December 2023
Dear Friends
Some people are missing.
We’ve got a few behind doors all set to tell the travellers that there
are no vacancies. Others, with
tea-towels on their heads and smelling of sheep, are ready to kneel before
their future king. Kings are waiting in
the wings carrying beautifully wrapped, expensive presents. And here comes the foot-sore young man with
his exhausted pregnant wife. But
shouldn’t Herod’s soldiers be here somewhere, brandishing swords with which to
carry out Herod’s terrible massacre of the young boys in Bethlehem?
We understand why children’s nativity plays usually end the story
before the soldiers arrive. But there
are good reasons not to forget that the soldiers are very definitely part of
the story in Matthew’s Gospel.
Secondly, the soldiers remind us that the violence of our
world was directed against Jesus Christ himself. From Herod’s attempt to kill him at birth, to
the Jewish leaders’ later death plots and the Roman authorities’ collusion with
their wishes, Jesus Christ was in the firing line.
In fact, Jesus came into our world knowing full well that
this would happen, that the whole world would oppose him and crush him and that
he would absorb in his own body all the guilt and horrifying consequences of our hostility towards him and
his Father.
Amazingly, Jesus, knowing how we would treat him, still
came.
Wonderfully, death could not hold him, and no human plot could
prevent his enthronement as the invincible sovereign of our world.
“Unto us a boy is born!
King of all creation,
came he to a world forlorn,
the Lord of every nation,
the Lord of every nation.”
You will be warmly welcome at any of our services or family
events, at Christmas or at any other time.
Happy Christmas!
Graham Burrows
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