Many of us have few problems seeing Jesus as a good teacher, a great example and a kind man. It’s much harder for us to think about him as a helpless baby, vulnerable and dependent. It’s even harder for us to find ourselves helpless, vulnerable and dependent.

We clothe our humanity not only literally, but metaphorically, equating being human with independence, intelligence and competence. We don’t like to think of helplessness, chivvying our children into being toilet trained and able to feed themselves from a young age. Whilst there is nothing wrong with expecting our children to grow up, we often struggle with the fact of helplessness, especially as we grow older and gradually lose our ability to do even basic things like get dressed or feed ourselves. Such helplessness offends us and scares us.

God is not afraid of vulnerability. He chose to come to earth not as an adult warrior or a superhero. Instead, Jesus came as a baby and learned obedience from what he suffered, just as we have to. (Heb 5:8) He died a criminal’s death on a cross, dying naked and in public view. Whatever else Christmas and Easter teach us, they teach us that ‘God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.’ (1 Cor 1:27-29) Perhaps they also teach us that helplessness and vulnerability are not the worst things that can happen to us. When we are weak, God is strong. (2 Cor 12:9)

No carol service would be complete, it seems, without the children singing ‘Away in a manger’:

The children and Mark (as teacher) were given Christmas presents as well to help them learn more about the meaning of Christmas.

Because we will be only having morning services on 24th & 31st December, we had 3 birthdays to celebrate tonight:

A girl who doesn’t like hats…

And a boy whose birthday is on New Year’s Eve:

One of the activities at our carol service involved ‘pass the cracker’…

When the music stopped, the cracker was pulled, and then people had to come out to read the jokes from the cracker:

Dan’s was the winning joke: ‘Why did the mechanic work underneath the car? So he could get up oily in the morning.’

The many names of Jesus reflect His many different roles. He is both the sacrificial lamb of God and the Good Shepherd who leads us. He is both Son of God, God with us, God in all His fulness (‘I am’ reflects the name of God given to Moses at the burning bush) and Son of Man, fully man. His names reflect His ability to feed us: He is the bread of life, for example:

The many prophecies about Jesus’s birth (Is 7:14, Is 9:6, for example) indicate something of the varied nature of His role, being the prince of peace, wonderful counsellor, a man born of a virgin and so on. The New Testament expands on our understanding of His role as Great High Priest (Heb 4:14) and proclaims Jesus to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the author and finisher of our faith. All of these names help us to see Jesus in different lights and highlight different aspects of His unique identity.

Ultimately, we celebrate Christmas because ‘today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.’ (Luke 2:11) Jesus, whose very name means ‘the Lord is salvation’, came to bridge the gap between humanity and God caused by sin, and by His sacrificial death brought reconciliation (peace) to us. We celebrate with joy and thanksgiving primarily because of who Jesus is and what He has done for us, knowing that ‘at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ (Phil 2:10-11) 

Tonight’s carol service looked at the names of Jesus. Naming a child is often one of the first things would-be parents do, being careful not to choose names whose initials spell out embarrassing words or to avoid names that have unpleasant connotations (naming a bobsleigh in the film ‘Cool Runnings’ had similar problems…!) Mary and Joseph did not have these problems to face, however, since they were told what to name their first-born!

Quite often, when we research our family names, we look at family trees, so we had our very own tree tonight to look at the names of Jesus, which included:

1. Word (John 1:1)
2. Son of God (2 Cor 1:19, Col 1:15)
3. Son of Man (Mark 10:45)
4. Second Adam (Rom 5:12-21)
5. Bread of Life (Jn 6:35)
6. Living Water (John 7:38)
7. Light of the World (John 8:12)
8. True Vine (John 15:1)
9. Gate (John 10:9)
10. Good Shepherd (John 10:11)
11. The Way, The Truth and the Life (John 14:6)
12. Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25
13. I Am (John 8:58)
14. Lamb of God (John 1:29)
15. Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5)
16. King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Revelation 19:16)
17. Alpha & Omega (Revelation 1:8)
18. Faithful & True (Revelation 19:11)
19. Messiah/ Christ (Jn 1:41)
20. Great High Priest (Heb 4:14)
21. Prince of Peace (Is 9:6)
22. Wonderful Counsellor (Is 9:6)
23. Chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20)
24. Saviour (Acts 13:23)
25. Lord (Phil 2:11)
26. Immanuel (Matt 1:23)
27. God’s indescribable gift (2 Cor 9:15)
28. Jesus (Matt 1:21) – Yahweh is salvation

A close-up of the leaves on the tree, made from real leaves!

Sticking the names on the tree: