Encounters With Jesus
Sermon
In 2000, I visited the Holy Land. It was a memorable visit, despite the fact that every holy site in the entire country was so packed with pilgrims that it was almost impossible to proceed, and ragged traders selling cheap pilgrimage mementoes were on every street corner. Nonetheless I was so moved by the experience of the Holy Land that I decided to lead a pilgrimage from our churches here in South Norfolk in 2001.
But by the end of the Millennium year, violence had again broken out between Israel and Palestine. I sought advice from our travel company, and they assured me that their representative in Jerusalem said the country was safe for tourists. Almost every pilgrimage group booked for 2001 had cancelled, but we decided to go ahead, notwithstanding the anxiety of families and friends.
We had a wonderful time in a country that felt almost empty, it was so devoid of pilgrims. The knock-on effect of the disappearance of tourists was that there were almost no street traders or beggars. So I don't know how on earth people like that, people on the margins, managed to survive without the income from tourists.
Bethlehem, being a Palestinian stronghold, had been virtually closed to the outside world since October 2000. But we were even able to get into Bethlehem to visit the Church of the Nativity. The division of this 4th century church into three parts, served by the Franciscans, the Armenians and the Greek Orthodox seemed like a working parable of the situation in the Holy Land, wracked by division. Yet the three separate organisations seem to coexist peaceably together within the Church of the Nativity, so it also seemed as though perhaps there was a seed of hope there for the future.
But things have gone from bad to worse in the Holy Land, and it seems that Christmas 2002 was cancelled in Bethlehem. 60% of the population of Bethlehem depend on the tourist trade, and storage rooms inside the Church of the Nativity are now filled with charity food parcels. Israeli troops patrol the streets of Bethlehem and this year the 25 foot Christmas tree in Manger Square in front of the church, will have no lights and no adornments. The 30,000 Palestinian inhabitants have nothing to spend, little to eat, and are forced by curfews to spend days at home.
It all seems a very far cry indeed from the birth of Jesus Christ, 2000 years ago. Even though the country was then occupied by the Romans, the pain and the misery and the hardship cannot have been worse in Bethlehem then, than it is today.
Between Jerusalem and Bethlehem are the Shepherds Fields, where 2000 years ago the angels are said to have appeared to the shepherds and urged them to go to Bethlehem to see "the Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord" (Luke 2:11). The shepherds didn't wait. They didn't doubt their own senses, but went straight away to Bethlehem and found the baby. The meeting with baby Jesus had such a profound effect on them that they couldn't keep it to themselves but spread it to the whole town. Everyone was amazed at their words, although we're not told whether or not everyone believed them. Perhaps that's not the point.
It's interesting that it wasn't the encounter with the angels that set the shepherds talking to everyone they met, but the encounter with the baby. Of the two encounters, you might have expected the visit by the angels to have filled the shepherds with such awe and wonder that they couldn't help worshipping God. After all, it isn't every day that you're visited by a heavenly choir who relay a direct message from God. But although you might easily see a baby every day, it was actually the baby that set the shepherds aflame for God.
So even at that time, when Jesus was newborn and completely helpless and vulnerable like every other newborn baby, incapable even of smiling because he was so young, there was still something so special about him that it made the shepherds spread the word concerning him and return glorifying and praising God.
The shepherds could perhaps be described as the first evangelists, as they were the first people to tell others about Jesus. Mary, by contrast, said nothing. She treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart, which is perhaps fairly unusual behaviour for a mother. Many mothers can't wait to sing the praises of their children, and tell anyone who will listen all about their child's remarkable qualities. But for Mary it was too important and too deep to be casually tossed around in idle chatter. Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart, using them as the precious basis for all her future thought and way of being.
So Mary too was changed by her encounter with the baby, but in a different way. She didn't give her testimony as the shepherds did, but quietly enabled the God within her to fill her being so that she became radiant with God's presence. Neither did Mary withdraw from the world to experience the joy which the baby had brought, but continued to live in the world and to observe the world's customs. When the baby was eight days old, Mary took him to be circumcised as the Law demanded, and at his naming ceremony named him Jesus -- Emmanuel, God with us -- as God had commanded her via the angel.
Like Mary and like the shepherds, we are all different. Some of us are called to give our testimonies, to tell others what God has done for us and what a remarkable experience it has been for us to meet with Jesus. Others are called to treasure in our hearts all that God gives us and to ponder upon it, and to allow his radiance to shine through us.
What we mustn't do, is to pretend we're called in one way just because the other way seems too difficult for us. It's no good pretending we're called to treasure things in our hearts if actually God is calling us to go out and tell people about Jesus. Neither is it any good going out to tell people about Jesus because that makes us feel good, if God is actually calling us to reflect upon our experiences. We'll only know what God is calling us to do if we ask God, and then wait to hear God's answer.
