HOW NOT TO GO TO HELL

Question: "How can I not go to hell?"

Answer: Not going to hell is easier than you think. Some people believe they have to obey the Ten Commandments for their entire lives to not go to hell. Some people believe they must observe certain rites and rituals in order to not go to hell. Some people believe there is no way we can know for sure whether or not we will go to hell. None of these views are correct. The Bible is very clear on how a person can avoid going to hell after death.

The Bible describes hell as a terrifying and horrible place. Hell is described as “eternal fire” (Matthew 25:41), “unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12), “shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2), a place where “the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:44-49), and “everlasting destruction” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). Revelation 20:10 describes hell as a “lake of burning sulfur” where the wicked are “tormented day and night forever and ever.” Obviously, hell is a place we should avoid.

Why does hell even exist, and why does God send some people there? The Bible tells us that God “prepared” hell for the devil and the fallen angels after they rebelled against Him (Matthew 25:41). Those who refuse God’s offer of forgiveness will suffer the same eternal destiny of the devil and the fallen angels. Why is hell necessary? All sin is ultimately against God (Psalm 51:4), and since God is an infinite and eternal being, only an infinite and eternal penalty is sufficient. Hell is the place where God’s holy and righteous demands of justice are carried out. Hell is where God condemns sin and all those who reject Him. The Bible makes it clear that we have all sinned (Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 3:10-23), so, as a result, we all deserve to go to hell.

So, how can we not go to hell? Since only an infinite and eternal penalty is sufficient, an infinite and eternal price must be paid. God became a human being in the Person of Jesus Christ (John 1:1, 14). In Jesus Christ, God lived among us, taught us, and healed us—but those things were not His ultimate mission. God became a human being so that He could die for us. Jesus, God in human form, died on the cross. As God, His death was infinite and eternal in value, paying the full price for sin (1 John 2:2). God invites us to receive Jesus Christ as Savior, accepting His death as the full and just payment for our sins. God promises that anyone who believes in Jesus (John 3:16), trusting Him alone as the Savior (John 14:6), will be saved, i.e., not go to hell.

God does not want anyone to go to hell (2 Peter 3:9). That is why God made the ultimate, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice on our behalf. If you want to not go to hell, receive Jesus as your Savior. It is as simple as that. Tell God that you recognize that you are a sinner and that you deserve to go to hell. Declare to God that you are trusting in Jesus Christ as your Savior. Thank God for providing for your salvation and deliverance from hell. Simple faith, trusting in Jesus Christ as the Savior, is how you can avoid going to hell!

Have you made a decision for Christ because of what you have read here? If so, please click on the "I have accepted Christ today" button below.

THOMAS AQUINAS

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

Feast:  28th. January

                                                                                             

Destiny carved in stone

Thomas Aquinas was a scion of a martial family with royal connections. His great uncle was the bearded terror Barbarossa. His second cousin was the brutal Emperor Frederick II of Germany, the infamous “Wonder of the World.”  His family was related to Emperor Henry VI and to the kings of Aragon, Castille, and France, as well as to a good half of the ruling houses of Europe. His own father rode in shining armour behind imperial banners and stormed the Benedictine monastery of Mount Cassino because the Emperor regarded it as a fortress of his enemy, the Pope. At his birth, therefore, this seventh and last son born to Landulf and his wife, the Countess Theodora of Teano, inherited the clear and irreplaceable obligation to take his place in the world and bring added lustre to his family’s already glorious name.  His destiny was carved in stone. Or so it seemed.

When he calmly announced his intention to join a newly formed order of preachers and don the garb of a friar  -  a beggar, in fact  -  his family was astonished and horrified.  It was as if Napoleon had insisted on remaining a private soldier for the duration of his military career.  Anticipating the worst from his family, Thomas set out on foot to leave Rome and to escape to Paris. He was accompanied by the master general of the order and three other friars.  Learning of his escape, his mother despatched a message to two of her sons who were soldiers in the army of Frederick II.  She ordered them to kidnap her fugitive offspring.  The brothers did as they were commanded, forcibly apprehended the black sheep of their clan, and imprisoned him in the fortress of Monte San Giovanni, near his birthplace in Roccasecca.

