Christmas Day 2022 St Andrew’s Milngavie
Dear All
Today we gathered to celebrate Christmas Day!
It was lovely to welcome so many visitors to the church.
Please note there will be no service of Said Eucharist on Thursday 29th December or Prayer Group on Tuesday 27th December
Readings for next Sunday – 1st Sunday after Christmas – Isaiah 63:7-9 Hebrews 2:10-end Matt 2:13-end
Today’s Reading – Isaiah 9:2-7 Titus 2:11-14 Luke 2:1-20
There has been a great deal of discussion in our house this year over whether Fraser our permanent residential Christmas tree was deemed healthy enough to be brought in to the house for his annual adorning of lights and baubles.
For poor Fraser, named as such because he is a Fraser Fir, despite regular repotting is now looking decidedly forlorn, his lower branches becoming very thin and bare.
Would he withstand the transfer from the garden to the house? Would he look ridiculous lit up displaying his bare branches? In the end we decided none of this mattered, we would bring him in, decorate him and enjoy him as he is….. which is what happened, and he looks great!
For many people today will come as a relief as Christmas Day heralds the end of Christmas preparations – time to enjoy finally the fruits of our labours and relax over the next few days.
Throughout Advent preparation has been a major theme as we have concentrated on spiritual preparation for our yearly celebration of the birth of Christ. In our collects for Advent our prayers focus on being ready to greet our Lord when he comes again to us.
However, levels of preparation and a sense of readiness can vary. In certain situations, we prefer to wait till we are totally ready, fully prepared, all the pros and cons weighed up, all the boxes ticked. The reality is, it’s mostly impossible to gauge exactly the right time for anything. The right time to move jobs, to leave home, to get married, have a first child, move to a new house, finish a relationship, retire. All our lives we make informed and what we hope are responsible decisions. But ultimately, we must take a leap in faith – for better or for worse.
The truth is God came to the world just as it was. He did not wait for it to be good enough or clean enough or holy enough. In the nativity story God shone his glory into the ordinariness of a day’s work. The equivalent of a host of angels bursting into the office or kitchen or garden.
Imagine how we would feel – fear? horror? excitement?
It must have been the same for the shepherds “There is no need to be afraid” sang the angels “this is good news – the messiah is here”
We do not know how long those shepherds stood rubbing their eyes and staring into the sky after the angels had let them. They must have been grateful for each other. If the experience had happened to only one of them, he might have considered it no more than a dream and done nothing about it. As it was, they left their sheep and rushed to find the stable where the newborn baby was watched over by his young mother.
We have heard this story so often that we can forget its enormous impact. We may wonder what was in the hearts and minds of the shepherds when they found everything was just as the angels had said? Perhaps a slow dawning that something life changing and world changing had really happened! Even if they didn’t fully understand what it was.
As they stood in that stable wearing their smelly work clothes, faces shining from sweat from the exertion of getting there.
They met with God!
They told Mary about the angels and perhaps she needed that reassurance. She had just given birth for the first time away from home and her family in a dirty stable. Perhaps she wondered where God was in it all and feared things were not going the right way? The visit from the shepherds and their message from the angels would have assured and comforted her at such an extraordinary time.
Perhaps we don’t always feel ready to meet God. Perhaps like Fraser we feel withered and worn and not looking our best. But the message of Christmas is that God out of his great kindness and love is always ready to meet us and just as we are! He is much more interested in the openness of our hearts than the state of our lives.
So, let us invite him into our lives today and into the weariness of our world with all its challenges and joys and let us pray that we too may have the simple faith of the shepherds and the quiet trust of Mary and Joseph.
And may we also know that same capacity for joy and wonder for the Christ child born in the humblest surroundings placed in a manger in a stable surrounded by animals and destined to be the saviour of the world!
Amen