Reality of Christmas (2)

THE REALITY OF CHRISTMAS

"I could not believe it", to quote the words of Victor Meldrew of One Foot in the Grave fame.

I had asked my Sunday School teacher, who we had better call "Mary" - after all, Mary gets blamed for everything that goes wrong in my life - I had asked "Mary" , to be responsible for dressing up two life size shop dummies, to represent Mary and Joseph.

These were to form a crib scene in the large window beside the door of the church, to proclaim the real message of Christmas to the many people who walked past daily on their way to and from work.

"I could not believe it", when "Mary" arrived on the scene with clothes which would fit a dummy the size of a child's doll!!

After I had cooled down, I realised that I was dealing with a theological problem.

As far as "Mary" was concerned, subconsciously, Mary and Joseph were not real people in the real world. Over the process of time, she had allowed them to become relegated to the make-believe world of fairies, Father Christmas and the Christmas pantomime. They had become part of the Christmas fantasy world into which we love to escape once a year.

Now she would have been horrified to have been told this, and yet this was obviously what she subconsciously believed. For her, no Christmas was complete without a crib scene, no more than any Christmas is complete without Father Christmas.

In this she is not alone.

Today, a crib set is an essential part of the Christmas decorations in the home. It is like the holly, the mistletoe, the coloured lights. It is all part of the Christmas package for both practising and non practising Christians alike.

That is why the parents of children of the parish have made for us a life-size Christmas crib for our church this year. You cannot come into the church without being made aware of its presence.

Our crib set seeks to make a bold statement about Christmas, namely, that God in Christ was a real person, born into a real family, in a real world. It seeks to proclaim visibly the real meaning of Christmas. God became a real man in the person of Jesus. He was not playing at being a man. He was not pretending to be a man. He was a man, like you and me.

It is said that the 19th Century philanthropist, Dr Barnado, who did so much for orphaned children, wanted to find out, what it was like to be poor and homeless. In order to identify himself with such people, he dressed up in some old rags and went and lived on the streets of London for a few days.

Now this is not what God did. He did not dress up as a man and pretend to be a man for thirty odd years in order to try and identify himself with humankind.

There was no pretence about the Incarnation. God did become "enfleshed". God did become fully a man. To suggest otherwise is to fall into the trap of one of the early church heresies called "Doceticism".

"Docetic" comes from the Greek word to mean "I seem". It suggested that God in Christ only seemed to be human and to suffer. In order to explain away the Crucifixion, it suggested that either Judas Iscariat or Simon of Cyrene actually changed places with him.

There are references to this false teaching in the New Testament.

For instance, the author of the First Epistle of St John says:"My dear friends, do not trust every spirit, but test the spirits, to see whether they are from God; for there are many false prophets about in the world". After giving this warning, he goes on to suggest that "the way to recognise the Spirit of God is this: every spirit which acknowIedges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God." (1 John 4.2).

Again, in his second letter, the author returns to the same subject, when he says: "Many deceivers have gone out

into the world, people who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh". (2 John v7).

Now, if I had accused "Mary" of being a deceiver, let alone a teacher of the heresy of Doceticism, she would have been horrified!!

And yet that is what she was doing, albeit unconsciously, by producing doll-size clothes with which to dress up the crib scene. She was denying the real humanity of God in Christ and suggesting that God only "seemed" to be

a man.

My friends, this Christmas Crib is not just part of the Christmas decorations of the church. It is not part of the world of make-believe. It is first and foremost, a visible proclamation of the Good News - namely that in the birth of Jesus, God became a real human being - as real as you and me.

Unlike Victor Meldrew, this I can believe!