During his 18 month imprisonment, every means, fair and foul, was used to shake him from his resolve to become a Dominican preacher.  Members of his family took turns in resorting to a wide assortment of strategies:  stick and carrot, flattery and threats, deprivation of food and books.  His eldest sister, Marotta, who was sent to convert him, was herself converted by him and joined the order of St. Benedict. 

The family’s patience must have been at the point of exhaustion, when his brother Raynaldo adopted a more forthright and devilish plan of luring him from his purpose.  Raynaldo was an upright and honourable man in the eyes of the world, but he lived and thought in accordance with the world.  So what did he do ?  He quietly introduced into the room where Thomas was sleeping a woman; a woman who has been described as a “courtesan of the most exclusive sort, a pretty young girl with all the charms of a temptress.”

Lion resolve

The young Thomas Aquinas was a full-blooded man of about 19 years of age. He was a strong and healthy individual of impressive stature.  He had learned, along with his brothers, how to mount and ride a horse and to execute the manly arts of sword and lance expected of a man of nobility growing up in 13th. century Italy.  His long period of confinement and deprivation must have left him vulnerable to enticements of the flesh.  So what did Thomas do ?  Upon seeing the woman and immediately sizing up her purpose, he grabbed hold of a flaming firebrand and, roaring like a lion, chased her out of his cell.  He  slammed the door shut and traced the sign of the cross on it with the brand.  He returned and dropped the firebrand again into the fire; and sat down on that seat of sedentary scholarship, that chair of philosophy, that secret throne of contemplation, from which he never rose again.

His family may have been convinced that their prisoner was incorrigible. They may have feared the wrath of Pope Innocent IV, who, by that time, had been alerted to the travesty that was taking place. Or his mother may have experienced a change of heart.  For whatever reason, he was permitted to escape. He was lowered in a huge basket and received into the arms of joyful Dominicans. In the company of his fellow friars, he then set out for Paris, arriving without further interruption.

Dumb ox, indeed !

His noble and military lineage could not have predicted his career as a white knight of God, a staunch champion of the spirit in its war against the flesh. Before he was born, however, a holy hermit foretold his career to Theodora, his mother, in these words: “He will enter the order of Friars Preachers, and so great will be his learning and sanctity that in his days no one will be found to equal him.”  Another prophecy came from his professor, St. Albert the Great.  Since Thomas as student never opened his mouth in the classroom, his fellow students called him the “dumb ox.” But his professor had the last word: “Dumb ox, indeed !  There will come a time when this ox’s bellowing will be heard all over the world.”  It turned out to be true, and his books and commentaries are still with us today.  In those days that couldn’t boast of computers, Thomas Aquinas could dictate three separate treatises to three secretaries simultaneously. Towards the end of his life, in his late forties, he confided to his faithful friend and companion, Reginald of Piperno, the secret of a remarkable gift that he received which enabled him to do his work without experiencing the slightest disturbance of the flesh.  Had he succumbed to that woman’s enticement, he may, besides breaking a commandment, very well have forfeited the serenity he needed in order to achieve the status of pre-eminence as a philosopher and theologian.  After he had driven that temptress from his chamber, he earnestly implored God to grant him integrity of mind and body. His prayer was answered, and the gifts bestowed upon him were made apparent to those who call him the “Angelic Doctor.”

On Jesus, the mystic

Aquinas and, till mid-20^th. century, his followers maintained that Jesus of Nazareth enjoyed the beatific vision all through his life, on the strength of St. John’s gospel, “No one has even seen God; it is the only Son nearest to the Father’s bosom who has made  him known” (1,18); “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the one who has come from God; he has seen the Father” (6,46); “I am telling you what I have seen and heard from my Father” (8,38). The Jesus of John’s gospel is the mystic of mystics. Sadly, few Christian thinkers agree with this teaching of Aquinas, their contention being that Jesus’ humanity and temptation could not gel with the beatifying vision of God. However, it seems that these modern thinkers fail to perceive that the vision of God, far from making Jesus less human, made him the most human of humans. In fact, the beatific light brought him no consolation, but rather made his suffering more acute by confronting the horrific contradiction of darkness and sin. Only the true mystics understand Gethsemane, the dark contemplation bereft of happiness. The vast majority of 20^th. century scripture scholars were not mystics. Influenced by the Enlightenment (read paganism), they knew little about mystical experience. The future of theology is in Asia, particularly India and Tibet, where Western theologians will hopefully recover the original insight of Aquinas that the man Jesus was a highly enlightened mystic who saw God.

Poet of the Eucharist

Apart from being a great and popular preacher, Aquinas’ intellectual contribution was immense. It involved an unprecedented synthesis between philosophy and theology, pagan thought and Christian faith, and the input of antiquity and the insights of the contemporary world. His love for his Eucharistic Lord urged him to compose in Latin the most beautiful hymns to the Blessed Sacrament ever known. They are here still with us, still savoured and sung:  “Panis Angelicus”, “Lauda Sion Salvatorem”, and that most touching, “Adoro Te devote”. The first verse goes like this:

O Godhead hid, devoutly I adore thee

Who truly art within the forms before me

To thee my heart I bow with bended knee

As failing quite in contemplating thee

And the last verse  like this:

Jesus, whom the present veiled I see

What I so thirst for, oh vouchsafe to me

That I may see thy countenance unfolding

And may be blessed thy glory in beholding.

One day Aquinas was surprised by a voice coming from the crucifix asking him:

“You have written well of me, Thomas. What recompense do you desire ?”

And Thomas answered with those three Latin words that form the crest on his books:   “NON NISI TE,”  which means, “Except for you, I desire nothing.”

In 1274 good St. Thomas was setting out from Naples for the Council of Lyon, but he contracted gastro-enteritis to which he succumbed on 7th. March at the Cistercian Abbey of Fossa Nuova.  He failed to make it to the Council; but no failure counts in honour for one who dies in the Lord.

PRAYER OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS:

Grant me grace, O merciful God,

To desire ardently all that is pleasing to thee,

to examine it prudently,

to acknowledge it truthfully,

and to accomplish it perfectly,

for the praise and glory of thy name.

                                                                                   

THAT FAMILY FROM NO-GOOD NAZARETH

 That Family from no-good Nazareth 

Luke 2, 41…”The parents of Jesus went to Jerusalem for the feast, taking the Child Jesus with them. And the Child was missing.”

This incident allows us to understand that the Holy Family had to face pressures similar

to what families face today. The Holy Family of Nazareth was not a piece of poetry or a lovely painting. The first Christmas stable was crawling with dangerous vermin and choking with the reek of animal dung. No hot running water. Imagine the cold drafts cutting into the baby Jesus. Soon after his birth, the family was under sentence of death and had to flee as refugees.

It is a given fact today that family life is a most difficult project. Apart from economics and housing, one thinks immediately of divorce and broken homes, the scourge of alcohol and narcotics, the breakdown of discipline, and the rest of the unhappy lot.

Yet God comes within the chaos, within the discord, the failures, and he sits with us in all the lumpy, wrinkly, pimply, sweaty bodies that we feast and fight with.

