Poverty and riches

I saw a little crib in a Nativity tableau the other day. There are a multitude out there, with Mary serene in a spotless blue dress, Joseph indistinguishable from the shepherds, three wise men, several months too early and an elderly Tiny Tears doll swaddled in a crochet blanket, all squashed into a cosy-looking stable. It made me think.

I was born in poverty, too.

Not the sort of poverty that speaks of cold and deprivation; oh no. I have, all my life, been warm and looked after and well fed (just look at me) and I had my own Tiny Tears and all the accessories. No, not that sort of poverty.

When I was born, the birth that I'm talking about, I was as poor as it's possible to be in every way that matters. I had nothing, and the day I realised that was the day that I was born.

That should be my birthday, really; that was when life began for real. I realised the lack - the void. The gut-wrenching poverty. The absence. The emptiness. The need.

For me, I didn't have to live with that feeling of poverty too long, for no sooner had I realised that I did not have the only thing that mattered, that I longed for it, asked for it - then it was given to me.
You are endlessly generous like that.

How much more awful for those who feel that desperation but don't know where to come to find it, this new birth. It must break your heart, Father God.

That day you stripped everything away from me to reveal what actually mattered. I had nothing, and my birth in poverty was yet an elevation for me, for the Creator of the world had business with me. With me. To touch me with the revelation of my need - the moment I understood and my soul reached for you was the moment that the floodgates of blessing from Heaven opened and I became rich.

I look at you, baby boy in an MDF manger, and I realise you knew poverty too.

For you - you had everything, Everything, and you chose to lay it aside to come to this place of filth and cold and hurt to be close to us. You laid aside your majesty, as the song goes, and chose the sweat and smells and roughness of humanity.

You were rich, and you became poor. I was poor, and you gave me riches.

You and I, reborn - humble, vulnerable nakedness. For you, the vastness of Almighty God, shrunk to inhabit a tiny kicking, crying, feeding baby. For me, the smallness and pettiness of a created being expansively given another chance by the grace of the One who reached down and lifted up my chin so that He could look into my eyes with love.

I am a baby as you were. I have all that I need only because you provide it. Mary fed you, cleaned you, dressed you, sang to you and loved you into childhood, adulthood, to execution and beyond. I live because you sustain me. Everything that I have comes from you. If you forgot about me for one second I am sure that I would cease to be. I am hopelessly dependent.

I am uncomfortable in my manger of hay; it prickles. I'd like it to be more comfy. Sometimes I don't feel at home because you have given me that longing for my eternal home, and yet you, you lived among us naturally, freely, as if you never felt homesick for the heaven that you had left behind to come here to us.

I sense the Somewhere Else, sometimes; me, insensitive and short-sighted as I am, and yet the King of Glory walked purposefully away from that place; you chose to become small. The limitless in a limited body. The transcendental made finite.

I am lifted gently out of the dirt to be called a Child of God. A crown has been placed on my head and a robe around my shoulders even though there I am hopelessly unworthy.

I live honoured as your daughter, heir to a wonderful place in your Kingdom. You, the very Son of God, fought your way down the birth canal of a peasant girl and landed in straw, surrounded by livestock. With the hands that arranged the stars in the heavens and created the animals and the birds you'd have brushed against the roughness and splinters of an animal's feeding trough. With your first breaths you would have inhaled the odour of cattle. Me, I'm used to the stench of life down here - it seems normal to me, but to you, it must have been strange indeed. You came from a place of peace, beauty, power and honour and put yourself in the hands of two poor, bewildered kids, far from home, who had only the faintest inkling of the magnitude of what was happening.

My rebirth opens up miraculous doors of wonder and possibility; you became confined in a tiny, frail body, kicking and wailing, feeding and sleeping.

You were born so that I could be born again.

And I've realised by staring at that roughly-made trough-cradle, that it is when I stand with nothing, without anything at all, just me as you made me, unable to conceal a single thing, a single part of me - that's when I am most blessed. I am a new creation.

