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Midnight Service Christmas is a time to celebrate. All around Devonport people are celebrating the love of friends and family, spending time together and exchanging gifts. Most people like to receive gifts. I wonder what makes a good gift, Is it getting what you need or what you want? I once received a gift I needed but didn’t want gift, …… Talk about the time I received from Geoff a set of scales. It was a love gift, it was thoughtful, it was what I needed but my pride stopped me from wanting it. Jesus was and is for many people an unwanted gift. He may be what the world needs but often he is not what the world wants! In tonight’s Gospel we read, “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” In the incarnation, we have been given an incredible gift. Jesus is God’s magnificent gift of love This gift God knew humankind needed even though we did not know how to ask for him , much less how to graciously receive. When we consider the many blessings we enjoy in our lives we realise that God whom we worship, loves to give gifts. We realise that God expresses God’s love for humanity by giving us gifts all the time, including the gift of the very breaths we take. Now the greatest of these gifts is Jesus, the ultimate expression of God’s love for us. “For God so loved the world that he gave…. his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Yet we also see in the story of Jesus, his birth, his ministry, his Gospel, his death and resurrection something of the peculiarity of the gifts that God gives. God gives us, not always what we might think we want, but rather what God knows we need. You see what we want can be spurious and often lacking in long term insight. What we need lasts the distance, increases in value and in the long term even becomes what we want. The gift of the Christ child is a case in point. Christ was and is a challenging and demanding gift and we don’t always want to be challenged nor have demands made upon us, even when we know it is good for us! As we get to know the Christ child through the Biblical narrative, we realise what a demanding gift he is. Here is a counter- cultural gift that challenges our notions of the very purpose of life. His ministry and teachings demonstrate that life is not as we might expect, about self- aggrandizement, nor is it about pursuing personal happiness, nor is it merely about looking after number 1! The essential message of the Gospel of Jesus is that we only find meaning in our lives when we exercise Love: "LOVE for God and love for others according to Jesus is what life is about.” Now the implication of this is that love involves giving to others. Primarily this is how love is expressed, through giving to others. We can do this in a variety of ways : Offering encouraging words, giving thoughtful gifts, doing helpful things, or spending time with them. These are some of the ways we express our love for God and our love for each other, but always it comes down to giving of ourselves, our resources, our time our energy to others. At Christmas we celebrate the gift of the infant Jesus. However, Jesus did not remain a little baby. The story continues. We read in the Gospels that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature. He began to speak and when he spoke and acted he challenged our cherished sentimental notions of love. He pointed out to us that loving and giving are synonymous on every level. Jesus was a gift to be sure, but he proved to be a troubling, demanding, disturbing gift, disrupting and even frightening. The angels said to those who first heard of his birth, “fear not”. He demands a change of focus. He demands we think less of getting for ourselves and more of giving to others. This kind of change can be threatening and frightening. If Jesus is to authentically incarnate our lives, we must expect him to change us also, to disrupt our perspectives on what we are entitled to, what is our due, what we deserve to get in the interest of what others are entitled to, what others deserve to get what we are able to give, for this is what love is about. Love is sacrificial! Love gives! In which areas of your life does Jesus need to challenge you to be more loving? Where do you need a shake- up, to be a little more giving, emotionally, physically, spiritually, in your parenting; with a lifelong partner; in the way you are treating work colleagues, in how much you give to those less fortunate? Where might we as individuals, as a community, as a nation even, need to be self- sacrificial in the interests of love? God so loved the world that he gave… Jesus is good news but also challenging news. If we have any appreciation for the demands embodied in this one whose name is ‘God with us’, then we will greet his coming this Christmas with a mixture of joy and trepidation for his challenge to self-sacrificial giving in the interests of love is exactly what this world needs, but seldom what we want. Closing Prayer: Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Prince of Peace. For the gift we knew not how to ask for, we give you thanks. For the love we knew not how to receive, we give you praise. For the disruption to our lives your Gospel causes, we express our gratitude For your light that shines in our darkness we say Amen. |
