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This is a time for homecomings and reunions (at least if you’re not dependent on Eurostar, any U.K. airport or the motorway network!). I remember once, spending Christmas in Ireland several years ago, when the Celtic Tiger was feeling particularly pleased with himself. The headlines on all the local news bulletins were simply about the vast numbers of folk “coming home for Christmas”. One radio programme did an interview with the general manager of Kerry International Airport (I think he was the baggage handler, the customs official and the flight dispatcher as well!!). When asked to comment on the Christmas rush, he said something like “sure it’s been fierce busy, we’ve been run off our feet……but then sure, we only have the one flight a day”!
Being able to get home for Christmas is great, but then sometimes living with a long distance relationship is far from funny. Many of you, I am sure, will be familiar with the trials and traumas of knowing that loved ones are far away from home with little hope of any physical contact for many months – or even years. The husband on a tour in Afghanistan; the girlfriend on the other side of the world, saving up the fare for a visit; the son or daughter on a gap year – and you’re not quite sure where…until the money runs out; the extended family in India or the Philippines or Eastern Europe. The wonders of modern communications do make life easier with e-mail, text and skype – but it is still never quite the same. That relationship never really becomes what it needs to be until that long-awaited embrace in the arrivals hall of some international airport. Until that moment, however hard we try, there is still a certain remoteness; there is no escaping the fact that distance separates. Even for the short time I lived abroad, I can remember the excitement and the counting down of the days before flying home for Christmas to see friends and family.
What we celebrate today marks the end of a long-distance relationship and the beginning of a much closer and more intimate one – the relationship of God with his people. God had always loved his people, God had always tried to be close to them, he had employed every means possible to achieve this; not text, e-mail or titter but the Law, the patriarchs and prophets, the inspired Hebrew scriptures, various signs and wonders. God still could not quite get through. There was only one means left; a very personal and physical encounter in time and space (categories God was not so familiar with!). This was an embrace for all of humanity through the arms of a tiny child. From a moment in time and a location in geography – God would no longer remote, no longer distant, and no longer abstract. For a little while, at least, God has a diary and an address!
In a few minutes time we will make our profession of faith, as we do each Sunday, when we say that he, the Word of God, was made incarnate. Literally, to take on flesh, to take our nature, our weakness, our ability to suffer, our vulnerability. A long distance relationship with his people was never going to be good enough for a God who wanted to give a personal invitation to everyone to be part of his Kingdom. We know from our own experience that whether we are talking about a party, an event or a task – we are much more likely to respond to a personal invitation than to some kind of impersonal advertisement. God doesn’t design an advertising campaign for the new life of His Kingdom – he sends us a real person to take us by the hand and lead us there!
This child who was born into the world in a borrowed stable and was buried some thirty three years later in a borrowed cave, spent most of his life in obscurity. But the years that we know about were spent showing us how we can have a part in his life and his Kingdom.
The mass that we celebrate tonight and every Sunday is full of references to the truth that we commemorate tonight. As the priest prepares the wine at the offertory he says this prayer:
“By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”
God is humbled by his closeness to us but God is not humiliated by it. Our human nature now has the potential to be restored to it’s original blessedness.
When a long distance relationship ends and is transformed into something intimate and permanent, we find out the real truth about each other, even if we thought we knew it before.
When the Word becomes flesh and comes into our world and our life in a particular time and place then we are confronted with the truth about God, the truth about ourselves and the truth about creation.
The truth about God is that he loved us so much that he sent his only Son to bring us joy, peace and love. The truth about ourselves is that we now know that our humanity is blessed with that divine spark which enables us to be the people God wants us to be and other people need us to be. And the truth about creation is that God saw that it was good in the beginning and he saw that it was good when he came to visit. He leaves us with the responsibility of looking after it.
If we thought that our relationship with God was distant, remote and safe – we need to think again. A child in a manger is dependent and vulnerable and crying out for love. When we respond to that, we throw away remoteness and safety and take the risk of loving. When the angels have stopped singing, when the “no vacancies” sign has been taken down from the inn, when the shepherds have returned to the hills and we have returned to our normal lives – that is exactly what we have to do.
(Images by courtesy Bethlehem Diorama in Switzerland)