Another year draws to a close. The leaves slip from the trees, the birds which teemed in summer have flown off to warmer climes, the nights are long and frosty. What better time to think of new birth, to look forward in hope to the life which spring brings?
God is at the core of all life, of human life especially. In Genesis 2:7, God takes dust and breathes life into it. God loves and cares for Adam, and provides for all Adam's needs - and Eve's too, for the story of the rib serves to emphasize that she is "flesh of my flesh". Genesis 1:27 portrays mankind, male and female, as the climax of God's creative work, made in God's own image. We all, no matter how we are made, tall or short, young or old, dark or light-skinned, beautiful or (by human standards!) deformed, are God's children.
But like children, we grow up, and in growing up, we go astray. God provides for us, but from the trees in the Garden of Eden, through the manna in the desert, up to the environment around us today, we think we can do better by ourselves. We are made to reflect God's holiness, love and goodness, and we mistreat ourselves and our fellow beings in all manner of ways. War, vandalism, drug abuse are merely the uglier tips of a very large iceberg.
Human history, like the closing year, is in many ways a tale of decline. The same technology which allows some of us to lead lives of comfort can be used to create weapons of mass destruction. Famine, suffering, hardship, poverty, AIDS, crime, the abusive exploitation of people and resources, not one has disappeared. Is this really what God intended for us?
God gave us the ability to grow up, to take responsibility for what we plan and do. God gave us minds and bodies capable of goodness, of love, of holiness. And in Jesus, God gave us the way to follow - or rather, the Way.
The Bible talks of a New Creation - everything has become new (2 Cor 5:17), a new birth (John 3:3), a new covenant, a new relationship between us and God (Heb 12:24, echoing Luke 22:20). This new age was ushered in by the promise to Mary: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." (Luke 1:35) No breathing into dust, but the same breath of the Holy Spirit, in a human pregnancy, a human birth. Yet "the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God."
Paul, who tells us nothing of Bethlehem, tells us this (and I use the Authorized King James Version for the poetry of the words): "The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven." We picture the first man as an adult, blundering his way around a garden he does not really understand. But at Christmas, we picture the second man as a baby, innocent, lovely and holy - with an innocence, a love and a holiness he does not lose.
Human history will continue to be one of decline. That is, until our hearts are touched by the Christ child, until we see ourselves as the holy people God longs for us to be. Only by tracing Christ's footsteps, by following the Way, can we wholeheartedly sing the song of the angels: "Glory to God in the highest, and peace to God's people on earth!"
HD