Meditation: GOD IS WITH US by John de Gruchy

GOD IS WITH US

Matthew 1:18-23

"They shall name him Immanuel, which means 'God is with us.'"

We all know the familiar Christmas stories found in the opening chapters of Matthew and Luke's Gospels.  There we read  about Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and Wisemen, and the rest of the Christmas tableaux.  Mark says nothing about any of this, nor does John.  But in the prologue to John's Gospel we are taken behind the scene into the deep meaning of Christmas.  John speaks about the Word who was with God from the beginning becoming flesh and dwelling among us full of grace and truth.  This puts Christmas into a cosmic context.  But how do we connect the Christmas story with this breathtaking announcement that the creative Word which brought everything into being became one of us?  Matthew makes the connection for us. He tells us that the baby born in Bethlehem is "Emmanuel," "God is with us," not God against us, not remote from, but God with and for us.  

This is a dramatic declaration.  It is not how God is generally understood in the world where power is seldom determined by love or shaped by justice.  It is even more dramatic when it is said of a baby born out of wedlock to a young girl and a carpenter in a stable in a small unimportant Palestinian village that has no pretentions to glory, but is the site of  this audacious claim that is the foundation of all else that flows from Christian faith.  It is also goes far beyond the boundaries of Christianity or religion for it has to do with what it means for us humans to be made in the image of God.

From the beginning of the human story billions of years ago we humans  have tried to understand who we are, as well as understand the mystery of the One in whom we live, move and have our being, the mystery we call God.  These two questions,  who are we and who is the mysterious source of life, have always belonged together.  But they come together in the Christmas story.  For we Christians believe that it is only when we journey with the shepherds and Wisemen to Bethlehem to see what has has come to pass", that we discover that the answer to both our questions at the same time, an answer lying in a manger.   For if this child is God with us, if this is the icon of the invisible God, as St. Paul says, then we who are made in the image of God are meant to be conformed to his image.

The declaration made in Genesis that we are made in the "image of God" was startling when it was first uttered and it remains startling.  It means that if we are to know who God is we must first learn to know ourselves.  For without knowledge of ourselves, knowledge of how we have evolved and what we have become, knowledge of God is not possible.  Yet the more we do this, the more difficult our quest becomes because God's image in us has been so defaced and distorted.  So much so, in fact, that if we think of God as a big one of us, then God becomes a bad father, a God of war, a God who demands human sacrifice, a God who is capricious, a God who gets angry, greedy and vengeful, a God who seems absent not with those who suffer in Syria.  A God who is against us, against the world, against humanity.  Yes, we continually make God according to our broken sinful image.   So we end up worshipping idols and fail to recognise the true image of God in us and others, which is about being with and loving our neighbour, our enemy, and creation itself, and therefore loving God as ourselves.  When we fail to discern and respect the true image of the God in us and others, we turn disliking the other, rejecting the other, hating the other, and we even call on God's name to support us in doing so. The image of God in us is defaced as we deface others.

But into this messy world hungry for good news we hear again the message of Christmas, as startling as the first time it was heard.  A child will be born and he shall be called Emmanuel, God is with and for us.   Instead of us trying to find God, or searching for the ultimate meaning of life elsewhere, the good news is that the true image of God has been born again in a baby in Bethlehem.  There, in the language of St. Paul, is a "second Adam" in whom we are able to see again the true image of God, the "icon of the invisible God" as Paul also refers to him.  He is the human face of the God. This is precisely what Charles Wesley invites us to sing about in his great Christmas carol "Hark! the herald angels sing,"

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;

Hail the incarnate Deity,

Pleased as man with men to dwell,

Jesus, our Immanuel.

The restoration of the image of God in us begins, then, with the birth of a baby in whom God's power is revealed in weakness, and the wisdom of God made manifest in what the world counts foolishness.  Already in the manger the cross is prefigured, overturning all our assumptions about God.  Christmas is about the vulnerability of God, God's identification with us in our fallen humanity.  It is the good news of God's love, joy and peace for the world.  Christmas heralds the beginning of a new creation, the offer of  a fresh start for humankind.  When by faith we truly see the image of God made flesh in Jesus we receive the ability to see God's image in the face of others and discover God's way of redemptive love for the world. That is why we declare that in Christ God reconciles the world to himself.  In the Christ-child we not only discover the God who is with us, we also discover our true humanity in being with God for others.  We are born again.

If we journey in faith and wonder with the shepherds,  the humble men and women of all ages, or follow the star with the wise men and women of every generation, and hasten to see this thing that has come to pass, then it is that we discover that the God who is with and for us is the God who enables us to discover ourselves in being with and for others.  For there in the little town of Bethlehem a miracle occurred that is as amazing as the birth of the first human being.  For the gift of Christmas is a second chance for the world, the offer to us all to receive this gift and start again as children in whom the image of God is reborn.  For if God so loved the world that he became one of us to make us whole again, so ought we to love the world in order that through us God might make others whole. 

