be afraid. I guess at the time that probably didn’t make much difference. He them spoke to them of good news for all people. Unto them, personally was born this day in the city of David, a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord. A sign for them would be that they would find a child wrapped in bands of cloth lying in a manger. When the shepherds got over the shock, they must have had great difficulty in believing what they were seeing. They were in a field that was probably full of sheep poo. They worked in the dark when most people were asleep in their beds. They were despised by the ordinary people of the day because they were unable to keep the details of ceremonial law, the hand washings and the rules and regulations even though the flocks near Bethlehem probably provided the sheep from which the Temple sacrifices were chosen. William Barclay writes, “It is a lovely thought that the shepherds who looked after temple lambs were the first to see the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Whilst the shepherds were still recovering from their fright, suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying as we will later in our communion liturgy, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours.” The experience of the shepherds shows us that God can reveal something of his glory everyone. Most of us however don’t talk about these experiences. We’re afraid of not being believed or of appearing to be proud. We don’t want to be thought of as special because we are only as special as everyone else for whom Jesus died. The shepherds didn’t seek a special experience. What they saw and experienced left them in fear and changed their lives. They had a decision to make. What had happened to them might have been mass hysteria, a hallucination, a message from the evil one. To find out if what the angel said was true or not they had to act on what they heard, leave their flocks, with all the risks to their safety that meant and travel to Bethlehem. They went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby as the angel had said. They immediately started sharing the good news. Jesus was born to be Saviour and King not just for the Jews, but for everyone. Whatever our background, status or gender, Jesus came to save us from our sin. He was called Jesus, Yeshua from Joshua which means Saviour. As unlikely as it must have seemed, the tiny baby in the manger was the Messiah the Jewish people had been waiting for, the one their scriptures pointed to. Jesus came to save those shepherds and he also came for you. What wonderful news! All who heard what the angels told them were amazed. We don’t know whether they believed as a result. Mary, however treasured their words and pondered them in her heart. The Shepherds confirmed what she had been told by the angel. When God reveals something to us, it is for passing on. Our words may challenge or encourage. People may come to faith through what we say or think we are bonkers. Good news is for sharing. The shepherds returned to their flocks changed. They glorified and praised God for all they had heard and seen. They may never have seen angels again this side of heaven, but they knew that Jesus was their Lord worthy of our love and praise. The more we praise and glorify God, the more we will want to share him with others. It’s vital that we share both our experience and knowledge of Jesus sensitively with others. Paul says in Galatians that God the father sent his only begotten son, born of a woman under the law, to redeem us, to set us free from the slavery of sin. He also sent his son so that we might be adopted as his children and have a tender relationship with our heavenly Father. Under Roman law, adopted children had the same legal status and inheritance rights as biological children. Paul does not identify Jews with biological children and Gentiles with adopted children. We are all adopted. None of us have any prior claim on the father. Our adoption as God’s children is pure gift. Jesus alone is Son of God from birth, but he deigns to share his kinship and inheritance with us. Because we are children (huioi = sons), God sent has sent the Spirit of his Son (huios) into our hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!'” The Spirit links us with God’s Son as fellow children of God, and enables us to call upon God with the same intimate language Jesus used. Being a child and an heir of our heavenly Father means that the tiny baby born is Bethlehem is our brother. We belong to the same family. When we accept Jesus as our Saviour we are loved and forgiven even though we don’t deserve it. Like all children, we continue to be loved and forgiven as we remain in relationship with our heavenly Father. Our relationship changes our attitude to worship and service. We no longer serve because we have to. We do it out of love. Everybody should have the opportunity to become part of our wonderful family. Like the shepherds, let us give our personal testimonies of what God had done in our lives, let us share the story of Christ coming to earth to save us and lets glorify and praise God for all he has done and will do in the future.
