A Christmass Message

Welcome to Christ’s Mass, the celebration of the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem long ago as well as in our hearts now. 

The stories of the infant Jesus are undoubtedly some of the loveliest scenes ever enshrined in the human heart. The most beautiful songs and loveliest art have fashioned them into a cherished part of Christian culture. They are literally ‘gospel’ – ‘glad tidings of great joy,’ as the angel told the shepherds.

But the gospel is not comfort only. It is challenge too. It demands a choice of acceptance or rejection. Indifference, too, is a choice: an alternative form of rejection. So Matthew and Luke, whose stories of the infancy of Jesus are the principal gospels at Christmasstime, are not just telling lovely stories. Though using a form that touches our deepest emotions and arouses the most poignant sentiments, the gospel writers of Christ’s infancy are presenting what Raymond Brown calls ‘the essential gospel story in miniature’. The characters surrounding the Christ child prefigure, one and all, the cast that will be close at hand when the hour of the passion arrives: lowly shepherds, curious Gentiles, nervous authorities of the sacred and the secular worlds, and of course, the virgin Mother who ‘pondered all these things in her heart.’

The power of the Christmass liturgy flows from the Easter mystery. Drawn to the wood of the manger, we are directed towards the wood of the cross. That is why the best hymns at this season also point us to the passion.

May God reach into your heart and mind during this celebration, bringing light and truth to the whole of your life and that the joy of the angels, the eagerness of the shepherds, the perseverance of the wise men, the obedience of Mary and Joseph and the peace of the Christchild be yours this Christmass

Archdeacon Tony White