John de Gruchy

Volmoed  22 December 2016

Meditation: KEEP THE WINDOW OPEN THIS CHRISTMAS by John de Gruchy

KEEP THE WINDOW OPEN THIS CHRISTMAS

Luke 2:8-14

"Do not be afraid; for see -- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people."

Last Sunday evening Isobel and I watched a recent TV adaptation of Peter Pan and Wendy, the famous book by J.M. Barrie.  Entitled Peter and Wendy, the story is retold through the imagination of a young girl named Lucy who is about to receive hospital treatment for a serious heart condition. Prior to her operation, which nearly ends in her death, Lucy reads Barrie's book to a group of other seriously ill children in hospital.  And then, as she sleeps that night before her operation, she dreams the story.  It is, as one commentator puts it, a "startling fantasy of a brave, imaginative and utterly modern young girl who fears her illness might mean that she, like Peter Pan, may never grow up." 

You probably know the story well from your own childhood, and may have read it to your children -- or grandchildren. It is all about children dreaming of remaining children forever in Neverland. They dream of never having to grow up and take on adult responsibilities, like being parents themselves.  Sadly, the young son of James Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, died young.  He never grew up.  Which is the reason why Barrie wrote the book. But otherwise we all have to grow up, we cannot live forever in Neverland.  We have to leave our childhood behind. 

But every year as Christmas approaches we are all invited to become children again with all children, and hear the angels sing and rediscover the joy of Christmas.  We might have left our childish naiveté behind, but there is the need to discover the importance of a second naiveté, not being childish but becoming childlike again.  This means recovering the ability to imagine and working for  a different world. A world of faith in a time of cynicism, a world of hope in a time of fear, and a world of love in a time of hate.  Yes, especially at this moment as the people of Aleppo suffer so terribly, and  where the dreams of children have become nightmares, we have to celebrate Christmas and dream with them for a world of peace on earth.  To celebrate Christmas means, in fact, that we refuse to surrender to the Herods of this world who make war, sow hatred, and cause children to suffer.  We dare not be like Scrooge in Dickens' Christmas Carol, who pooh-poohed all this celebration Christmas as romantic nonsense. "If I could work my will," he shouted to the Ghost of Bob Marley, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart."  No, we turn our backs on both Herod and Scrooge and go with the Shepherds to Bethlehem to celebrate the joy of the birth of Christ.  

But even without Scrooge to make us all miserable, it is sometimes very difficult to be merry at Christmas if you have lost a loved one during the year, or suffered serious illness, or you are lying in bed with pain, or separated by distance from your family, or living in poverty and surrounded by violence.  But, then, being joyful is something deeper than being merry. We can still have a joyful Christmas even if it is full of sadness, or even anger at those who are responsible for war and violence. Mary's joy at the birth of Jesus was qualified by her premonition that he would one day suffer, and that she would have to bear that pain with him.  Mary's joy remained even when she and Joseph fled as refugees into Egypt.  Being joyful at Christmas with Mary, Joseph and the Shepherds is celebrating the birth of new possibilities, new hope for the world, and affirming the power of love as that will finally conquer all.  For this is what the message of Christmas is about, and why we should not be afraid but be joyful.

There was a line in Peter and Wendy that struck me as I was thinking about how we can celebrate Christmas joyfully: "parents remember to keep the window open!"  That is, keep them open so that your children can fly out into their dream world, yet always find their way home when reality strikes and the time of dreaming comes to an end.  But we also need to keep our windows open so that the Spirit of Christ can enter our homes and lives to drive out the demons of despair and fear, cynicism and hatred, and fill us with the joy of Christmas. 

But this also this means allowing Christ  to bring with him through the window all those he wants to bring to the party to share our joy.   We might not be able to do much for all those Syrian children whose faces are etched with hunger and pain, but let us at least make Christmas joyful for all those children within our reach so they may experience the love of God which came to earth on Christmas day. And, then, what about those who have been shut out of our lives during the year?  What about those whom we have wronged, or who have in some way wronged us, people from whom we have become estranged?  Is Christmas not the time to open our windows so that they may return with Christ into our lives through forgiveness and acceptance?  Christmas becomes joyful when we embrace them with the love of Christ, for that is why Christ was born in the first place -- to reconcile us to God and one another.  

Yet the circle of embrace extends further, in fact the window needs to be opened as wide as possible so that Christ can bring others into our midst as well.  Those we too often forget, those for whom Christmas means being lonely, those in hospital, those too poor to make Christmas special for their children, those who live in fear, those who are victims of injustice and violence, those who are calling for a "black Christmas" because there is still far too much corruption and racism in our land. 

Imagine if we all became like children again this Christmas!  Imagine if we dreamed dreams of a better world and committed ourselves to making it so.  Imagine if we opened wide our windows to allow Christ to come and join our celebrations and bring with him those he wants us to meet and embrace.  There is no reason why we can't have both a merry and a joyful Christmas, but if it is only merry and not joyful then we have forgotten what it is all about.  Christ brings joy to the world and invites us to share that joy with him and therefore with all for whom he came to seek and save.

"Do not be afraid; for see -- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people."