To strive for a better world, for a better family where every child finds welcome and shelter  -  that is our gift to the world. Christian families should and can become shining beacons of real humanity, places where children are taught faith and values and receive real warmth and support. In a fast-food society dominated by the social control of TV, mobile phones and the internet (call it Facebook or Twitter), it is becoming increasingly difficult to bring parents and children together in a community of shared values and, to be practical, common meals. Through grace at table, other family prayers and prayers by the beside parents effectively pass on faith and values to their children. Little boys and girls are deeply touched when they notice how their parents have a relationship with Jesus, talk with him and do not merely go through a formal ritual. Children not only naturally believe what their parents and teachers tell them; they are born believers, and need little to grow into a life of faith if there is no gap between what they are told and what is lived. Children, until adults corrupt them, sense that men and women cannot be defined by what they have. Like everyone else, children and the young need to be and to grow as human beings.

 St. Luke makes a very insightful statement that Jesus grew to maturity and was filled with wisdom. As “true man” Jesus shares in the human process of “growing up” to maturity. He is not pre-programmed as the Son of God, nor a puppet dangling on the strings of the divine puppeteer. But like anyone of us he had to grow up into maturity and to seek wisdom. For this his mother and foster-father could not hold him back in their warm embrace, but had to give him the freedom to be himself and to become all that he was meant to be, even to break away from the family in order to be busy with his heavenly Father’s affairs.

For the family really to be a school of life, this hard lesson has to be taken aboard. It is understandable that Christian parents are afraid of the perils and temptations that surround their young. And in all honesty these perils are real enough. But holding their children back from the rough and tumble of life will reduce them to some infantile state, unable to face the competitive world. So there has to be a healthy tension of framework and flexibility. As we look to the Holy Family we have to learn from Mary and Joseph that love means so firm a trust in God and one another as to maintain the balance between discipline and freedom.

People, especially children, do not become good by being told to; they must be charmed into goodness, which, like love is not taught but caught. The environment in which we have been raised and in which we raise our children is essential to our formation and development. A family is a very human environment; in fact, the first a child is introduced to: the joy, the pain, the drama and the ordinary events of our lives are lived within its confines. God chose to mould and form his Son within the environment and culture of a family. He hasn’t broken the mould since, and thrown it away, because in his mind the family continues to be the place of holiness, love and emotional sustenance. 

The Holy Family of Nazareth tells us that in God the family is not extinct.

The obvious truth is that parents cannot but influence their children. It is preposterous and contrary to common sense to affirm that they cannot. It is from one’s parents that one learns the difference between right and wrong, why we should treat other people with respect and what life is or is not all about. I (Clifford Longley) acquired my taste for music from my father, my interest in social justice, my sense of duty, and my views on religion. It was only when I tested them in my heart and against experience, after leaving home, that I decided  “to choose for myself” and became a Catholic. I think that my father felt that he had failed, although I kept hold of the rest of the package as best I could.

But the idea that one could raise a child to be genuinely neutral on the question of religion, simply waiting to make up their own mind once they grow up, is palpably absurd. There is no such thing as value-free parenting.

Faith, as Pope Benedict has said, has to allow itself to be continuously interrogated by reason. Atheists’ minds are closed. It is as if they cannot bear the thought of their reason being interrogated by faith. As mine was, and faith broke through. Is this the possibility that really scares them?

RENDER UNTO CAESAR, RENDER UNTO GOD

“Render unto Caesar, render unto God”

                                                     

          Before making his pronouncement, Jesus asked for a denarius, the coin with which the tribute was paid. This was minted silver in Rome with the image and inscription of the reigning emperor on it. The issuing authority was Caesar, carrying its claim over its users.