“Jesus is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being,” the writer of Hebrews tells us. When we look at Jesus we see God and we see what God our Heavenly Father who we cannot see is like. How we long to see something of God’s glory and evidence of his working among us in these scary times. We long to see him walking among us, touching and healing our sick, comforting the distraught, giving wisdom to our leaders, bringing new life to his creation. We long, not just to see but to feel his love holding us, to know at the core of our being that everything is going to be alright in the end. We need not be afraid because Jesus is here with us. Our nearest and dearest may not be allowed to hug an hold us for fear of passing on the virus, but Jesus through the power of his Holy Spirit is able to draw near and hold us. In Jesus we see someone who was both God and fully human. He knows what it is like to be born, live in poverty, suffer and die. His human family had much to be worried about and afraid of. They constantly needed to hear the voice of God made clear to them through angels and dreams. Their survival depended upon it. In Jesus we see God becomes vulnerable. There is no one more tender and vulnerable than a new born baby. We celebrate Jesus becoming human flesh. The Word became flesh, John’s gospel says and made his dwelling, pitched his tent among us. The Message Bible writes he moved into the neighbourhood. Jesus suffered homelessness, becoming a refugee, thirst, hunger, tiredness, pain, sickness and perhaps the worst slight of all, rejections by his brothers, sister, friends, his synagogue leaders and the leaders of the Jewish religion. Finally he was to suffer the ignominy of death upon a cross, a slave’s death for the lowest of the low. He, like all those who have passed away through COVID 19 knows what it is like to die as a result of suffocation. He identifies with George Floyd who also died through suffocation and all those who suffer as a result of racism or any sort of discrimination. Why enter history 2000 years ago in a backwater of the Roman Empire as a member of a subjugated race? Why was being born as a baby important? It was important because our lives matter to God. Only those who suffer and feel pain can empathise with us. Those who have had easy lives can sympathise but they cannot share in what we are going through. By becoming flesh Jesus shares fully in our humanity. He identifies with us, has compassion and feels our pain. What is true for God the Son is true also for God our Father and God the Holy Spirit. Who would have thought that the almighty creator of the universe is vulnerable? A frightening, remote, awesome God who has to be obeyed doesn’t win the hearts of people. Only a God who we can relate to, one we can see, hear, touch and feel can win our hearts. There is no one more loveable and helpless than a baby. Jesus entrusted himself to our love. God didn’t become less powerful because Jesus became flesh. He became more effective. Only one who feels our pain and walks where we walk yet without sin can show us how to live holy lives. Jesus came to shine his revealing light in dark places so that we might repent of what we have done wrong and be forgiven. We are all more aware of the wrong we have done to God’s beautiful creation at the moment as we battle the effects of climate change. Even the pandemic is seen as coming from our abusive relationship with creation. Jesus came to forgive and heal us. The earth might still suffer the consequences of what we have done. One day Hebrews says Jesus will roll up the heaven and the earth like a garment. Jesus will still be life and light even then. John says that “In him was life. There will be a new heaven earth. When Jesus takes away our sin he fills us with his wonderful, abundant, vibrant life. John says that to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the power to become children of God. Jesus came to make us like him. Since he is the “reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being,” he changes us to reflect his glory and leave an imprint of God’s presence wherever we go. Jesus came to bring us the place where he is. Whether we are alive here or alive with him in glory, He lavishes his love upon us, giving us the privileges he has as the only, much loved Son of the Father Because Jesus came, we can become a child of God, be reborn and have God’s life and light within us, God’s DNA running through us. We become children of God, heirs of the Father and inheritors of the Kingdom of heaven The early church saw Jesus pour out gifts of forgiveness, healing, new wine, food, care, acceptance, and new life. They saw God’s love and power in action. The early Christian saw that Jesus was full of grace and truth partly because they saw him working through the lives of his followers. They also experienced God’s love through a direct encounter with Jesus and the intervention of the Holy Spirit, often in answer to the prayers of believers. Jesus gives us good gifts, not because we deserve them but because he is full of grace. He loves and forgives us as we are. He enables us to have the relationship of absolute intimacy with the Father that he enjoyed where we might hear God’s heartbeat and know his mind. He gives us his love to love others and the power of the Holy Spirit to do what he did in the world. Jesus gives us all of himself. “Of his fullness” John says, “have you all received.” All that Jesus received from the Father he pours into us. We first have to receive and believe in him, invite him in and experience his life and light for ourselves. We have seen Jesus walking among us, touching and healing our sick, comforting the distraught, giving wisdom to our leaders and bringing new life to his creation in the lives of Christians who have helped their neighbours, given and served in food banks, in our doctors, nurses and chaplains and in countless other acts of generosity during the pandemic. In the last few days, possibly as a result, we have seen a softening towards Christians in the media, particularly the news. Christians have hope. As the recognition that we cannot solve our present problems in our own strength or through science increases may we call out to Jesus, the creator of our universe, who is alive and still dwells with his people. According to the Street version of the opening verses of John’s gospel, “Before anything moved, mutated or mated, Jesus, God’s voice was there from the kick off. How come? Cos Jesus, God’s voice is God.” Jesus still makes his angels winds and his servants flames of fire. He still moves among us, dwelling with us and in us in power and love. As you receive and celebrate him this Christmas, may you feel and know his presence holding you tight.
