NORTH BALWYN UNITING CHURCH
Christmas morning communion
SUNDAY 25 DECEMBER, 2016
Luke 2: 1-18
Rev Anneke Oppewal
The message for this morning is simple: It doesn’t take much for God to materialise, and: one baby is enough to change history.
At the centre of the story for this morning is a child at the breast, only a few hours old. An infant that can’t speak or act, totally dependent, completely at the mercy of others, vulnerable, in need of support for just about everything that will keep it alive from others.
Two weeks ago, in the middle of a meeting, that was brought home to me when one of the people there received news that a little girl had made her way into the world, the second grandchild to her partner. The news disrupted the meeting, the Christmas celebrations at the end were cut a little short, as a photo arrived of the new born, with her mum, her brother and the proud granddad and had us all pouring over it. So tiny, so lovely, so perfect, so vulnerable!
And we all couldn’t help but think of the story we’d read at the beginning of the meeting, about that other baby, 2000 years or so ago, that was born in a stable to a young and inexperienced mother, displaced and far from home, without the help of a midwife, without a whole hospital on standby should something go wrong, without someone waiting on the other end of a mobile phone and praying that all would be well.
Looking for images to put on screen this morning, googling for “babies” and “displaced” I found pictures much closer to that reality as it was experienced by Mary and Joseph so long ago than to the welcome and care babies here in our part of the world can expect.
Heart breaking pictures of parents’ little ones lost in the world, in line to be registered, in the arms of one or other parent, riding on their backs, resting at their feet, asleep in a cardboard box, exhausted by the side of a train track, hollow eyed and dirty.
It doesn’t take much for God to materialise. What Christmas tells us is that God could materialise in a baby with no more than a card board box to sleep in, in a refugee camp, somewhere in Syria, because there is no where else for it to go.
What the Christmas story tells us is that all God needs is someone, anyone, who will be bread, who will be wine, who will be truth, who will be a shepherd, who will be peace, and bring healing and stand for wholeness. One person to carry the light. And, as Jesus, the person whose birth we celebrate today showed us, that one person is enough to change the world.
One baby is enough. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just flesh and bones like you and me, nothing shiny, no deep philosophy, just love incarnating on the ground is all that is needed, in the darkness, on the fringes.
It could be me, or you, or the person next door. It can be the little girl that was born two weeks ago here in Melbourne and it can be one of the many refugee children that are desperately looking for shelter and food, traumatised, exhausted and dirty.
God, says Christmas, doesn’t need much to materialise, to become present, to make a difference, to find opportunities to bring love and compassion to life. A baby will do, a couple of shepherds, a young girl and her fiancee, some star gazers, an elderly couple, a priest, a housewife. Anybody that is prepared to look and see, is prepared to open themselves up and accept this amazing reality: That God coming to birth doesn’t need any special effects or show of power. On the contrary, that a bit of bread, a sip of wine, a smile, a bit of care, and love is enough for God to come and spend time with us. To spread a table and invite whoever’s heard the whispers of angel song in to share and take part. To embody that vulnerable love, that fragile sign of hope, live the life that was lived by Jesus Christ so he will continue to be born, time and again, continue to rise, continue to nurture and inspire, continue in humans like him, vulnerable, ordinary, day to day, nothing special, but exceedingly precious in God’s eyes.
Jesus wasn’t born once, he was born many a time over, and he continues to be born, becomes present in our midst, wherever in vulnerability and weakness God’s light begins to shine in the darkness and hope breaks through despair, and acts of peace start wiggling their way into places where destruction reigns. Wherever a smile breaks through the grimy face of someone who has lost everything, and the first cries of a baby are greeted with awe, and thanksgiving. Whether in a stable in Syria or in a five star maternity ward here in Melbourne where people remember that this is how God seeks to be present with us, how God seeks to come to birth and start something new, is where the future begins…. Amen.
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