The Christian faith makes a number of incredible claims, though in fact many of those claims are only counted incredible because we consider them in the light of normal physical experience. Many people hearing the Christmas story would consider the claim of a virgin giving birth to be one of the most incredible parts of the tale, though surrogate birth is no longer incredible to us today, and it would be quite possible for a virgin to be the surrogate mother. If God is the architect and creator of all that exists He must be quite capable of arranging a surrogate birth to a virgin if that is necessary for His purposes. It is not the mechanical processes that are the incredible part of Christmas, it is something far more enduring and important for all mankind. In fact the most incredible thing about the Christmas story is the claim that God himself should come to live amongst us, choosing to arrive as a vulnerable baby born to a poor family.

Many things came together at the first Christmas. The angels proclaiming the birth to the shepherds, the wise men travelling from the east, following a particularly notable stellar event. The birth itself. The slaughter of the young children by a particularly vicious ruler, the temporary exile in Egypt, the country out of which God had already brought the Jews. The way in which the old priest Simeon, and the priestess Anna recognised the child as God's special one. Many things pointing to the fact that the child Jesus, was no ordinary baby, and a good number of them foretold by the prophets who had centuries before urged the Jewish people to be diligent in obeying God.

But can the incredible be true, can God really have allowed himself to be put at the mercy of frail human beings? Well that is what Christians believe, it is central our faith, for unless Jesus the Messiah was truly God and also truly human his life here on earth would have been pointless. But incredible as the birth of God as a human baby is there is something even more incredible. He let evil and mistaken men execute him in the most barbaric and humiliating way a person can be killed. It is so incredible that we should be quite in order to throw up our hands in disbelief and rejection of the notion if it were not for the fact that it is true. And if it were not true Christianity would never have had been anything more than the ramblings of a deranged man dismissed as soon as he had died.

Christianity is with us today because of something even more incredible, because a few men who had been around with Jesus during his short time of ministry were changed from being a weak, cowardly frightened rabble, to men who were bold in what they said and did and because something tremendous had happened to them. They had seen this Jesus, who had been executed on a roman cross, alive again. They had received a similar reviving with the spirit of God. And what was their message to mankind? Something that is perhaps the most incredible of all. That God's love for mankind, was so great that He has done the utmost to give men the opportunity of restoring the intimate relationship with Him which had been broken by each person's act of rejection.

We have all rejected God and turned our backs on Him, preferring to go our own way, trying to run things in our own strength and wisdom. We have even told God that His ways are the wrong ways. Yet He still loves us and cares about us, He wants to restore that relationship which will allow us to live in His presence. A relationship that can only be restored if we are willing to throw off all our pride, and rest in God's goodness, to reject every little iota of badness. Such a thing can only happen if we are willing to let God put his spirit in our hearts, and that can only be effective because God's Son, Jesus Christ has, taken upon himself the penalty for our evil and badness.

Enjoy the season of Christmas, with all its festivities, come and sing carols and hear the wonderful words of the coming of God amongst us, but remember what it was all for. Let us recognise our pride and badness and bring them to Jesus so that he can wipe them out and lead us to the presence of the Father of all goodness.

Written - 18th December 2001

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