Christmas Card

THE CHRISTMAS CARD

Once again I have received many Christmas cards from friends both at home and overseas. One particular card remains firmly imprinted upon my mind.

It shows Mary and Joseph with the shepherds looking at the baby Jesus lying in the manger upon the hay. One of the shepherds is saying to the other: "He is the image of his father".

I like this card because its very human touch appeals to my sense of humour, as I recall the many times I have looked at newborn babies and found myself saying "he has got his mother's eyes" or "she has got her father's nose".

However, the prime reason why I like this particular card is because it expresses in a few simple words, the awesome mystery of Christmas, namely that Jesus is the image of the unknown God.

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One of my responsibilities as ex officio governor of our local church school in Welham Green is to interview prospective teachers.

A question I often put to candidates goes something like this:

"Twice a term the church pays for the children of our school to be bussed to church for worship. On the way back from church to school little Johnny is sitting next to you. He turns and asks "Teacher, what is God like?"

And then I ask the candidate: "How do you answer him?" I must admit it is not an easy question for a person with little or no understanding of the Christian faith and that candidates invariably look embarrassed as they begin to reply and they find themselves drawing upon their own personal experience or otherwise.

One candidate once tried to dismiss the whole question by saying rather glibly: "God is whatever you want him to be". In other words, she suggested that God could be made in our image, which, to say the very least, is a very subjective answer.

And yet children, and even adults often ask the question "What is God like?"

Now it was in answer to such a question from the people of God over a long period of time, as reflected in the pages of the Old Testament, that God chose to reveal himself to human kind through the form of a human being some 2000 years ago in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

Now I am not suggesting that Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and the Wise Men, let alone the apostles and those who followed him, recognised him as such at the time. We must remember the gospels were written 40 - 50 years after his death and therefore reflect the thinking of that time.

Much rather, I am suggesting it was a much slower process of realisation whereby men and women after his death and resurrection began to evaluate his life and teaching and came to the only conclusion that he could be no other than God in human form.

St. John describes him as "God enfleshed". St. Paul describes him as "the image of the invisible God". And my Christmas card describes him as "he is the image of his father".

In other words, to answer the question I put to would-be teachers, if we want to know what God is like in human form, and there is no other medium through which we can recognise him, we need look no further than at Jesus of Nazareth. As he himself declares in St. John's gospel: "He who has seen me has seen the Father".

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But my friends, that is only one side of the message of Christmas.

If Jesus, the image of the invisible God, reveals to us what God is like, Jesus also reveals to us what we should be like, as men and women made in the image of God.

As one of the early church Fathers said "he became man that we might become like God".

No longer can we plead ignorance and go on living our lives the same old way.

Jesus has revealed to us our human potential and thereby challenges us to become that unique person he has created us to be.

And so the child of Bethlehem invites us to put away all that mars the image of God in our own lives, and live new lives with him as our role model. In other words, our lives should become living Christmas cards proclaiming the message of Christmas to others.

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The truth conveyed on my favourite Christmas card this year will still remain, namely "He is the image of his Father".

That image reveals to us not only what God is like but also what we should be like.

May you have a happy and holy Christrnas as you celebrate afresh the birth of Jesus Christ, God's Christmas card to us.