John Foulds
Today we continue to celebrate the birth of Jesus
our saviour on the first Sunday of the Christmas season. In many churches today
is also a celebration of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
Family. This is a word that brings to mind a whole
set of emotions for us. Some happy. Some sad. Some extremely painful. And
Christmas will have been a time when many of us will have felt our emotions very
acutely. So we may be sorry that the main part of Christmas is now over for
another year or in fact be feeling very relieved indeed that it is past.
Well, however we feel today, I believe that the
seasonal celebration of Jesus, Mary and Joseph has an impact on each one of
us.
For a moment let us imagine the three of them.
Picture, perhaps, a Christmas card that you received of the nativity of
Bethlehem. Or close your eyes and allow your imagination to see the infant
Jesus, His young mother and her devoted husband Joseph.
And now we must also remember how this Jewish family had to become refugees
and flee to a foreign land, Egypt, in order to save the baby's life from King
Herod's jealousy.
So the holy family, like us, had to deal with many
emotions and difficult situations. Yet they trusted God and they trusted each
other. This enabled God's plan of salvation to be fulfilled in Jesus, God's son,
our saviour.
Their love for each other was so strong. Their
love for God so real. Their love for their baby so vital.
The Holy family show us love in action for by
their lives all of us know that we have access to the love of God which we would
not have known without them.
We are called to know that we are part of God's
family. We celebrate the reality of this divine relationship through
prayer and acts of loving-kindness.
Mary and Joseph cared for Jesus and nurtured the
saviour of the world. They participated in God's plan.
We too are given opportunities-opportunities to
allow God to touch our lives and so bring comfort and joy to others.
When you stop and think about it the Holy family
were not really too conventional. Rather like ourselves. What they were is
faithful and we can be that too. Whatever our own family background is-whatever
issues we may still be dealing with-this does not prevent us from taking our
place in God's family. As beloved members we can connect with the divine
presence; we can let Jesus walk with us; we can respond to the promptings of the
Holy Spirit. We can hear the message of the angels; make friends with the saints
and care for one another.
One branch of God's family is here at MCCM. O.K.,
we are not perfect, but we can truly and sincerely acknowledge God's
loving-kindness to us as we worship together. We can extend the same
loving-kindness to each other in lots of different ways. We can be family! We
can nurture one another and then take what we feel and experience together out
with us into our daily lives and -yes-into the often harsh realities of the
world.
This Christmas, we have been thinking about the
holy land. The place where Jesus was born and where he travelled about. Places
that have been the setting for tremendous blessing and great agony both in the
days of his earthly life and in our own day. We think of the suffering of the
human family there - and elsewhere. Victims of terrorist attacks. Victims of
retaliations. We despair.
We should not.
Above all we should give thanks to God for the
ability to receive love and to give love, for we are all formed in the divine
image and capable of carrying out acts of loving-kindness. These acts may seem
small and of little consequence, yet in fact, they are so life-enhancing.
We can be family – if we choose to
be.
(John Foulds)