蜜芽传媒

Good Morning

In this so-called digital age we are often warned of a spoiler alert. You know the 鈥淒on鈥檛 tell me what happened, who won, who was voted off, you鈥檒l spoil it鈥� generation. We are all watching things at different times.

But many of us, from a very early age, are used to stories where we don鈥檛 only know the ending, we can鈥檛 wait to hear it again and again. 鈥淭ell me that story mummy or daddy鈥�. It鈥檚 almost as if the way the story ends is the very reason we want to hear it again. No spoiler alert is necessary.

I suppose that鈥檚 very true of the Christmas story. Its key elements are so familiar and, in a way, straightforward, that it brightens up these dark days and long nights because a baby is born in rather different circumstances, shepherds are roused, gifts are offered, a family under threat escape from a despotic ruler and angels sing.

And wherever the story is heard it seems to speak to people in many different ways. I鈥檝e read this narrative on Christmas Day to a group of homeless people, at a service held in a prison, during carol singing on a hospital ward and even in Bethlehem itself. And each time these familiar events have an almost mystical capacity to reach out and connect with people of all faiths and none.

So why? What ingredients of this much told tale strike chords with so many diverse audiences? The historicity of the story 鈥� rooted in the context of the emerging Roman Empire; the diversity and vulnerability of the central characters; but surely the most obvious reason that the story has created perpetual wonder and even bewilderment in every generation is the realisation that it is through this remarkable combination of events - that God becomes human.

It is always fascinating to me that unlike Matthew and Luke, the later Gospel of John doesn鈥檛 retell the story. No spoiler alerts are necessary for John. Instead he asks the question: why? What does it mean to say that the word became flesh?: that God dwelt among us?

Bernard of Clairvaux believed, as early as the 12th century, that people warmed to this familiar story because God came down to their level: the much celebrated divine majesty is now linked forever with poignant humanity. And even today, many people in all sorts of situations perhaps still warm to the message of Christmas because, above all, this is a story where God shares the challenges we face with us in the most unlikely of ways.

A very happy Christmas to all our listeners.

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