As an early Church leader, Melito of Sardis, writing about 180 years after the birth of Jesus, pondered: So God came to Bethlehem as a helpless child so that the good in us would draw us into his presence. They’re not afraid of a child – of his strength or his superior intelligence, for he has neither. I believe God wills it because, in his infinite loving kindness and understanding of human nature, he knows that the vast majority of people are touched by the helplessness of a newborn infant. And yet it would be wrong to obliterate all the sentimentality. And that can so often detract from the true picture of Christmas - the rough and messy world into which our Lord was born. That picture of the helplessness of the tiny baby in the manger is of course a familiar one – and some would say a sentimental one. ‘O my dear heart, young Jesus sweet, prepare thy cradle in my spirit,Īnd I shall rock thee to my heart, and never more from thee depart.’ So when we peep into the manger and watch Mary cradle the baby Jesus in her arms, we wonder if helplessness is a significant feature of the God who made and sustains the universe. For all the world to see, he was the helpless Christ. “If you are the Son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross!” But he couldn’t come down because he was nailed to the wood. But was it only a feature of his infancy? Remember the accounts of the mocking of Jesus at the end of the Gospels. It wouldn’t be otherwise if he were God-made-man. Joseph was saving the child who, before he was born, was designated the Saviour of us all.Īll right, you may say, but all this helplessness belonged only to Jesus’s infancy. I walked the remains of that Roman road a few years ago, and it struck me then that the safety of the Saviour depended solely on the resourcefulness of a carpenter who’d become a refugee. Turn then to St Matthew’s Gospel and read about Joseph, stealing out under cover of darkness, taking with him Mary and the baby Jesus, making for the road down to Egypt. Yet can that really be so? Can God in any form, at any time, in any set of circumstances ever be helpless? Can he be dependent entirely on human support? The God who created the world lies in the straw of a makeshift cradle utterly dependent on the ministrations of a young woman for food and clothing. Mary wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger. It portrays the Son of God as completely helpless. It’s as if the Romans, as the addressees of that Gospel, couldn’t reckon with a helpless Christ.īut St Luke’s Gospel is different. Jesus never seems to stop except for prayer, and even that is activity-orientated. Before you know where you are, there he is, preaching, calling people to follow him, healing the sick, exorcising demons. Instead Jesus strides straight on to the public stage as the strong and energetic Son of Man. I wonder why it was that when St Mark came to write his Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God (as he calls him in the very first line), there’s no mention whatsoever of that joyful birth. ‘Leave we all this worldly mirth, and follow we this joyful birth.’ O God from everlasting, have mercy upon us. The magi, gifts the shepherds, their wonder the earth, its cave the wilderness, the manger: The angels offer thee a hymn the heavens a star What shall we offer thee, O Christ, who for our sakes hast appeared on earth as man?Įvery creature made by thee offers thee thanks. The service of Vespers in their Christmas Liturgy invites us to bring the gift of ourselves before the humble God: In three days’ time it will be Christmas Day in the Eastern Orthodox Church. And that’s why it’s so appealing to hear it at this time of the year when Christians contemplate the joy and mystery of the Incarnation and the effect of that incarnation on the whole of creation. But like so much of Britten’s music for children, there’s an innocence and joy that is infectious. He composed it though, in far from delightful circumstances – on an arduous sea journey that brought him back from the United States to wartime England in 1942. Those anonymous mediaeval words, sung after the plainsong processional – (Hodie Christus natus est – Today Christ is born) - begin one of Benjamin Britten’s most attractive and delightful works - his Ceremony of Carols. Procession (Hodie Christus natus est) and He’s joined by the Quiristers of Winchester College who begin by singing a Christmas plainsong antiphon in procession. And now it’s time for Sunday Worship, which this morning is a seasonal meditation from Emmanuel Church, Didsbury, led by Canon Stephen Shipley.
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