|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sermon
|
|
WHAT’S IN THE BOX, MUMMY? What they want to know is “What’s in the box, Mummy?” (or Daddy, as the case may be). The content of the package is more important than the wrapping. And that, as you might have guessed, is what this old preacher wants to say about the meaning of Christmas: “what’s in the box?” The church’s answer to that for two thousand years has been “In the box is a gift from God.” The name of that gift is Jesus. Christians believe God has given Jesus to the human race for two reasons: to show forth something very important about godself, and to show forth something very important about humanity. Let me explain. First, Jesus epitomises important things about God; that is, things we can understand. There is a mass of things about God we can never, and will never, understand. What we can understand, though, is things about God that come ‘enfleshed’ as we say in human life: terms we understand. Jesus is a ‘core sample’ of this Mystery we call ‘God’. What is a ‘core sample’? My engagement with the conversation between godtalk and science – or to be more exact, ‘cosmology’ (how the universe works), has fed my interest in the story of our planet. One of the ways we study this is by inserting into the ground a kind of tube, drilling down and taking into the tube a sample of the material surrounding it. Ice cores can be very informative, telling us about earth’s climate over long periods, letting us chart the behaviour of our planet. Christian truth sees Jesus as a kind of living sample, in human terms, of the way God is. That is to say, the kind of things we can see in Jesus and say about him are human expressions of truths about God. What I see in Jesus as a ‘core sample’ of the Mystery are ways of thinking about God that I suggest are very important. For instance, Jesus has a positive view of human potentialIf we are to say that Jesus is somehow a ‘core sample’ of the Divine, these are things we have to take very seriously as characteristics of God.. Second Jesus epitomises important things about humanity. The Bible has many ways of talking about Jesus. One of them is ‘the pioneer’; that is, pioneer of a new way to be human. The old way to be human is self-interested, competitive, aggressive, cruel and ruthless. It is represented all around Jesus by the Roman Empire – which ultimately executes him, of course. Michael Leunig’s AGE cartoon on 12th December was a chilling conversation between Santa and a lad before him. “Have you been a clever dude this year? Have you been hot and fast and awesome and cool?” “Yeah.” “Have you been on the money? Have you been hip and sharp and satirical?” “Yeah.” “Were you first with the inside story? Did you see through everything? Were you a winner?” “Yeah.” “You have truly been a model of good behaviour.” “Yeah.” Curiously, the same day’s paper carried a science report headed “Humans still evolving quickly”. It said the pace of human evolution has been increasing at a stunning rate since our ancestors began spreading through Europe, Asia and Africa. The article was based on our knowledge of genetic changes. It is interesting because it makes one wonder what humans could end up being like – assuming we survive. What our faith says about Jesus is that he epitomises a genus of homo sapiens that is strikingly different: a genus that has shed the need to be self-interested, competitive, aggressive, cruel and ruthless. A kind of giant leap forward, if you like. That’s why he is called ‘pioneer’. And the astonishing claim of Christian faith is that, if one wants badly enough to be like that, it’s possible to be part of this new species or genus; to be like Jesus. Let me conclude with that part of the letter to the Hebrews that calls Jesus a pioneer. It comes at the end of a catalogue of stand-out men and women. It’s the metaphor of a great sporting event like the ancient Olympics. “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and the perfector of our faith.” Let the sacrament nourish that resolve. ___________________________________________________
An
address presented by the Rev Dr John Bodycomb at Christmas Eucharist at
St Aidan's
Uniting Church North Balwyn, on 25th December, 2007 IT MAY BE
REPRODUCED WITH ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. |
|||
Page updated 28/12/07