But Jesus had to remind them that anterior to Caesar’s claim, was that of Yahweh who had inscribed his image on the very heart of his people. “I shall be your God and you will be my people.”  We need to understand here that at the time of Jesus the Jewish world-view was essentially religious and did not separate the religious from the political as we do today. Jesus reminded them that while Caesar’s claim over them was colonial, God’s claim was covenantal. Jesus’ punch-line, “Render to Caesar…render to God”, did not mean that there are some things which belong to Caesar and others which belong to God, as if reality were divisible into “secular” and “sacred.” What he meant was that any obligation to Caesar stands under and is judged by a paramount obligation: to acknowledge the sovereignty of the supreme Sovereign. In practice, the people in Jesus’ time acknowledged and accepted the benefits of the Roman government of which the denarius was a symbol. Jesus himself conversed freely with the centurion and the Roman builder of the synagogue. Hence, it was permissible, indeed a duty, to pay their tribute as long as this did not encroach on what they owed to the overriding authority of God.   Even though Jesus here did not give a straight answer, he went to the heart of the matter and gave a response that has helped Christians to sort out their priorities ever since. Notice that Jesus was not saying that resistance to authority was never permissible; much less was he saying that there are areas in life where the emperor’s writ runs and God’s does not. Doing one’s duties to the state authorities is not a denial of one’s duties towards God. One’s duty to the state is, in fact, swept up into and obtains its meaning from one’s transcendent tribute to God. Duty to the state and duty to God, though qualitatively different, condition one another, like love of God and love of neighbour.

Those people handed Jesus a denarius bearing the image of Caesar, little knowing that they had surrendered all politico-economic power into the supreme authority of the Lord of nations, Jesus Christ.

          The words of the Gospel have, as it were, their own life, traipsing across the centuries and the myriad cultures of man, conveying the eternal values of the obedience and the self-sacrificing love of the Eternal Man from Nazareth.         What we should not fail to recognise is that those whom we elect do have claims on us, and we owe them their proper measure of allegiance and respect, not least by providing the conditions for the proper implementation of law and order. The responsible exercise of that right is our duty, too. As for our duty to God, that remains unchanged and paramount.  That is not a matter of a democratic election. His claim upon us is still that of the unconditional self-surrender of Jesus Christ.

There are two ways of overcoming our limitation: by domination or by dialogue. The choice is ours. God chose the way of dialogue by the Covenant, finally fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

From then on all money and market economies will be judged by the critique of the Cross of Jesus, namely, surrender to God and service of the neighbour.

The world has cut its moorings from the rule of God and is drifting into the mad rush for money and hedonism, which explains the rising spiral of suicides and crimes. This includes the depredations on the ecology, forcing us to ask the question, “What kind of world are we leaving our children and grandchildren?”

BEATITUDES

Analysis of the Beatitudes

What are these inward qualities Jesus spoke of and what do they mean? What are the promised rewards?

Of course, many different interpretations and deep teachings have been set forth through the principles conveyed in the beatitudes. Each one is a proverb-like saying packed with meaning and worthy of thorough study. Still most Bible scholars would agree that the beatitudes give us a clear picture of the true disciple of God.

For a basic understanding of the meaning of the beatitudes, this simple sketch is meant to help you get started:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

With this phrase, "poor in spirit," most likely Jesus was speaking of our spiritual condition of poverty—the recognition of our need for God. "The kingdom of heaven" refers to people who acknowledge God as their King.

Paraphrase: "Blessed are those who humbly recognize their need for God, for they will enter into his kingdom."

Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.

"Those who mourn" speaks of those who express deep sorrow over sin, or those who repent from their sins.

The freedom found in the forgiveness of sins and the joy of eternal salvation is the "comfort" of those who repent.

Paraphrase: "Blessed are those who mourn for their sins, for they shall receive forgiveness and life eternal."

Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.

Similar to "the poor," "the meek" are those who submit to God's authority, making him Lord. Revelation 21:7 says God's children will "inherit all things."

Paraphrase: "Blessed are those who submit to God as Lord, for they will be heirs to everything God possesses."

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.

"Hunger and thirst" speaks of a deep need and a driving passion. This "righteousness" refers to the Lord, Jesus Christ, our righteousness. To "be filled" is the satisfaction of the soul's desire.

Paraphrase: "Blessed are those who passionately long for the Lord, Jesus Christ, for he will satisfy their souls."

Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.

Simply put, we reap what we sow. Those who demonstrate mercy will receive mercy. Likewise, those who know great mercy will show great mercy. This mercy is shown through forgiveness and also by offering kindness and compassion toward others.