“Jesus is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being,” the writer of Hebrews tells us. When we look at Jesus we see God and we see what God our Heavenly Father who we cannot see is like. How we long to see something of God’s glory and evidence of his working among us in these scary times. We long to see him walking among us, touching and healing our sick, comforting the distraught, giving wisdom to our leaders, bringing new life to his creation. We long, not just to see but to feel his love holding us, to know at the core of our being that everything is going to be alright in the end. We need not be afraid because Jesus is here with us. Our nearest and dearest may not be allowed to hug an hold us for fear of passing on the virus, but Jesus through the power of his Holy Spirit is able to draw near and hold us. In Jesus we see someone who was both God and fully human. He knows what it is like to be born, live in poverty, suffer and die. His human family had much to be worried about and afraid of. They constantly needed to hear the voice of God made clear to them through angels and dreams. Their survival depended upon it. In Jesus we see God becomes vulnerable. There is no one more tender and vulnerable than a new born baby. We celebrate Jesus becoming human flesh. The Word became flesh, John’s gospel says and made his dwelling, pitched his tent among us. The Message Bible writes he moved into the neighbourhood. Jesus suffered homelessness, becoming a refugee, thirst, hunger, tiredness, pain, sickness and perhaps the worst slight of all, rejections by his brothers, sister, friends, his synagogue leaders and the leaders of the Jewish religion. Finally he was to suffer the ignominy of death upon a cross, a slave’s death for the lowest of the low. He, like all those who have passed away through COVID 19 knows what it is like to die as a result of suffocation. He identifies with George Floyd who also died through suffocation and all those who suffer as a result of racism or any sort of discrimination. Why enter history 2000 years ago in a backwater of the Roman Empire as a member of a subjugated race? Why was being born as a baby important? It was important because our lives matter to God. Only those who suffer and feel pain can empathise with us. Those who have had easy lives can sympathise but they cannot share in what we are going through. By becoming flesh Jesus shares fully in our humanity. He identifies with us, has compassion and feels our pain. What is true for God the Son is true also for God our Father and God the Holy Spirit. Who would have thought that the almighty creator of the universe is vulnerable? A frightening, remote, awesome God who has to be obeyed doesn’t win the hearts of people. Only a God who we can relate to, one we can see, hear, touch and feel can win our hearts. There is no one more loveable and helpless than a baby. Jesus entrusted himself to our love. God didn’t become less powerful because Jesus became flesh. He became more effective. Only one who feels our pain and walks where we walk yet without sin can show us how to live holy lives. Jesus came to shine his revealing light in dark places so that we might repent of what we have done wrong and be forgiven. We are all more aware of the wrong we have done to God’s beautiful creation at the moment as we battle the effects of climate change. Even the pandemic is seen as coming from our abusive relationship with creation. Jesus came to forgive and heal us. The earth might still suffer the consequences of what we have done. One day Hebrews says Jesus will roll up the heaven and the earth like a garment. Jesus will still be life and light even then. John says that “In him was life. There will be a new heaven earth. When Jesus takes away our sin he fills us with his wonderful, abundant, vibrant life. John says that to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the power to become children of God. Jesus came to make us like him. Since he is the “reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being,” he changes us to reflect his glory and leave an imprint of God’s presence wherever we go. Jesus came to bring us the place where he is. Whether we are alive here or alive with him in glory, He lavishes his love upon us, giving us the privileges he has as the only, much loved Son of the Father Because Jesus came, we can become a child of God, be reborn and have God’s life and light within us, God’s DNA running through us. We become children of God, heirs of the Father and inheritors of the Kingdom of heaven The early church saw Jesus pour out gifts of forgiveness, healing, new wine, food, care, acceptance, and new life. They saw God’s love and power in action. The early Christian saw that Jesus was full of grace and truth partly because they saw him working through the lives of his followers. They also experienced God’s love through a direct encounter with Jesus and the intervention of the Holy Spirit, often in answer to the prayers of believers. Jesus gives us good gifts, not because we deserve them but because he is full of grace. He loves and forgives us as we are. He enables us to have the relationship of absolute intimacy with the Father that he enjoyed where we might hear God’s heartbeat and know his mind. He gives us his love to love others and the power of the Holy Spirit to do what he did in the world. Jesus gives us all of himself. “Of his fullness” John says, “have you all received.” All that Jesus received from the Father he pours into us. We first have to receive and believe in him, invite him in and experience his life and light for ourselves. We have seen Jesus walking among us, touching and healing our sick, comforting the distraught, giving wisdom to our leaders and bringing new life to his creation in the lives of Christians who have helped their neighbours, given and served in food banks, in our doctors, nurses and chaplains and in countless other acts of generosity during the pandemic. In the last few days, possibly as a result, we have seen a softening towards Christians in the media, particularly the news. Christians have hope. As the recognition that we cannot solve our present problems in our own strength or through science increases may we call out to Jesus, the creator of our universe, who is alive and still dwells with his people. According to the Street version of the opening verses of John’s gospel, “Before anything moved, mutated or mated, Jesus, God’s voice was there from the kick off. How come? Cos Jesus, God’s voice is God.” Jesus still makes his angels winds and his servants flames of fire. He still moves among us, dwelling with us and in us in power and love. As you receive and celebrate him this Christmas, may you feel and know his presence holding you tight.
