Everyone is coming to Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph
are coming. And they are here. The animals are coming. The shepherds are coming.
Here they are. The three Kings are coming, although they aren't here yet, not
until Epiphany.
In the stable, the baby is born. He is no longer
inside Mary, but outside. The pain of birth is over, and he is laid in the
manger. He is inside the stable still, though, and all the people and other
creatures, even the evergreen through the snow, gather around the baby. He is in
the middle of them. But how can you tell?
Outside there is a star over the stable, and its
light is reflected on the snow, and you can see perfectly well. But where is the
light inside? You can't have a fire in a stable. Our creche has some new LED
lights. They're really great. You can see everything very clearly. But I don't
think they had LED lights in Bethlehem in the year dot.
O. I know where the light comes from. It comes
from the halo. It comes directly from the halo and the baby seems to glow in
this light. The light within comes from the baby. It glows in the straw
Does the world community know that the light
within comes from the baby? Maybe it suspects sometimes, but I don't think it
knows. Because its a little bit of a scary idea, isn't it, that this is at the
heart of it all. Babies are very vulnerable; and how smart are they? Wah.
On the other hand, babies are very safe, and
attractive. We invest a whole lot of love in them, and this one anyway gives off
a lovely light. And I like the way babies smell, although I don't remember it
too well, since my baby is sixteen now.
We are told that this baby grew up, and became
quite a man, very strong, hugely insightful, deeply compassionate. Still not
scary, apparently, alhough capable of stimulating a certain amount of awe. And,
at the end, still very vulnerable, if you will remember that the wood which
builds mangers and stables builds crosses also.
But there is another sense in which the baby
never grows up. The light within never changes, never dies. This must be true,
because we visit the baby every year. and here he is, glowing in the warm
stable, cows mooing or lowing as I believe you call it, every now and then.
Isn't there something vulnerable within, which
gives off its own light, which we need to come back to again and again? At the
center of community life although you can't have creches on public property any
more. And at the heart of our own lives.
O I hope its true for everyone, or I hope it
will be true for everyone. not just we who gather here on Christmas Eve.
Because all our old tired lives need a birth of new
life. Once a year of course, all the time
actually, whether we are aware of it or not.
Welcome to Bethlehem. Wherever else we go, Let's
stay here for ever.
Amen.
