A noisy nativity
‘You’re on mute!’ ‘You’re on mute!’ How many times a day have those words been shouted at a screens of various shapes and sizes since Zoom and Teams became part of our lives at the beginning of the pandemic?
Christmas is a time to make some noise, not least as we sing our favourite carols together. Sadly, the lyrics of some of the most popular carols don’t always help us to understand what we’re celebrating on this great feast. Take, for example, verse two of Away in a Manger: ‘But little Lord Jesus no crying he makes’. Well, I’m sorry anonymous author of those well-loved words, no disrespect, but that’s just wrong – it’s nonsense. And worse still, it’s unhelpful nonsense.
For the whole point about Christmas, God becoming human, is that this little Lord Jesus is not God on mute. This child of Bethlehem is wrinkled, smelly, peeing, crying, sometimes screaming with tears rolling down his cheeks. This child is fully God and fully human, loud and clear. Why? For no other reason than this – Love. The Word is made flesh in weakness and vulnerability as a gift to us because we are passionately and unceasingly desired by a God whose nature is love, and who can do none other but to love.
And yet the truth that this God of love ‘ loves us ‘ is often so hard for us to hear that we’re tempted to turn off the speakers, muting God so that we can create a different deity to worship: a distant one who is, for much of the time, displeased with us or disapproving of us; a God who, when he does show his love for us, attaches conditions to that love; a God who tells us you’re not good enough; try harder; you’re an embarrassment; pull yourself together.
If, like me, you’re sometimes tempted into committing idolatry by turning the God we see in Jesus into a God created by projecting onto heaven a distorted image of ourselves, then let me invite you to join the shepherds described in the reading we’ve just heard, to join them in travelling to Bethlehem, to discover the true identity not only of the God of Christmas, but also of yourself.
That’s a journey we need to make as individuals, and it’s also a journey we need to make as a church. For we know to our shame that the Church has had its finger hovering over the mute button throughout its history, and at different times and for different reasons, has used it to silence those it would prefer not to hear from, whether because of their gender, ethnic origin, colour, social status, disability, sexuality or whatever.
In the stable at Bethlehem there is noise, not silence. A normal, noisy nativity, in which God’s generous love is revealed in all its fullness and to all, as he shares his life with us as an infant. But the mystery of the incarnation doesn’t stop with a crying baby. For the outrageous good news of Christmas is that God becomes human in order to change us, that we might become divine. As Jesus says in St John’s Gospel: ‘I have come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly’; and that life, that abundant life, is the life that beats in heart of God.
The link between God’s identity and our own is a crucial one to get right, and such an easy one to get wrong. For if we have a mean and grudging view of God, that can very easily lead to us having a mean and grudging view of ourselves, which then projects itself back onto God, creating a vicious and ever-decreasing circle, with God and ourselves become smaller and smaller, and less and less significant, until it’s barely possible to believe in the worth of our own existence or God’s.
But, of course, God transcends human thought and language, and explodes their categories. They cannot contain him, and our attempts to do so will always ultimately fail. The truth of the incarnation is that this uncontainable, radical, life-giving God of generous abundance has become one of us, one with us, in every aspect and circumstance of our lives, so that nothing can fall outside his unconditional embrace.
And we, whom God dares to call his children, and to whom he longs to give more than we can ever desire, are invited to allow his love to transform us so that we can acknowledge the true identity of ourselves and every human being as his beloved ones, which is the first step on the road to becoming the people and the church he has created us to be.
On this wonderful Christmas morning, as we celebrate the birth of the Christ who is God with us, let us resolve not to mute the newborn infant. Rather, in Bethlehem’s manger let us hear him cry, and know that when we are tempted to mute ourselves or others, his Spirit longs to articulate our and their deepest emotions and longings, crying tears of laughter and pain with us and for us. And if we can take the risk of believing that this un-mutable God is love, may his limitless love enlarge our vision of ourselves, of others, of our church, and of our God. For since in the crib and on the cross this God has shared our life on earth, the greatest joy and gift of Christmas is that our God-given destiny is to share his life in glory.