Perhaps if all Christian people asked God what direction their lives should take and waited to hear God's answer, things might change world-wide. Perhaps we human beings really would learn to love our neighbours. And perhaps if that happened, next Christmas the people of Bethlehem would be properly fed and housed and we could again go into Bethlehem to worship the Christ Child.
But by the end of the Millennium year, violence had again broken out between Israel and Palestine. I sought advice from our travel company, and they assured me that their representative in Jerusalem said the country was safe for tourists. Almost every pilgrimage group booked for 2001 had cancelled, but we decided to go ahead, notwithstanding the anxiety of families and friends.
We had a wonderful time in a country that felt almost empty, it was so devoid of pilgrims. The knock-on effect of the disappearance of tourists was that there were almost no street traders or beggars. So I don't know how on earth people like that, people on the margins, managed to survive without the income from tourists.
Bethlehem, being a Palestinian stronghold, had been virtually closed to the outside world since October 2000. But we were even able to get into Bethlehem to visit the Church of the Nativity. The division of this 4th century church into three parts, served by the Franciscans, the Armenians and the Greek Orthodox seemed like a working parable of the situation in the Holy Land, wracked by division. Yet the three separate organisations seem to coexist peaceably together within the Church of the Nativity, so it also seemed as though perhaps there was a seed of hope there for the future.
But things have gone from bad to worse in the Holy Land, and it seems that Christmas 2002 was cancelled in Bethlehem. 60% of the population of Bethlehem depend on the tourist trade, and storage rooms inside the Church of the Nativity are now filled with charity food parcels. Israeli troops patrol the streets of Bethlehem and this year the 25 foot Christmas tree in Manger Square in front of the church, will have no lights and no adornments. The 30,000 Palestinian inhabitants have nothing to spend, little to eat, and are forced by curfews to spend days at home.
It all seems a very far cry indeed from the birth of Jesus Christ, 2000 years ago. Even though the country was then occupied by the Romans, the pain and the misery and the hardship cannot have been worse in Bethlehem then, than it is today.
Between Jerusalem and Bethlehem are the Shepherds Fields, where 2000 years ago the angels are said to have appeared to the shepherds and urged them to go to Bethlehem to see "the Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord" (Luke 2:11). The shepherds didn't wait. They didn't doubt their own senses, but went straight away to Bethlehem and found the baby. The meeting with baby Jesus had such a profound effect on them that they couldn't keep it to themselves but spread it to the whole town. Everyone was amazed at their words, although we're not told whether or not everyone believed them. Perhaps that's not the point.
It's interesting that it wasn't the encounter with the angels that set the shepherds talking to everyone they met, but the encounter with the baby. Of the two encounters, you might have expected the visit by the angels to have filled the shepherds with such awe and wonder that they couldn't help worshipping God. After all, it isn't every day that you're visited by a heavenly choir who relay a direct message from God. But although you might easily see a baby every day, it was actually the baby that set the shepherds aflame for God.
So even at that time, when Jesus was newborn and completely helpless and vulnerable like every other newborn baby, incapable even of smiling because he was so young, there was still something so special about him that it made the shepherds spread the word concerning him and return glorifying and praising God.
The shepherds could perhaps be described as the first evangelists, as they were the first people to tell others about Jesus. Mary, by contrast, said nothing. She treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart, which is perhaps fairly unusual behaviour for a mother. Many mothers can't wait to sing the praises of their children, and tell anyone who will listen all about their child's remarkable qualities. But for Mary it was too important and too deep to be casually tossed around in idle chatter. Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart, using them as the precious basis for all her future thought and way of being.
So Mary too was changed by her encounter with the baby, but in a different way. She didn't give her testimony as the shepherds did, but quietly enabled the God within her to fill her being so that she became radiant with God's presence. Neither did Mary withdraw from the world to experience the joy which the baby had brought, but continued to live in the world and to observe the world's customs. When the baby was eight days old, Mary took him to be circumcised as the Law demanded, and at his naming ceremony named him Jesus -- Emmanuel, God with us -- as God had commanded her via the angel.
Like Mary and like the shepherds, we are all different. Some of us are called to give our testimonies, to tell others what God has done for us and what a remarkable experience it has been for us to meet with Jesus. Others are called to treasure in our hearts all that God gives us and to ponder upon it, and to allow his radiance to shine through us.
What we mustn't do, is to pretend we're called in one way just because the other way seems too difficult for us. It's no good pretending we're called to treasure things in our hearts if actually God is calling us to go out and tell people about Jesus. Neither is it any good going out to tell people about Jesus because that makes us feel good, if God is actually calling us to reflect upon our experiences. We'll only know what God is calling us to do if we ask God, and then wait to hear God's answer.
Perhaps if all Christian people asked God what direction their lives should take and waited to hear God's answer, things might change world-wide. Perhaps we human beings really would learn to love our neighbours. And perhaps if that happened, next Christmas the people of Bethlehem would be properly fed and housed and we could again go into Bethlehem to worship the Christ Child.
