This year we are approaching Christmas in a way that is almost a return to normal. Although the challenges of the pandemic remain, many churches, including the Cathedral, are planning a full programme of services. There will be carolling and joy and, after all the preparations of Advent, the Christ-child will be born anew for us as we encounter him in the first Eucharist of Christmas. To prepare in this way is, in many ways, an act of faith. For none of us knows whether the arrangements we make will need to change, or whether what we plan will be cancelled. We are fragile parts of a fragile ecosystem – contingent – dependent on so many things. Yet each of us has the capacity for growth and for maturity, for hope and for fulfilment of hope. And so we prepare in faith for what God has in store.
There can hardly have been less propitious births than Christ’s. Even his mother’s journey to the place of birth was fraught. But there he lay – there he lies – the exemplar of contingency, dependent on his blessed mother for food, on a stranger for a cot, on God for his humanity. This was the moment of which prophets sang, and for which they longed. This tiny child, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory for God’s people Israel, this tiny child is God incarnate – a true sign of hope.
The Christ-child is a sign of hope because in Christ God says, “it will not always be this way”. Instead God says, “Behold I am doing a new thing! Do you not perceive it?” In Christ all things will conform eventually to their purpose in God because the unchanging God took our changeable humanity and moved us firmly into the stability of the Divine life by submitting himself to the changes and chances of this fleeting world: a mother for food, a stranger for a cot. This Advent and Christmas I invite you to join all the faithful on the journey to the manger – a journey of faith, a journey of hope. A journey in which we encounter the source of our fulfilment and subsequent maturity.
May God bless you and those you love with peace and joy this Christmas and through the coming year. And may your encounter with the Christ-child teach us how dependent we are on each other, and lead us into growth and maturity, into hope and the fulfilment of that hope, as we learn what God has prepared for those who love him.
