The God who Comes Near: A Christmas Message
A Christmas message from reflection on the words of John 1 and what God has been showing me this Advent.
One of my favourite sayings when I was younger was “not my circus, not my monkeys.” It saved me from many a stupid moment when I am prone to get over-invested, believing that somehow I can bring some clarity and help to a situation (when inevitably I’d bring more heat than light).
This Advent, I was struck by the God who is the opposite. The God who looks at his creation, his cosmos, and even his own people, in all of their waywardness, hatefulness and selfishness, and says, effectively “I will embrace this circus, they will become my monkeys.” He didn’t have to, but He has.
We are so used to the Christmas message, we often forget how striking this is. The holy God comes near to a bursting-with-sin creation. The pure and spotless God entering a filthy and wretched world. A loving God tenderly embracing a shame-filled and distorted humanity.
It’s not how we naturally deal with things. When someone is sick with flu or Covid, we don’t want to get what they’ve got so we stay away. When someone says something unpopular, they can get disinvited from events, starring in a movie or speaking at graduation. When something is broken, we too often throw it out rather than take the time to see what we can do.
Our human response to things that step outside of the boundary of what we consider ‘okay,’ at very least, is to keep our distance. Move on.
Yet this is not new. In all honesty, it’s the thin end of a much thicker edge.
About ten minutes from where I work is a road named Broad Street [pictured above]. If you look, you can find an unassuming square of cobbled brickwork in the middle of an otherwise tarmacked road. On this brickwork is a cross. On the wall of the college nearest to it is a plaque that explains what that cross remembers: the deaths of Ridley, Cranmer and Latimer. 16th century Reformers who were burned at the stake for believing something different—and daring to speak about it. For challenging the religious establishment. They were rejected and executed by people claiming the name of Christ, for believing something different.
Who would want to lean in, show up, and do something, when the result could even lead to death? The temptation is to look at the chaos—the circus and its monkeys—and simply walk away.
But that is not how God responds. That is not the message of Christmas.
God comes near. Not in power. But in humility.
He moves into the neighbourhood. Even as he is rejected. Even as he is rendered a child refugee. Even as he misunderstood by his parents. Even as he is plotted against by the religious leaders of his day. Even as his own disciples misunderstand him, again and again. Even as the crowds that welcome him into Jerusalem would eventually condemn him to a shameful death on a cross.
"He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him." (John 1:10-11)
Being rejected by the world at large is one thing. Being rejected by the religious establishment is another. But Jesus was rejected by his own. His own people. His friends, his community, his compatriots.
But he came near anyway.
Why would anyone do that? Why would the Son of God draw near?
John 1 says it is to offer an alternative. A way out of the circus of crazy that marks our existence. Where we hurt others and are hurt in return. Where we try to bring about change but lose our sanity in the process.
"But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God." (John 1:12-13)
For those with eyes to see: he offers membership of a heavenly family. A heavenly community. The beginnings of a new creation. Where what is broken is healed. What is transgressed is forgiven. What is divided is reconciled. Where there is no hatred, alienation, dehumanisation or contention.
Not something marked by human willpower and its scars. But new creation and life borne of God.
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The manger this Christmas, invites us to draw near in return. To see the God who has moved into the neighbourhood. Who takes on human flesh. Who shows us a different path to life.
Merry Christmas!
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