God in safe hands

‘Tis the season for nativity plays! Mary, Joseph, shepherds, wise men, angels, innkeeper, sheep have in the last few days made their jolly way in front of  a thousand audiences. Plus of course, the baby, central to it all.

I’ve been thinking about the journeys to Bethlehem made by wise men and shepherds, each group following the sign they had been given. The shepherds were granted a glorious and compelling vision of angels announcing the birth. The wise men, many days journey away from Bethlehem were summoned by a more subtle sign requiring wisdom and reflection to interpret.

Some of us have been drawn to faith by a dramatic sign or experience, which left us in no doubt of God’s existence. Others of us have had a less arresting call - whispers of grace, an awakening longing, a slow-growing conviction that God is there.

However we began, we set out on the journey to faith. And just as over nine months Jesus was formed in Mary’s womb, so our faith grew as we travelled, until the Bethlehem moment when we were convinced that God has come among us.

I’ve also been reflecting on the myth that everyone is happy at Christmas. In reality, for many people late December is a time when pain and sorrow is intensified by the apparent jollity of the season.

The fact that last week’s massacre in an American school took place just before Christmas adds poignancy to the terrible woundedness of those who lost loved ones.

Burdens of illness, anxiety and debt don’t lift at Christmas. Loneliness is deepened as the whole world seems to shut down for two weeks. There’s no respite for the many who struggle to cling to life and dignity in squalid refugee camps, or in hungry African villages.

The pain of looking back at happier Christmases spent with those who have passed away or messed up their lives doesn’t diminish with the passing of time.

One aspect of the Christmas story we don’t focus on in nativity plays is the danger and darkness of it. But we believe God came among us in Jesus in extreme vulnerability, born to a teenage mother, born into one of the poorest families in the community, born at a time not of social stability but of political tension.

Then there was Herod’s despicable intervention – Herod the puppet ruler who felt threatened by the alleged birth of the child born to be king, and in an attempt to eliminate him ordered the slaughter of all the male babies in Bethlehem – a massacre which Jesus escaped.

Into this familiar, conflicted world in which joy rubs shoulders with agony, love with pure wickedness comes the fragile baby in the manager, Emmanuel, God with us.

The point is that at Christmas we should not deny or hide from the darkness, but rather celebrate the coming of God to the heart of our broken world. God came to heal the brokenness, ultimately in the great healing of all things which we believe lies ahead, but in the meantime using us as agents of healing, action by action, word by word, prayer by prayer.

The slow growth of the baby Jesus in his mother’s womb is a symbol not just of our growing faith as we journey to Christ, but of our growing Christ-likeness as we journey with Christ. Because Jesus is in us, we are able to bring hope, courage, empathy, healing and companionship to those who suffer and challenge to those who oppress.

In a lecture about Etty Hillesum, a Jewish lady who died in Auschwitz in 1943, Rowan Williams the Archbishop of Canterbury says that being religious involves ‘taking on the task of ensuring a habitation for God who is visible only when a human life gives place, offers hospitality to God.’

We may ask where God in a world beset with suffering, but Dr Williams speaks of religious people ‘taking responsibility for God’s appearing.’

As Christians we remember Mary, who accepted responsibility for God’s appearing and offered her womb as a habitation for God. But we too have a responsibility to welcome God into our lives, a responsibility for God’s appearing through us in every situation of everyday life.

And just as, in the baby in the manager, God came to change the world not through power and compulsion but through vulnerability, service, love and invitation, so God is seen in us as we embrace these same counter-cultural values.

‘God is in safe hands with us despite everything’ Etty Hillesum wrote two months before her death. God was certainly in safe hands as Mary held the new-born Jesus close, skin on warm skin. As we carry within us the treasure of God’s presence, is God in safe hands - despite everything?

(Christian Viewpoint column from the Highland News dated 20th December 2012)