Christmas 2007
My Dear People
Christmas is a moment for giving thanks. We give presents to those we cherish. We gather with family and friends, even with those we find a little difficult. We go to considerable trouble to celebrate Christmas well.
And when we gather for the Midnight Mass, and again on the morning of Christmas Day, we are suddenly confronted with the reason for our giving, for all our trouble. “Suddenly”, indeed. Just as it was in Bethlehem, long ago.
“And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. And suddenly, there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying “Glory to God in the highest!”
This is the gift of God our Father. A child. His only Son. Wrapped in the cloths of the grave, as a stark, silent prophesy of the reason for the gift. A sacrificial death for each of those whom he had created “in His own image”. And whom he would create, until the fateful day when creation will be gathered into the Heart from whence it came. The greeting card with this Gift was swaddling cloths. Nothing needed to be written on this card from God.
We measure our gift against the divine gift. And unable to understand, we kneel before the manger, and gaze upon the Child, and watch the angels jostle with the donkeys.
This Christmas, we in the Traditional Anglican Communion pray the ancient prayers with new hope. We have dared to seek unity in a fractured church. We have dared to offer ourselves as instruments of His peace. We have dared to proclaim the mystery of Christ in places that deny Him reality and history.
In January this year, I was celebrating the glories of our Anglican liturgy in the freezing air of Canada. Soon after, I was in Northern Ireland celebrating the wonder of His coming in the stark beauty of the chapel of an ancient stately home. And then in Central Africa, in schoolrooms and chapels of mud, and new brick churches raised with dogged faith and perseverance. And in the marbled splendour of a borrowed catholic church in South Africa, when we buried dear Bishop Rhodes. And in the great restorations of Portsmouth and Lincoln, with vestments of gold and silver, and in the famous shrine at Rosemont, a byword for faithfulness, and in Texas and in British Colombia (where some of our first faithful people began to gather), and in the stillness of my own altar here in Adelaide. In each place God came down from Heaven, and He dwelt in our midst, and in the silent stillness we learned again the extent of His love.
Christmas is the festival of love. The festival of the God who gives. May each of you, and your congregations and your families, find in this Christmas a moment of peace and joy.
