When did you last see a robin at Christmas? Only on a card or a decoration?
When did you last build a snowman on Christmas Day?
Come to think of it, how many White Christmasses have there been in recent years in the UK?
[PAUSE]
Whatever the reason may be, the traditional Christmas scenes are few and far between. We have to rely on spray-on snow, plastic holly wreaths and other ornaments. We don't have Christmasses like Bob Cratchit might have known. No longer is the boar's head brought out on a platter for the lord of the manor.
We cling to a romantic image of what Christmas should be like and become crestfallen when the world seems to move further away from that image. Things don't seem the same with robins replaced with sparrows, nor snow-bound country scenes with a rain-soaked council estate.
Some of us work so very hard to make Christmas a happy time of year. We try to make things joyful with lights and trees and thoughtful gifts. And yet, all of our efforts can be thwarted by one simple virus.
It's good to work hard to make Christmas special. We are Christians after all and preparing our homes and families to spread some of our joy at the birth of God Incarnate is valuable. We can be reassured that anything that we do in the Name of Christ will bear fruit. We must not necessarily expect this fruit to be ripe every December 25th.
[PAUSE]
Throughout Advent, we have been looking at how we play our part in generating the Christ. Our Lord has a genealogy and we can read two different lists of His ancestors at the beginning of St Matthew's Gospel, and the beginning of Jesus' ministry in St Luke's Gospel. The lists differ because St Matthew and St Luke are making different points. St Matthew starts with Abraham and works forwards showing the Jewish heritage of Jesus. St Luke starts with Jesus and draws the line back to God Himself, emphasising Jesus Humanity and His Divinity. In these lists we see the sweep of History as it is. There have been so many changes to generate the Messiah and now here He is.
[PAUSE]
We cannot expect each Christmas to fit the chocolate-box fantasy of a nineteenth century Christmas. The Scrooge of today does not work in a lending house, nor does he deprive his employees of coal. The Scrooge of today exploits the poor and uses their labour for his gain. The Scrooge of today runs the workhouses. We can romanticise the down-trodden worker in Bob Cratchit, but we miss the reason why our T-shirts and trainers are so cheap.
Although Scrooge has changed his appearance and mode of employment, he is still the same human being whose reasons for living the life he does run deep. He still requires salvation. He still possesses that reflection of the Divine image buried beneath his fallenness. He is still redeemable, even if the ghosts themselves must take on different appearances in order to make their point.
[PAUSE]
This is where we come in. Appearances change but the substances do not. We bear witness to the unchanging nature of the Faith and to the Divine and Human natures of Christ from Eternity. In some ways, Jesus is a product of His time in terms of His clothes, His language and His customs, but His truth does not change, His teaching does not change, His love does not change and His commandments do not change. Certainly His Divinity cannot change!
While the apostles might be surprised at how we say the Mass, they still recognise what we are doing. They still see the same Jesus at our altars as at theirs. They see that the Church continues and teaches the same Faith to this day. They see the very same sacraments at our hands that they hold in theirs.
[PAUSE]
They also see that some have fallen away because they see the romance of the world around as being more important than what the Church preserves. They see those singing songs about how great it feels to be a Christian and who concentrate on their selves rather than turning East to face God.
They see a church filled with politics and movements for justice and inequality and correctness rather than a Church that centres itself firmly on teaching people to put on Christ. They see a church filled with robins and snowmen, holly and ivy, and snow covered country houses rather than a Church gathered around a Virgin, a bemused but supremely faithful artisan-husband and a manger filled with God's Light.
[PAUSE]
We are the Church. We generate the Messiah for our time by putting on the same Christ pointed out by St Luke and St Matthew and all the other saints. Christmas looks like however it appears outside your window, however it appears in your house, and however it appears in your heart, but it is what it is in the Eternal presence of Christ.
Is the Messiah being generated in your heart, or is it full of robins?
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