Christmas reflection

nativity-with-the-torchI was talking to Chris recently about a poem he had written, which had the image of a person, himself as a child at an aunt’s house, looking through a window at a procession of people. The observer was warm and comfortable while the objects of his observation were poor, cold and victims of various kinds. Chris also mentions that the observer had no ‘thought or feeling for what he saw’. Gradually, through the process of growing up and life’s experience, there took place a crossing over, from being the warm observer to experiencing life from the same perspective as the victims of cold and deprivation. He had become one of the victims himself. And yet in reflecting on this divide in society between the observers and the observed, Chris notes the way that the way the gap between rich and poor has been normalised and not felt to be worthy of comment. The division between the two is symbolised by the double glazed window; on one side is warmth while on the other side cold and hunger and nobody seems to care or see anything strange in the situation.

I make no attempt to say more about this poem, but to note that it has created for me an image that leads into a Christmas reflection. In my imagination, I see, not a warm comfortable child watching the world go by, but God looking down through his double glazed window on a world, not just cold, but weary with the evil of rampant selfishness in the people. If God could be said to be able to have a conversation with himself, it might go as follows.

‘What can I do to make a difference in that place that is stuck with everyone trying to gain power and advantage over everyone else? How can I show to humankind another way to exist beyond that of getting one over their fellow human beings and using that advantage for their own selfish ends? The one thing I can do is to live there myself and show them what a human life can be. It may be able to teach them to live in a different way, the way of generosity, compassion and love.’

After this imaginary conservation, we can see God going on the other side of the double-glazed window to live a life alongside power-obsessed humanity. What happens to the one who lives out the life of complete generosity and love? He becomes the victim of the dynamic forces of constant power seeking in human beings. He is the victim of crucifixion.

But before God experiences this cruel punishment, he sows the seed of a different way of living among a group of followers. A light and a longing for something different is sown in the hearts of humanity. They are given a picture of what life can become if each individual can see others, not as the target of exploitation in any way, but as fellow beings who can be on a journey to living a different way, a way transformed by the love of God himself. But still more important is the realisation that after God has come through a ‘double-glazed window’, that that barrier has been broken down for ever. The words of Jesus resonate through the ages, ‘where I am, there you will be also’.

The Christmas story is the beginning of a fundamental shift in the way things are and the fact that the barriers between life and death, between earth and heaven, between God and man,
have now been breached. Christmas is about the passing through the ‘double-glazed window’. Because of the act of identification, human beings can experience a surge of hope and joy within them. Emmanuel God with us.

About Stephen Parsons

Stephen is a retired Anglican priest living at present in Cumbria. He has taken a special interest in the issues around health and healing in the Church but also when the Church is a place of harm and abuse. He has published books on both these issues and is at present particularly interested in understanding how power works at every level in the Church. He is always interested in making contact with others who are concerned with these issues.

6 thoughts on “Christmas reflection

  1. Happy Christmas to you and yours, Stephen. Have you heard the pop song, “I wonder what God wants for Christmas”? It’s quite thoughtful and sweet. My best to Frances.

  2. Thanks, Stephen; nice reflection, although as it concerns light through glass, perhaps that should be nice refraction. Perhaps in 2015 by showing love and compassion we can help some people escape from their prism. Happy Christmas!

  3. Wonderful meditation/reflection/refraction. That is what Jesus did.
    I wonder if the church is in the same position today that it was in Luther and Calvin’s time. Then they felt the need to reform the Catholic church (it being the only one), and now the Protestant church has split into so many variations, and the Catholic church has so many serious scandals, that searching for true Christianity almost has to happen outside of the churches.

Comments are closed.