Christ - A Symbol of Rebirth

CHRIST - A SYMBOL OF REBIRTH

"Is there life after the Mission to Seamen?" asked Ben Wright, as we sat drinking a pint of beer, in 1988 in Western Australia.

I thought for a moment and replied, "Is there life after the parish of Scarborough?"

Both Ben and I felt that we had come to the end of the road in our particular spheres of ministry.

To accept any other Missions to Seamen appointment in the world would have been an anticlimax as far as I was concerned. Similarly, for Ben to accept any other parish in the Diocese of Perth would have been an anticlimax.

We both knew that, in spite of the extensive responsibility and tremendous potential of our respective jobs, the former challenge and excitement was no longer there. We were both conscious of becoming increasingly tired and stale. That something, which once made us tick, was no longer there. We were merely going through the motion of ministry.

In short, we were both dying inwardly.

I think this is sometimes called a "Midlife Crisis", though this feeling of emptiness is not confined to midlife. It can strike one at any time.

For instance, John Wesley was 30 years old when he first became aware of how unsatisfying his life had become. From the day that he was ordained into the Anglican Church, he had pursued a strict rule of life. Nevertheless, no matter how hard he tried, it still left him feeling empty.

In his Journal, he wrote: "When after continuing some years in this cause I apprehended myself near to death, I could not find that all this gave me any comfort or any assurance of acceptance with God".

On the other hand, Jimmy Carter, the former President of the United States, was 41 years old when he became aware of a feeling of emptiness in his life.

The turning point for him was a sermon entitled, "If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" Upon reflection he came to the conclusion that there would not be sufficient evidence.

Carter later remarked, "I was going through a stage in my life then that was very difficult. I had run for Governor and lost. Everything I did was not gratifying. When I succeeded in something, it was a humble experience for me. I'd never done much for other people. I was always thinking of myself."

It is a similar experience that faces a person who knows that there can be no more promotion because all the top jobs are already taken; or a mother when her children have left the nest and she is left wondering how she is to fill the empty vacuum.

It is this same experience of emptiness of which Dante speaks in his 'Divine Comedy' when he writes:

"In the middle of life's road I found myself in a dark wood - the straight way ahead lost."

At moments, such as these, we need to go back to the drawing board and rediscover our true selves. To rediscover the unique person God created us to be and not the person we have allowed ourselves to become through

circumstances of birth, home, education and work.

Where better can we do this than to join Mary and Joseph at Bethlehem and the newborn child lying in the manger?

To stand, to look and to reflect.

To stand alongside Mary and Joseph at the manger and to see the Christ child, not just as a person from the pages of history, but as a symbol of yourself. It is you that is lying upon that bed of straw with the future all ahead of you.

To look at that child so full of promise and hope. A child full of hidden potential. A child anxious to explore unhindered its new environment. A child who knows no limitations as the whole world opens up before it. A child who reaches forth to discover its true self.

To reflect, that this babe of Bethlehem is an open invitation to you to be born again. An invitation to divest yourselves of your stale and empty past and to start all over again. "Unless you be born again" says the evangelist, "you cannot enter the Kingdom of God". Here is an opportunity to start living full lives and not truncated lives.

After a brief period of missionary work with the Indians in North America, John Wesley returned to the UK to initiate that powerful religious movement known as the Methodist Revival.

After a brief period of lay missionary work, Jimmy Carter was later to say: "I found myself able to say, what can I do to make this person's life more enjoyable?" In the past I had a natural inclination to say: "What can I get from them?" Or to wipe them out of my mind.

And after a brief period of time Ben went off to be Bishop of Kalgoorlie and later of Bendigo before returning to Western Australia to become Rector of Busselton, and I went off to the UK to become Vicar of North Mymms.

And what of yourselves?

Are you going to allow that child of Bethlehem to remain just a lifeless picture on a Christmas card, or are you prepared to allow that child to speak to you and be the means whereby you are born again?