You had it all, just as you have once again; you turned your back on your glory to become one of us.

You were exalted, and you became weak. I am weak, and you raise me up. I can't get my head around it. You know what it feels like to be poor, to be vulnerable, to be human.

Lord Jesus, baby Jesus, King of Kings, Redeemer, Saviour.

Thankyou.

Happy Birthday.

Time for the thank you letters

God, I've forgotten to water my poinsettia and it's looking more than a little droopy. I forgot last week as well but managed to get to it in time and it sort of perked up again, but this time the green leaves have taken umbrage and rolled up a bit so I wonder if it's past the point of no return. Lord, heal my poor neglected poinsettia. I hoped it would make it through to the new year. 

Sigh. This is the limbo period after Christmas, when visitors have gone, the presents are opened and the party food has been eaten. With the huge operation of Christmas over and all the excitement and noise gone. the space that has been taken up for the last few weeks by planning and organising and so on is free and this morning as I lay in bed I could feel unease lurking in the distance again. Vague worries and uncertainties just in the periphery looking opportunistically for a way in again. I'm fighting against it. 

Here's the thing. The presents have been largely assimilated into toiletry cabinets and toy boxes and bookshelves and jewellery boxes. One toy has been broken already and is waiting with other injured items for Gluing. The food mountain has gone - my bulging fridge is almost empty now; even the cling-filmed leftover plates are dwindling. The guests are back in their own houses and the Christmas music has been left off today because it doesn't feel festive any more. The washing machine is back in action (actually on it's sixth load already) and the bin men are back on their rounds with grim faces as they collect the permitted 'additional bags of seasonal refuse' that we have obediently 'placed neatly at the side of the bin'. Such is life. 

Festivities are over. The carols are finished and we've unwrapped our presents and eaten everything in our paths. I'm contemplating taking the decorations down - a job I never look forward to. It has all the mess and stress of getting them out and putting them up without the lovely warm sense of promise or anticipation. Sigh.

It feels like it's all over. We plan it all and enjoy it all but no matter how we try to savour it, it all slips away. Just like the food in the fridge, it all has a use-by date. We drain the last drops and we recycle the paper and we cast about for something to replace the Christmassy feeling. Every year I find this period a bit flat and when it's pouring with rain and cold and blustery and dark outdoors it doesn't do anything to lift the spirits.

It's a good job that you don't need tinsel and fairy lights surrounding you to be real.

The only thing that doesn't slip away out of our grasp is you. The only eternal, unchanging, everlasting, fundamentally permanent thing is you. All the joys that we can create here at Christmas are things that evaporate or run out or simply time-out. All the gifts are inconsequential apart from the baby in the manger.

I had some wonderful presents this year. I am far too interested in 'stuff' I suppose; I never feel that I am difficult to buy presents for because, I'm embarrassed to say, that there are always plenty of things that I want. This year I think people were particularly perceptive and many of my gifts were absolutely delightful. I am grateful for the thought that people put in and I'm grateful for the money and time they put in to choosing and buying things for me. 

But... I am aware that even beautiful jewellery will tarnish and the loveliest of wine will be drunk and electrical gadgets will become obsolete and clothes will wear and fade. Chocolates will disappear (miraculously - with two small girls in the house it's getting worse than ever - you can't put a chocolate down for five minutes unattended and expect it to be there when you get back) and even my old favourite books will be read and shelved and forgotten.

The only gift I have ever been given that I will always have is the gift that you gave me. 

Jesus Christ. Born into obscurity two thousand years ago because mankind needed a rescue package. Born because you love us more than anything. Born because you love us so much that the price of your only Son wasn't too high a price to pay to bring us home. 

There's a gift. It didn't come wrapped up in sparkly paper and it didn't look much like your average Christmas present but it was the most dramatic, extravagant, inspirational, wonderful, generous gift there could be. 

I'm going to get round to 'thank you' letters soon, Father. I have people all over the country to write to so that they know how pleased we are with the presents they sent. I can usually get them done without much hassle, but there's one thank you letter that I've no idea how to write.

I can't even begin to say thank you for what you have done for me; I can't put it into words that would be anywhere close to adequate. 

Let my life be a thank you letter instead. 

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

It's Christmas Day. 

Is it Christmas Day in Heaven? I suppose probably not - it seems likely to me that up there you all know exactly when Jesus was born and we only guess, or celebrate it now because we bagged a pagan festival or something. I know that many non-believers point out that your Son probably wasn't born on 25 December, more like February or something? So do you look down indulgently on our Christmas trees and gifts and carols and the like and marvel at how far off we are from the way it was? 

How wonderful to have all the answers.

Or maybe you do join in the celebrations just because we on earth who love you are celebrating. We have trees with beautiful lights, we have presents, we have a feast and pull crackers and we raise a glass. Or three.  Some of us are going to church today to wish you a happy birthday properly and to say thank you for the amazing thing that you did. To give up all that you had up there in Heaven to come and join in the mess and chaos down here for a while. And for what? Look what we did to you... you were born to die.  But that's not the part of the story we're concerned with today.

Today we look inside the stable in Bethlehem many years ago and we marvel at the tiny baby born humbly among livestock to a poor young girl and her bewildered fiancé. A tiny newborn baby who was God and man at the same time. Born the usual way but fathered by the Holy Spirit. Destined to grow up in a small town, learn a trade, live a relatively short life in comparative obscurity but to make an impact on the world that has not been seen before or since. One small baby who came into the world without fanfare or drumroll, his destiny to save mankind. That's quite a lot to lay on a newborn baby boy.

'For unto us a child is born

to us a son is given

and the government will be on his shoulders.

He will be called 

Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.'

Isaiah 9:6 NIV

You gave us your precious Son. Not because we deserved such a visitation but rather because we didn't. He took the weight of the world on his shoulders to put things right between me and you. Mighty God - a tiny baby lying in a stable in a small inconsequential town in the middle of the night two thousand years ago.

God with us. God with Mary two thousand years ago. Shepherds saw angels and came to see the baby. Wise men traveled a long, long way, because they saw something in the sky that compelled them to come and see. Just as then, we can't see anything special at all without you showing it to us. We can't see your glory unless you reveal it to us. Just as people walked past Mary and Joseph's stable on that first Christmas evening, concerned with other things, we so often walk past you, oblivious.

Lord thank you for the amazing generosity of that first Christmas gift. Thankyou that you understood what it would take to draw us back to yourself; that you had to come in person because there was no other way. Thankyou that you reached out to us with such warmth and understanding. You sent your beloved Son as a tiny, defenceless baby. You put a star in the sky as a sign that all Creation was coming together in one place. You spoke to humble shepherds because you were coming among the humble and lowly. You were born in poverty and yet you are the King of kings.

Today the sunrise was spectacular. It was pink and red and orange and yellow and all the colours in between. It was beautiful. I'm told that the sunset was exceptional too, though I missed it. I was helping assemble a basket for Elizabeth's new baby doll which is her favourite present. It has a bottle and a dummy and a little outfit and it sucks its thumb and everything. She is displaying a little maternal streak that I never knew was there... but I digress.

The sunrise. Since it's the middle of winter the crack of dawn wasn't exactly at the crack of dawn, if you see what I mean, so we all assembled outside in the garden in various states of pyjama and dressing gown to watch the wonderful sky. It was a gift from you, Lord, and I didn't miss it this time. The sunset too - you put on a show today; you did something special.

You know that question about celebrating in Heaven? I reckon you did, today, and the sheer extravagant exuberant beauty spilled over so that we could see it from down here.

There aren't sufficient words to say thank you, Father God.

Happy Christmas!

Welcome to the world, baby Jesus. I bet the party in Heaven is going well.

Cheers.