A tiny bundle wrapped in a white cotton blanket…
lying at her mother’s side on the hospital bed…
sleeping peacefully––
I remember vividly the first time that I saw Alice.
She was only a few hours old––
the first-born daughter of a close friend.
It was the first time that I had seen a baby so young…
and I couldn’t get over just how tiny she was…
how delicate and fragile––
as if a strong gust of wind would blow her away…
like an autumn leaf.
I was afraid to touch her…
afraid that I might hurt her or break her…
afraid that I might drop her.
And there she lay––
a new-born baby…
a tiny bundle of joy for her exhausted parents…
a special gift…
but, in many ways, just like any other newborn baby:
tiny…
delicate and fragile…
vulnerable and weak…
defenceless and helpless…
so utterly dependent…
so thoroughly in need of tender love and nurture.
As I stood looking at her, I pondered.
How would she grow?
What sort of person would she be?
What would she become?
Looking at her it was impossible to tell.
There were endless possibilities.
There were also countless risks––
the risk that she would become ill…
and die before her time;
the risk that she wouldn’t fulfil her potential…
that she would drop out…
waste her life…
hurt others…
and hurt her family;
the risk that she would go astray…
turn bad…
spurn her parents’ love…
turn her back on everything that they valued…
reject all that they had taught her…
even reject them;
the risk that it would all end in grief…
and pain…
and disappointment.
Bringing new life into the world is a risky business.
At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of another baby––
a baby who would’ve been born like so many others in the first century…
certainly, like those born to humble peasants––
born among the animals in the house…
born among the hay and the dung;
then wrapped tightly and lovingly in strips of cloth…
to protect his floppy head and limbs…
in the belief that it would help him to grow up straight and strong;
then placed in the animals’ feeding-trough…
in the middle of the main room of the house…
where every new-born peasant child was placed.
At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of a baby––
a baby born into a world where one in three babies didn’t see their first birthday…
and half never made it to the age of five;
a birth so filled with promise and with risk…
a birth so very ordinary…
so very common.
Of course, the stories of Jesus’ birth that have passed down to us are anything but that.
The stories of Jesus’ birth––
which we know so well––
were crafted at a much later date.
They were crafted rich in symbol and meaning, and wrapped in poetry…
trying to convey something of what the birth of Jesus meant for the Gospel writers.
The authors of those stories were writing what we, today, would describe as “myth”––
an imaginative, imaginary story about the interaction of human beings and divine beings…
attempting to explain beliefs and phenomena…
seeking to convey important ideas and concepts…
seeking to convey “ultimate truth”.
But my concern, today, is not with the symbolic, metaphoric, mythic, poetic stories…
which we find in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke––
one of which we heard read this morning.
Let’s put those stories aside.
Let’s concentrate, rather, on the essential story––
the primary ‘myth’ if you like––
the story of the incarnation itself:
the metaphor, the myth, that––
in the birth of this tiny bundle called Jesus––
God came to us…
existentially entering into our life…
reaching out to us…
becoming one with us.
What are the truths inherent to this story?
What is it trying to say to us?
The theologian, William Grassie, suggests that:
“The Christmas story is subversive, so we try to render it safe and saccharine. Contrast the image of God as some great, all-powerful Being in the sky with the icon of a helpless baby in the manger. The former, many imagine, micro-manages all the details of our lives and the nightly news; the other needs his diaper changed… The reversal is staggering. The incarnate God enters the world as a baby”.
Think about it.
What are the implications?
The God of the incarnation reaches out to us––
is found among us––
not in power or might or exercising sovereign control…
but fragile and vulnerable…
weak and helpless…
totally dependent…
bound by all the limitations of the physical world.
The image of the incarnation confronts us with a God who is not in control…
but who is, in fact, dependent upon us––
who is dependent upon humanity––
to actualise the presence of God…
to allow the life of God to be seen and known and experienced…
more and more…
in our risking…
in our vulnerability…
in our dependence upon each other…
in our labouring and nurturing…
and, as William Grassie puts it, “in bringing forth many instantiations of good, beautiful, and true things in the world”.
The incarnation confronts us with the subversive notion that God’s transformation comes from within.
Not only that…
but the God of the incarnation is not aloof or distant…
but intimately present…
bound up with the human and the physical…
enfleshed in the ordinary and the everyday…
found in the common and the commonplace…
known and experienced amid the muck and the messiness of human existence…
inviting us to look for God there.
And, indeed, if that is how God comes to us––
if that is how God is found among us––
if the incarnation is, in many respects, so ordinary…
then this could be any one of us.
At its heart, the incarnation is our story––
or it can be.
In the words of the theologian, Bruce Epperly:
“God is present in every moment of experience as the source of possibilities and the energy to embody these possibilities in everyday life. Accordingly, we are all, in varying degrees, incarnations of divine wisdom and creativity. The greater openness toward God in our lives, the more God can be present, guiding, energizing, and inspiring our lives”.
Above all, the God of the incarnation is also a God who risks everything in reaching out to us:
the risk of failure…
the risk of being misunderstood…
the risk of shattered dreams…
the risk of rejected love.
God is not insulated from all the risks of birth and life and death.
The ‘myth’ of the incarnation invites us to encounter and experience a loving God––
who comes to us and comes among us…
in all the risks and potentials of human birth…
in the ordinary miracle and preciousness of human birth…
in every human birth…
overturning our expectations…
disturbing our certainties…
upsetting our ideologies and machinations…
and inviting us to perceive the world again––
as if for the first time…
as if through the eyes of a newborn babe.