While some may have already discarded their Christmas trees on the streets around our parish, we very much continue our Christmas journey! This Tuesday (Jan 6th) we celebrate the 12th day of Christmas with the coming of the 3 Wise Men to the Bethlehem stable on the feast of the Epiphany. Even before the baby Jesus is able to speak his first word, he has already communicated so much about his life’s mission – born into poverty and humility, his earthly parents rooted in faithful obedience to God, his first visitors – the poor and marginalised shepherds, and then the non-Jewish Wise Men. The name ‘Jesus’ means ‘the one who saves’ and the baby Jesus shows that he will be a Saviour for all people, rich and poor, Jew and non-Jew – for all who choose to follow the Father.

But today, on this 2nd Sunday of Christmas, we are invited (for the 3rd time this Christmas!) to reflect on a very different telling of the Bethlehem story as found at the beginning of John’s Gospel. John is writing as an old man, perhaps 100 years after Jesus’ birth, so he writes from a very different perspective from what we find in Matthew/Luke. No angels, shepherds, stable. No mention even of Bethlehem! Instead, John stands back and sees what happened in that stable as part of a much larger, more cosmic story which he traces back all the way to the story of Creation in Genesis. On each of those 6 days the power to create is in a word of God. On each day ‘God said’ and new life sprang forth from his command. John presents Christmas as the beginning of the new creation and shows this by opening his Gospel with the same words as we find in Genesis – ‘In the beginning…’. That creative Word of God has now taken on human flesh!! This new creation calls us to a higher level of life, nothing less than a sharing in God’s own divine life! So Christmas is a celebration of birth – yes, Jesus’s birth – but also our own birth as children of God, chosen to share in divine life! Wow! So, this New Year what grace can we ask of God to help us reach a higher level of faith…

New Year blessings & prayers, Fr Richard, Fr Ephrem & all the parish team
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