At Christmas time we love to let our minds journey back to that first Christmas.  Gentle Jesus,  cocooned in a bed of straw in a cattle feeding trough.  Mary and Joseph, apparently untarnished by the arduous journey and the rigours of childbirth are gazing on with a Colgate ring of confidence over their head.  Shepherds and Wise Men have already made it to the bedside and join the lowing cattle worshipping this wonderful baby.  The deodorised Detox-clean stable is shrouded in a hazy glow as all gaze at this new bundle.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not mocking.   But each Christmas I see it as my job to get behind the gooey sentimentality to ask the question:  If I had been sent on assignment by the Residents' Association on that first Christmas day, what would I have seen?   

The Christmas Carols unwrap the story.

The heavenly babe you there shall find
To human view displayed,
All meanly wrapped in swathing bands,
And in a manger

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail the incarnate Deity!

Theologians talk about the birth of Jesus as the 'incarnation'.  This has nothing to do with condensed milk!  Rather, it comes from two Latin words meaning 'in fleshing'.

The wonder of Bethlehem was not just a human baby, but the eternal God taking on human flesh.   God's eternal plans, wrapped up in the life and death of Jesus

Mary's little baby is GOD!

What a message was embodied in Mary's child!  The birth of Jesus would not have made Front Page news then, but his subsequent life and death did and still does.

The Names of Jesus tell the story fully:-

'Emmanuel' means God with us.

'Jesus' means Saviour - God for us.  He was a man on a mission destined to die for the sins of the world on the cross.
'Christ' means King -  God over us.  Earthly king's travelled from afar to bow before Him.  And Herod recognised a rival throne (although not of an earthly kingdom).

Jesus is God's Christmas presence.  A God who deigned to come among His people, to die for them despite their rebellion against Him, and now calls for us to bow before Him and acknowledge Him as King.  This is the Church's Christmas message.  If He is with, for us and over us, then singing this Carol can be sung with new meaning:-

Thou who art love beyond all telling, Saviour and King, we worship thee.
Emmanuel, within us dwelling, Make us what thou wouldst have us be.
Thou who art love, beyond all telling, Saviour and King, we worship Thee.

Now that's Good News, for a change!

We'd love to have you join us and celebrate God's Christmas Presence at St Luke's!

      Simon Vibert, Vicar, St Luke's Wimbledon Park