As the end of a pregnancy draws near, there is usually a sense of impatience and uncertainty. When will labour begin? For the first-time mother, there is always the question ‘How will I know when I’m in labour?’, to which Mums tend to say, ‘Oh, you’ll know!’’ which, whilst true, is not particularly helpful to the pregnant mum-to-be! Plans have to be tentative; everything is hedged about with the notion ‘depending on the baby’! Some babies decide to make their arrival early, when parents are still not prepared; others don’t seem in any hurry and the due date passes with no action, leaving mum-to-be waddling around feeling more and more unattractive.

I can imagine Mary and Joseph setting out for this requisite journey to Bethlehem with a lot of apprehension and uncertainty. What if Mary went into labour en route?! Why on earth did the Romans have to issue their edict at this particular time? It would have been so much easier to stay at home! There were no online censuses then, alas!

Uncertainty is a particularly unnerving emotion. It leaves us feeling churned up, insecure, fearful and anxious. Yet, as Dan Millman comments, ‘faith means living with uncertainty.’  We are called to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:7), which means we’re never going to be entirely free from uncertainty.

What God does offer us, however, is another paradox: secure uncertainty. We may not know what to do or what is going to happen, but we do know He is with us (Heb 13:5). When we don’t know what to do, we can fix our eyes on Him (2 Chron 20:12, Heb 3:1, Heb 12:1-2). God doesn’t always answer all our questions, but He does promise to be at our side as we walk down the paths that seem narrow, twisted and dark, shedding enough light to walk by. That gives us confidence to keep going.

I am fascinated by paradox in the Christian life, how seemingly contradictory facts can actually be true and how reason isn’t the sole arbiter of truth. Jesus told us that the first will be last (Matt 19:30) and that in order to gain life we have to be prepared to lose it (Matt 16:25). Naturally speaking, that doesn’t make sense, but the more we dive into God’s life, the more we find we serve a God whose ways are far above our ways (Is 55:9) and whose foolishness is wiser than our wisdom (1 Cor 1:18-25).

Christmas is another paradox. It doesn’t make sense that Almighty God would condescend to come as a helpless baby. It doesn’t make sense that the King of all the universe would choose a stable for His birthplace. It doesn’t make sense that salvation comes through surrender and apparent defeat. Our logic, our intellect and our way of doing things just don’t fit into the Christmas story, or indeed into God’s way of doing things. We have to believe in order to understand; we have to humble ourselves before we can be lifted up.

It doesn’t make sense that moments of passion can result in a unique individual nine months later. Parents generally have that sense of awe at the birth of a child: ‘how can this be?’ We may not understand it all, but we can bow in awe and reverence, and if anything, the Christmas story teaches us about how to respond to the things we don’t understand about God. Be like the shepherds and the wise men. Bow down and worship.

If we truly believe in the sanctity of human life, then we have a moral duty to care for the disabled and helpless in our society. Henri Nouwen was a professor at universities who then left his academic life to live in a community of disabled people (L’Arche) where mentally handicapped persons and their assistants attempt to live together according to the gospel. Such organisations are testimony of how the love of Christ can be worked out in the difficult, messy business of life.

People who look at seemingly broken bodies in wheelchairs might, without thinking deeply about the matter, feel they would be “better off dead”, a view that is behind many of the arguments in favour of euthanasia or abortion. It is this response of sympathetic despair that L’Arche seeks to combat – by showing that however damaged a person’s mind or body may be, there is always the possibility of relationship with him or her: a relationship that in an extraordinary and inexplicable way, will change the “normal” person and bring them to a deeper understanding of what life is really about.[1]

Such views are challenging, time-consuming and extremely difficult to sustain, but there are many people who can testify that disability, helplessness and vulnerability do not have to mean uselessness and irrelevance. The parents I know who have children with Down’s Syndrome or Rett Syndrome affirm that their children teach them so much about unconditional love, joy and wellbeing. We are called to care for the helpless and vulnerable and to love with all our hearts, for in loving others, we demonstrate our love for Christ. (1 Jn 3:16-18)

[1] http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2014/05/05/the-witness-of-communities-like-larche-is-a-profound-and-necessary-one-for-our-world-today/

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: