Christmas Eve - 24th December 2024
Card designed and printed at Malling Abbey
We started Advent with the Christmas card that wasn’t, that had the words ‘You are THE PLACE where God speaks’. I wonder how that thought has been moving in you? It has taken me to the opening of the letter to the Hebrews, which is picked up in one of our Vespers antiphons for Christmas Day:
Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.
[Heb 1:1-2]
Throughout Advent we have been hearing the ‘many and various ways’ by which God spoke through the prophets. They spoke words of judgement on the sins of the people of God but also of a coming saviour who would bring healing and peace. We have been immersed in images of return to the land, to Mount Zion, of fertility in the wilderness and dwelling safe from our enemies in our own homes. These all speak of a time of peace between nations, when there is more than enough for everyone and no need to fight over it. The hope was for a mighty king who would overthrow enemies, destroy the wicked and rule in righteousness and justice. If only… yet if war and violent overthrow of our enemies was going to bring peace then surely that would have happened by now? It always seems to be ‘win this war and then we will live in peace’ but in fact we are locked in a vicious circle of violence that never seems to end.
Now our Advent journey is ending and we approach Christmas. We come to marvel at the Christ child, ‘God with us’. We talk of the vulnerability of the newborn baby, which is true, but what might this baby become? All is yet potential. Mighty warriors and evil tyrants also start out as vulnerable babies. If we are awaiting our mighty saviour, as we worship this child what might our hopes be? I jump ahead to those two on the road to Emmaus, ‘we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel’. The life of this child ended in his execution as a criminal, a threat to the colonial rulers. He was indeed seen as one who might redeem Israel and that had to be thwarted. But as the risen Jesus walks with these two he gradually reveals to them how Moses and the prophets wrote of a Messiah who would have to suffer. Then in the breaking of bread they knew that they were with Jesus who had come to them in a life beyond death.
This was a salvation very different from what they were expecting. It was the inauguration of a spiritual kingdom through the presence of Christ in each one of their hearts. The images of home, land, fertility and Mount Zion were to be read inwardly, not in a literal outward manner. As Martin Laird likes to say, Mount Zion is within us, it is that place of stability in the midst of all the storms of life1. Living from that place of stability, of knowing God’s love in our hearts, gives us the courage to let go of all we cling to and to make space for others. Only from that place can we follow Christ on the path of self-giving love. It is the only way we will break that vicious circle of violence.
Which brings me back to that card – the place where God speaks is within us. We need to clear away the external clutter that stops us simply resting in that place and encountering God’s word. We have been busy preparing for our Christmas celebrations but now is the time to be silent and listen, to listen for the word that is God’s son. It is not the spoken or written words of Moses and the prophets but a presence who is with us in all the mysterious wholeness of personhood. We don’t have to get our theology sorted out first but rather encounter this person in our own hearts through prayer and sacrament. Later the words will come – whether our own or the words of others who give voice to our own experience. But always the words fall short and can never encompass all that the coming of Christ means. We can only surrender to the mystery.
Happy Christmas!
Mother Anne - 24th November 2024
1Martin Laird: ‘Into the Silent Land: The Practice of Contemplation’, ‘A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness, and Contemplation’ and ‘An Ocean of Light: Contemplation, Transformation, and Liberation’