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Christ we know means the Messiah or Anointed one – the title given to Jesus and Mass means a religious festival.

So the festival of Christmas has been around for a very long time.

But much of what we say and do at Christmas time is based not so much on what is written in the Bible but on the little cultural traditions that have developed around the season of Christmas over the  years e.g. Father Christmas; the little drummer boy; the giving of presents; Christmas cards and so forth.

There are probably more children believe in Father Christmas than in Jesus.

Also there is a growing tendency in society for Christmas to be celebrated as a non-religious holiday. Christmas day has become a day for socialising with family; eating lovely food and watching TV.

Now it’s all good to spend time with family, to have a holiday and to relax over a good meal, but let’s not forget that Christmas means a whole lot more than that to Christ followers.

Today I would like

to take some time to remember the real meaning of Christmas and

to explore what Christmas can teach us about what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

The story of the nativity is found in two of the four Gospels:

Matthew and Luke.

Like many stories in the Bible, the nativity story can be understood on a number of levels:

-         It is a story about an event in history that took place 2,ooo years ago.

-         It is a story that fulfilled prophecies like the one we read from Isaiah this morning and so proved that those prophecies were true messages from God.

-         It is a story which can be understood in a symbolic way and one which has moral and teaching truths which we can apply to our lives here today.

-         It is a story which gives us a glimpse of God at work in the world.

Let’s be clear though, in trying to understand a Bible story in a symbolic way does not detract from its historical truth. Rather it builds and expands that event, inspiring it with added significance for all of us sitting here today.

So  what I’d like to do now is to look deeper into the historical story of Jesus’ birth as we find it told in the bible and apply the spiritual sense of the Christmas story to our lives, so that

as Christ came physically into the world 2,000 years ago

we might understand that he is able to come spiritually to each of us here today.

I’d like to look for elements of the story that can speak into our lives. To do that I will foreground four characters in the story.

Mary, Joseph, an angel and one shepherd.  

We find these three characters in the Biblical text gathered around the Christ Child. At the moment of his birth He has become the centre of their world.

Thinking about it, we too have gathered around the Christ child this morning to welcome him into our lives, at this moment he is the centre of our world.

In fact the Scriptures teach us that he is the universe.

We read in Colossians 1: 16 “By Him and for Him all things were created.”

So let’s consider each character in turn.

The shepherd is first.

I’m sure that you well remember that in the narrative, the shepherds sat in the darkness, faithfully doing what they were trained to do which was to mind the sheep. Suddenly the darkness and the silence were shattered with the glorious news of the birth of Christ.

In some sense we are like those shepherds.

We tend lead our simple lives and do the work we and society expect us to do. Then every so often something happens and it is as though God breaks into our worlds, interrupts our lives, with a shattering revelation which changes our thinking or changes our circumstances in a most profound way.

Take a few moments to reflect back on this year and I am sure given enough time you will be able to think of at least one such moment when God interrupted what you were doing with a revelation about yourself and or your life. When he showed you a new direction you needed to make. When he destroyed an erroneous assumption you’d been acting on or when something happened that made things that had been puzzling you suddenly fall into place and become clear to you.

Maybe like the shepherds you found the interruption frightening or disturbing?

That’s often the way with God.

Jesus came both to comfort and to disturb and while we tend to remember the comforting nature of his coming, let’s not forget that God also frequently disturbs and churns up the stagnant waters of our lives in order to refresh them.

So as the shepherds ran to Bethlehem on hearing the angel’s news, and fell on their knees before the Christ child, may we too fall on our knees before the Christ child today and surrender our lives to God’ s comfort and to all his interruptions, no matter what form they might take, knowing that all he does in and through our lives is for good.

Now let’s consider Joseph.

Joseph says very little in the Gospel stories. He is so ordinary.  On the surface he seems rather unimportant to the story of God’s wonderful plan of salvation. In that sense he is someone most of us can probably relate to.

All this talk about how we are all called to work in partnership with God to change the world seems rather irrelevant to my ordinary boring and mundane little life until I engage with Joseph for I see how God uses an ordinary carpenter to raise the moral and spiritual saviour of world.

Like the shepherds, God invaded Joseph’s life and he was faced with a choice.

When he found out that Mary was with child, he could have played it safe, quietly divorced Mary and got on with his quiet little life or he could bravely step out, go the extra mile and respond to the new state of affairs with generosity and courage. He did the latter and this was a scary option, so God gave him a reassuring message just as he had told the shepherds not to be frightened.

No matter how ordinary and insignificant you and I may feel, God wants to and will use us to make a difference in the world if only we choose to let him.

No matter who we are, he will use us in wonderful ways to make a difference in this world.

Now what about angel?

The angel appeared to Joseph and to Mary and to the shepherds.

On each occasion the message of the angel was prefaced with the words “fear not”. The angel brought God’s reassurance that all was well and God’s message of love.

We too are called to be angels in people’s lives.

We are called to reassure those who are frightened, those who are struggling, those who find themselves in dark circumstances that God who loves them and is all powerful, is with them and in control.

We are all called to bring the good news to people about the coming of Christ and so that is why we call ourselves evangelicals. Evangelism is bringing the good news of God’s breaking into human history and people’s lives, just as the angels did.

God has kept his promise and sent the Christ Child Jesus to save the world now God wants to use you and me just as he used the angels to bring his good news into people’s lives.

Finally let’s look at Mary.

So far we have explored three characters in the story and now let’s look at Mary who was the mother of Jesus. What might she teach us?

She was filled with the Holy Spirit and gave birth to the Christ child. She nurtured his growth and she loved him and faithfully followed him right to the cross and we meet her in the book of Acts, gathered with the early church even after Jesus had died and risen from the dead.

We too are asked to be open to the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

We too are called to allow Jesus to be born again in the stable of our hearts.

We too are called to love him and to faithfully follow him right to the cross and beyond and

we too are called to gather with his followers as his church.

Mary can teach us much about loving Jesus and following him faithfully and about gathering with other believers in communities of faith.

So this then is my reflections on Biblical account of Christmas

and this is some of what the characters in that story can teach us about what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

May you find it in your hearts as we gather around the presence of our saviour at the Eucharist table this morning to open your lives and hearts to him and allow him to be born in you anew this Christmas.