John de Gruchy

Volmoed 15 December 2016

Meditation: PREPARE THE WAY by John de Gruchy

PREPARE THE WAY

Matthew 3:1-12

"Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."

John the Baptist was not the kind of person we would normally invite to dinner.  He would have made us, and all our guests, rather uncomfortable. Imagine him arriving straight out of the desert, not dressed for polite company, and wanting in small talk.  Imagine his opening words to us and our guests "Repent!"  I am not sure how our dinner party would survive let alone proceed.  He is called a saint, but I doubt many people pray to St. John the Baptist as they might to St. Mary or St. Christopher.   He was more like one of those African prophets we often see preaching to their flocks gathered under trees, or on unoccupied plots of land, as we drive past on the way to our well-maintained and comfortable churches on a Sunday.  Not quite our scene.  But at least once a year John the Baptist breaks into our lives on the first Sunday in Advent with his message of repentance sounding, I would imagine, a little gruff like Leonard Cohen whose song "The Future" has the refrain "Repent, Repent."  Rather terrifying we might say.  "Prepare for the wrath to come!"

Yet people flocked to hear John preach.  Why?  The atmosphere was tense in those days.  There was talk of insurrection in the air.  A revolt against both the Roman authorities and the Temple establishment seemed imminent.  There were rumours of messiahs waiting for their opportunity to lead the common people and triumphantly enter Jerusalem to establish God's kingdom of justice, by force if necessary.  Then suddenly, almost out of nowhere it seemed, John appears on the scene.  No prophet had been heard in Israel for generations.  But there was a longstanding conviction that someone like Elijah would one day appear to prepare the way for the promised Messiah who would set the people free.  Was this strange man dressed in camel's hair, eating locusts and wild honey, Elijah?  So the people hurried to the river Jordan to hear him preach, to repent of their sins, and be baptised, so that they were ready for the Messiah.

Even many of the religious establishment arrived to check him out, coming, as Matthew recounts, to be baptised as well.  But that did not fool John the Baptist.  He could read their minds, he could see into their hearts.  They were playing games.  They were hedging their bets.  "What if this strange prophet is Elijah?  We had better go along with the crowd just in case!"   But they were not prepared for what John the Baptist said: "You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Repent!"  If you want to be ready for the Messiah you, of all people, will have to undergo a fundamental change of heart and mind. Simply obeying the rules of religion as you design and interpret them is not good enough.

Repentance means conversion, it requires a fundamental re-orientation of our lives which "bears fruit worthy of repentance", as John himself puts it.  It is a rebirth which gives us a new heart, and a new pair of eyes with which to see God's kingdom and become part of the Jesus movement. 

John the Baptist confronts us at the beginning of Advent with his stern message of repentance in order to prepare us again for the coming of Jesus; preparing us as he  sought to prepare the people back then to recognise Jesus and follow him.  That remains as true today as it was then. Not just to prepare us to celebrate Christmas, but to enable us to respond to Christ at this moment in history when the world is in crisis, looking for messiahs who can save us from disaster.  But the world will never understand who Christ is, neither will we,  unless we change direction.   To recognise the Christ as the messiah come to set us free from false hopes based on fear, prejudice, hatred and violence, requires repentance, a reorientation of life, an ongoing conversion.  That is why John's message remains pertinent.  We cannot follow Christ in the world today without conversion to his way in the world. 

It is important to remember that in calling the people to repentance and baptising them, John does not call them to follow him, but to follow the One who is the way.  His role was to prepare the way of the Lord, not stand in the way, but standing back in the shadows when the time came.  Jesus would become the way, not John.  And as such John also becomes for us the model of what it means to be a witness to Jesus as the way.  The task of the church is to prepare the way for others to see who Jesus truly is, and therefore what it means to "enter God's kingdom."  Sadly, too often, we do not prepare the way, we stand in the way!  How many people you and I know don't go to church any longer because somehow the church has become a stumbling block to real faith,  getting in the way of those who are genuinely seeking to find Jesus, genuinely wanting to be part of his kingdom. 

This not only apply to the church, but to our lives more generally.  This week we said our sad yet joyful farewells to John Robertson at the venerable age of 98.  I don't have the power to officially declare anyone a saint, but if I had, I would here and now declare John the patron saint of Volmoed.  St. John of Volmoed!  John was a great teacher because he knew that his role was to prepare the way for others to become the best possible learners they could and then stand back and let them get on with it.  That is why he was also a great witness to Christ.  He prepared the way for others to follow Jesus; he did not get in their way.  That is why he was also a good parent,  He prepared the way for his children, but then stood back and let them get on with living their own lives.  They know when it is time to stand aside and let others take their place.  Not stand in the way.  And all great politicians should know this.  The time comes when they have done their job, they have made it possible for others to go forward, not stand in the way.  John the Baptist was the greatest witness to Christ, as Jesus himself acknowledged,  because he did not point to himself but away from himself.  "He must increase, I must decrease."  That is what Christian witness is about. 

John de Gruchy

Volmoed 1 December 2016