Say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God.” – part of Isaiah, chapter 40, verse 9 - a proclamation to be made from a high mountain in much the same way as the ‘good tidings’ of today’s Old Testament reading are to be proclaimed. We need though to be convinced of what it is that has to be proclaimed. I’ll begin with some numbers.
The Bible likes numbers. For example:
7 (Days of creation).
10 (Commandments) or 613 actually if you number the statements and principles of law, ethics, and spiritual practice contained in the Torah or Five Books of Moses.
12 (Israel / Apostles).
Seventy-times seven (Forgiveness).
144,000 – Those sealed on their foreheads as servants of God.
666 – The number of the Beast.
We also find there the number 3 reflected in ways of particular relevance to Christianity:
Peter,James and John – the inner circle.
Associated with the Christmas story of course, 3 Kings or Wise Men; 3 members of the Holy Family - Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The Holy Trinity, of course, though not on the page as such, is there to be deduced.
A different and varied threesome have made something of an impression on me in the last week or so:
One is a 28 year old man. He is the son of a ruthless and barbaric dictator who, in brutalising his people, bringing his country to its knees and its people in their hundreds of thousands to early graves was following his own father’s example, only more viciously. But, this 28 year old is, so his people are told “A great person, born of heaven”
The second is (or, rather was) a brilliantly provocative, alcohol-sodden, essayist; evangelically atheist with a bitingly sharp – some would say pernicious – intellect, who regularly and violently attacked some of those held up by one group or another to be unassailable icons, among them Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Henry Kissinger and the late Diana, Princess of Wales. A violent opponent of anything fundamentalist or totalitarian, he is recorded as saying that “The totalitarian is the adversary … The one who wants to take control over the inside of your head not just your actions and your taxes”. This has, he claims “a Theocratic beginning – someone who can ventriloquise the divine and tell us what to do.” (Someone God-like, who bosses and controls everything about others, is for, him a great evil)
The third is, a 71 year old entertainer, of the vocal variety, spurned by many radio stations, but who tops the list of 2012 calendar pin-ups, soundly trouncing the juvenile Justin Bieber, the interesting Kylie Minogue and the rest. He is on record as saying, a bit simplistically maybe, that “Being a Christian can be tough; but if we lose that spirituality, people just end up doing what they want. Killing. Looting. Going to war.”
The three are:
Kim Jong Un
Christopher Hitchens and
Sir Cliff Richard.
A bit of a curious trinity indeed when put side-by-side.
However, they in different ways challenge us about the nature of the proclamation of good tidings which we have to make, and about the God to whom we are to pay attention and to whom we are called to draw the attention of others.
If the grotesque and obscenely cruel powers of North Korea are to believed, heaven sends a malevolent destroyer to bring death and persecution. Our proclamation is that heaven has sent a fearless saviour to show the world a pattern of meaningful life and active generosity.
If Christopher Hitchens is to be believed, our faith amounts to nothing more than submission to a manipulative divinity who controls us, as a ventriloquist controls a wooden dummy, to say and do only what the one in charge causes. Our proclamation is that we are called to submit only to a law of love which, if we do submit to it, offers the best chance of the fullness of life for ourselves and others.
Sir Cliff’s encouragement towards Christian spirituality simply mean that to pay careful not careless attention to the morality and ethics which underpin the Christian faith the best bit of advice anyone can possibly give or receive. “To all who received him, who believed in his name he gave power.” The consequences of ignoring what the Gospel urges upon the world are all too evident even in our own advanced and cultured society:
The list is not exhaustive, there are countless similar and different examples elsewhere in the world, and it would be naïve of me to suggest that the remedies for them are simple. And before the Church indulges too readily in finger pointing at others we need to remember that the Church herself is far from immune to criticism as, in any number of places, she is forced to confront assorted abuses and scandals I her own life.
It’s pretty traditional at this time of year, almost as traditional as turkey with the trimmings (if you are fortunate enough to have them) for Bishops and others to apparently castigate the powerful, the rich and influential and to caricature them as the wicked cause of or catalyst for so many of our world’s ills. We then, as the tradition has developed, get told to mind our own business, and the world goes on turning. But how does it turn? Much the same as it always has? Or is it now turning with a growing sense of there being some things within it that are fundamentally disjointed, dislocated and plain unjust? Although these things are hard to put right, I suspect that there is such a growing sense. Conversations are happening in many places which indicate that growing sense among people on all points on the spectrum and of all shades of opinion. Some unjust practices are being found and dealt with, whilst the need for the means of both wealth creation and distribution to be just is increasingly recognised.
Part of those conversations for us must be, ‘Come and behold him.’ ‘Behold your God’. Pay attention to the child of Bethlehem, the Teacher of Galilee, the Man of the cross and the Lord of Life. Not a cosy comfortable legend but God involved in the mess and pain of the world, dealing with marginalised, persecuted, downtrodden and suffering people, and confronting, with the call for justice, those who have the power to do something that could benefit more than just the few.
The church has a duty to demand that where the vulnerable suffer, priorities and behaviours must change. And that is not meddling in politics, that is proclaiming the Gospel.
I referred earlier to three individuals who made a recent impression on me. Let me end by mentioning a fourth and final one: Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the Pro Democracy Movement in Burma. She delivered this year’s series of Reith Lectures which were broadcast on Radio 4. In the first of these, she spoke with affection and pride of the supporters who turn up daily to help at the ramshackle headquarters of her much suppressed and harassed party the National League for Democracy (NLD), which won a 1990 landslide election victory, only to see it annulled by the military junta.
She said of the movement’s headquarters building:
"More than once it has been described as the NLD 'cowshed'”. She continued, “Since this remark is usually made with a sympathetic and often admiring smile, we do not take offence. After all, did not one of the most influential movements in the world begin in a cowshed?"
Yes, as far as the Christmas story goes, we are told, it did. And it needs to begin again - and again - and again – so that it takes root in the life of the world and its people.
So we’ll end with that cowshed and some of those who we are told were there and who teach us, through the stories of alert evamgelists, proclaimers of good news, that God is cocnerend with people at all levels of society and enforlds them all in his purposes for good. We’ll go back to the number three again:
An ordinary village girl with little or no status is willing to face scandal and rejection to do what she knows is right – let it be – I am the Lord’s servant. God had something to tell her
Shepherds, looked down upon, doing a hard and dirty job for little reward and commanding little or no respect are told that there was good news for them and not just for the others.
Finally, Kings, Sages, Wise Men, this time people with status wealth and influence, present their material and symbolic gifts to him; but, and much more importantly, we are told, the fall down and worship him. He has something to tell them.
Today we again celebrate the real meaning of Christ’s birth. Justice, truth, decency and love, which lie at the heart of the God he reveals, are there to be patterns for all people everywhere. When they are absent, the world just turns in the same old way and too many people are simply left behind.
Whoever we are, whatever station in life we occupy, we have the capacity to proclaim good tidings through the way we live, through the decisions we take through the words and deeds which fashion our daily living. It’s not Christian to leave it to others.
AMEN.