How do you feel when someone says to you, "I'd like a word with you?" I suppose a lot depends on the tone of voice that the person uses but still it makes you wonder why that person wants to talk to you. You make a time to meet for the following day and for 24 hours you sweat it out, thinking what on earth he/she will have to say.
Does he have good news or bad?
Will he find fault with something you've done?
Will he ask me for a favour that is going to cost me money and effort?
Maybe he wants to give you something - a gift, an invitation to dinner.
May be he wants to talk about a promotion or tell you that you had better find alternative employment.
You have to wait until the appointed time to find out.
Today, on the day when we are all excited about Christmas presents, visiting relatives and friends, the Christmas dinner and everything else that goes with making Christmas Day an enjoyable and festive occasion, God says to us: I want to have a Word with you and me.
What on earth does God want to speak to us about? The Word that God wants to have with us is quite different to what the boss might mean he says, "I want to have a word with you". The Word that God has for you is not the kind of word that you find in the dictionary; not the word that can be translated from one language to another; it is a unique Word, and God is offering it to us now.
I am referring to Jesus Christ, Son of God from eternity. The Gospel writer calls Jesus "The Word". Listen to John's Gospel, "The Word became a human being and lived here with us. From him all the kindness and all the truth of God have come down to us" (1:14). This summarizes what Christmas is all about. It tells us that the Word, Jesus, has chosen to become human.
This may sound ridiculous but it gives us an idea of what it means when we say God became human and made his dwelling among us. Imagine the most powerful and prestigious person in the world, let's say the prime minister of Canada, of his own free-will becomes a mouse – small, insignificant, extremely helpless and vulnerable.
He chooses to become a mouse because he wants to live among all other mice. He leaves his house Sussex Street, and the prestige and honour that go with his office. He becomes a mouse in order to help all other mice. You see, there are mousetraps in kitchens all around the world.
The people who own these kitchens are determined to kill every last mouse. And one after another the mice are killed. The Prime minister shouts at the mice until he is hoarse to warn them of the danger and shoos them away but the smelly cheese on the deadly mousetraps is just too inviting. And so the most powerful man in the world happily becomes a mouse because he loves all mice and wants to do something to save them.
In a similar way all-powerful and eternal God has chosen to plunge himself into the arena of human life as you and I live it, and take on the flesh and bones of our humanity. The Creator of the universe with its countless stars and planets is born in a stable in Bethlehem. As John himself said: From the very beginning the Word (that is, Son of God) was with God. Through him God made all things; … The Word (the Son of God) became a human being and … lived among us.
This is the special time of the year when we celebrate the birth of our Saviour in Bethlehem. We enjoy the story about Mary and Joseph, their trip to Bethlehem, the birth in a stable, the visit of the shepherds and wise-men. We delight in their very simple understanding of the events of Christmas.
However, too often we don't go any further than the simple story. We miss out on the real significance of these events. Christmas is the celebration of God having a word with us, a fact that we can never fully grasp, and living on this earth with all the pain, the suffering, the human tragedies, the sin and dying. Jesus came into the thick of everything.
It's as if he understood what was happening. He was just there, and that communicated something to the patients that they hadn't heard in years - somebody understood them. But then he did something else. He put his arms around them and hugged them.
This doctor with a string of letters after his name, this highly skilled, highly paid physician, who was like God to the patient, who had control over the lives of his patients, held those unattractive, unlovable, sometimes difficult persons, and loved them back into life.
Often, when patients who had been unable to speak said their first words, they were "thank you". In plain and simple language, isn't that what God did through Jesus at Christmas? Jesus has come and lived in our world; he has become part of our life of confused priorities, of aching bodies, torn and bleeding spirits, of heartbreak and loneliness.
Christmas tells us God is not aloof and separate from our world. He is in the world with us. He has come to hug us and hold us tight even though sin makes us unattractive and unlovable. This is what it means for God "to live among us". The cross overshadows the whole Christmas event.
Jesus was born to show us the heart of God. It is a heart that throbs with love for every one of us. Jesus doesn't come with vague, abstract descriptions of love. Jesus is love. He came to bring "peace on earth to those with whom he is well pleased".
He gives himself to us and for us freely – "full of grace and truth" - "full of unfailing love and faithfulness".
He is the only way to God the Father and eternal life. In this baby of Bethlehem, born to Mary and Joseph, we shall see as much of God as we shall ever hope to see in our earthly life. This baby is God in the flesh. Source of "inner peace" true peace for the trouble heart.
God does have a special Word for you and me. This Word is Jesus who came to give his life for us in the shame of the cross, his suffering and dying for the sins of all people. It was for this reason that we have Christmas and continue to celebrate it to this day. The angel made it quite clear to Joseph, "...you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins".
What difference will this Christmas celebration make in our life? Is it just another Christmas here today and gone tomorrow, that is, gone except for the pain of the credit card? I can’t do much about the credit card but I can tell you this – Jesus can make a huge difference to our life when we believe, I think.
Rev. Samuel King-Kabu
January 4, 2004