Simply away

Sermon for the feast of the Nativity

 

“Away in a Manger” is one of the most important carols that we can sing at this time. 

It's very easy for us to get focused on our own preferences and tastes of what we want to sing at Christmas. 

In church choirs there are often debates and squabbles about what to sing, and what version to sing, and what key to sing it in. 

But “Away in a Manger” is so important. But why?

 

[PAUSE]

 

Our recent experiences of living have become so complicated. 

We have seen so much drama this year. 

The cost of living is high, our political systems are being stretched, even our social conventions are being challenged by ideas that seem preposterous. 

At the heart of these problems, is Man’s propensity to sin. Sin comes from Death and, with Sin, we die. 

Our problems stem from our very selves.

 

The complexity of our living comes about because we want complicated things. 

We want to save our money, but we want to spend our money. We want to eat lots, but we don't want to get fat.

 We want respect, but we want to have reckless fun. All around us people are living lives which are rooted in contradictions and, in trying to sort out those contradictions, the life they lead becomes complicated and confused.

 

[PAUSE]

 

Away in a Manger, 

no crib for his bed, 

the little Lord Jesus 

lay down his sweet head. 

The stars in the bright sky look down where he lay, 

the little Lord Jesus asleep in the hay.

 

This image is so simple that a child can see it. 

In our lives of contradiction, we miss the simplicity of Christ’s birth. 

We miss the simple statement that the Word is made flesh and dwells among us. 

We are so wrapped up in our own complexity bound by it like chains of steel that we cannot free ourselves to be as simple as a child.

A father cradles his new baby for the first time, and the universe stops. 

In the eyes of the little one, blinking in the new light, is nothing less then love. 

There is nothing else to worry about, in that instant, all is well with the world when those little eyes look into your soul, and the little heartbeat ticks next to yours.

 

In that instant, you know it's not just you anymore. 

Your needs and wants and contradictions have to be put aside for the new one who has been born to you. 

There is only the simplicity of a cuddle.

 

[PAUSE]

 

With our lives facing more and more complexity, we rejoice in the opportunity that Christmas has for us to stop and to be as simple as we can be in embracing the little Lord Jesus, for as powerful, as wise, as incomprehensible as He is, He embraces the simplicity of humanity, in order that we can enjoy His simplicity as God.

This is why “Away in a Manger” is so very important. Are you singing it now?