Royal Family

A skilled obstetrician, world-class hospital facilities, the media throng. Christians inevitably contrast the circumstances surrounding the birth of Prince George Alexander Louis last week with those at that other royal birth in Bethlehem when the son of heaven’s king first drew crisp breath into new lungs.

A stable. No skilled help. No expectant crowds (unless you count the angels.) At least there were no barriers holding back the shepherds and those mysterious travellers from the east. And the latter could deliver their gifts personally – gifts a tad more imaginative then the Teddy Bears from Harrods which were handed in at St Mary’s Hospital.

Christians believe God has known George Alexander Louis from the moment of his conception as intimately as God knew the growing foetus in Mary’s womb. God knew Prince George’s name, knew the destiny he will freely embrace. God knows, and loves with deep aching love every baby conceived and born, whether Kensington Palace is its home, or a Syrian refugee camp.

Perhaps too many gifts have been showered on this one baby George.  Would that we were all as committed to make a difference to a world of poor, malnourished babies, babies enduring desperate circumstances and dysfunctional families, each as precious to God as the new Prince.

And God doesn’t simply love us as babies when we are wrinkly, cute and innocent. God loves us just as much when we grow up and mess up and choose a lesser destiny. God calls us to a change of heart, offering us the gift of forgiveness, and the ability to love God, and to love others. This re-orientation of our hearts is so fundamental, so liberating that Jesus described it to one man as being ‘born again’, born into God’s family.

Kate and William’s love for their baby, their tenderness is clear. Many discover when they turn to God for the first time that God finds ways of showing especial tenderness to those whose weak hands of faith have reached out to their Father for the first time.

Since one of the metaphors we use to describe God is ‘King of Heaven’, it follows that those who welcome the embrace of God’s love and find God as their Father can be described as the king’s children. But this royal family is marked not by exclusiveness and distance, but by inclusiveness and engagement.

It is a royal family which all are invited to join, a royal family in which privilege walks hand in hand with service. We follow in the footsteps of Jesus, the Servant King, his Spirit prompting us to make his kingdom a reality – helping those who suffer, standing against evil and injustice. While the royal family Prince George has been born into is the pinnacle of the Establishment, the members of God’s royal family will sometimes be seen as dissidents, challenging the status quo.

Prince George has been born into the centuries-old, on-going story of British royalty. Some of the things we saw last week – the giving of gifts, the interest in acquiring the same baby gear as is used in the royal nursery, suggest that some of us want to reach out and align ourselves with that story, regarding ourselves as somehow part of it. But the power of this imaginative exercise to change our lives is limited

In contrast, the other, older, greater story, the story of Christian faith is a story we can become genuinely and vitally part of, a story which will change us, and through us change the world in small ways. It is ironic that many of us regard with suspicion this story which Christians are convinced is more than an imaginative exercise, offering so much more hope than the birth of a new Prince.

George Alexander Louis – the name is a bit too formal and traditional for my liking. Did William and Kate look into that small face and hear it announcing: ‘I am a George?’ A name, traditionally, is more than just a word we are known by. A name sums up our identity.

It seems to me that sometimes our parents give us the wrong name – not so much calling us for example George when we’re really a Kev, or a Jordan, or a Martin – as wanting us to be a different person from who we really are. Some of us go through life, as it were living with the wrong name because we have never found our true identity.

God knows my name. God sets me free to be the person I really am. God gives me security as I find my destiny in the story I was made for, a story whose continuation does not depend on the fickle will of a democracy, but on the unshakable love of God.

(Christian Viewpoint column from the Highland News dated 1st August 2013)