Paraphrase: "Blessed are those who show mercy through forgiveness, kindness and compassion, for they will receive mercy."

Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.

The "pure in heart" are those who have been cleansed from within. This is not talking about outward righteousness seen by men, but inward holiness that only God can see. The Bible says in Hebrews 12:14 that without holiness, no man will see God.

Paraphrase: "Blessed are those who have been purified from the inside out, being made clean and holy, for they will see God."

Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.

The Bible says we have peace with God through Jesus Christ. Reconciliation through Jesus Christ brings restored fellowship (peace) with God. 2 Corinthians 5:19-20 says God entrusts us with this same message of reconciliation to take to others.

Paraphrase: "Blessed are those who have been reconciled to God through Jesus Christ and who bring this same message of reconciliation to others. All those who have peace with God are called his sons."

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Just as Jesus faced persecution, so he promised his followers persecution. Those who endure because of their faith rather than hiding their righteousness to avoid persecution are genuine followers of Christ.

Paraphrase: "Blessed are those daring enough to openly live for righteousness and suffer persecution, for they will receive the kingdom of heaven."

Could a Myth Alter History?

The argument against Jesus’ existence, known as the Christ-myth theory, began seventeen centuries after Jesus is said to have walked the rocky hills of Judea.

An important distinction between a myth and a real person is how the figure impacts history. For example, the Olympic Games originated on Mount Olympus in Greece, home of the temple of the Greek god Zeus. But Zeus has not changed governments, laws, or ethics.

The historian Thomas Carlyle said, “No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.”¹ As Carlyle notes, it is real people, not myths, who impact history.

As a real person, Alexander the Great impacted history by his military conquests, altering nations, governments, and laws. But what of Jesus Christ and his impact on our world?

The first-century governments of Israel and Rome were largely untouched by Jesus’ life. The average Roman didn’t know he existed until many years after his death; Roman culture remained largely aloof from his teaching for decades. It would be several centuries before killing Christians in the coliseum became a national pastime. The rest of the world had little, if any, knowledge of him. Jesus marshaled no army. He didn’t write a book or change any laws. The Jewish leaders hoped to wipe out any memory of him, and it appeared they would succeed.

Today, however, ancient Rome lies in ruins. Caesar’s mighty legions and the pomp of Roman imperial power have faded into oblivion. Yet how is Jesus remembered today? What is his enduring influence?

• More books have been written about Jesus than about any other person in history.

• Nations have used his words as the bedrock of their governments. According to secular historian Will Durant, “The triumph of Christ was the beginning of democracy.”²

• His Sermon on the Mount established a new paradigm in ethics and morals.

• Schools, hospitals, and humanitarian works have been founded in his name. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Oxford are but a few universities that have Christians to thank for their beginning.

• The elevated role of women in Western culture traces its roots back to Jesus. (Women in Jesus’ day were considered inferior and virtual non persons until his teaching was followed.)

• Slavery was abolished in Britain and America due to Jesus’ teaching that each human life is valuable.

• Former drug and alcohol dependents, prostitutes, and others seeking purpose in life claim him as the explanation for their changed lives.

• Two billion people call themselves Christians. While some are Christian in name only, others continue to impact our culture by teaching Jesus’ principles that all life is valuable and we are to love one another.

“Regardless of what anyone may personally think or believe about him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture for almost twenty centuries….”

– Jaroslav Pelikan, Yale historian

Remarkably, Jesus made all of this impact as a result of just a three-year period of public ministry. If Jesus didn’t exist, one must wonder how a myth could so alter history. When world historian H. G. Wells was asked who has left the greatest legacy on history, he replied, “By this test Jesus stands first.”³

THE SONG AND THE STORY

THE SONG AND THE STORY

            No child born into a family has had or will ever have so many songs sung on its birthday as the infant Jesus. Every nation, community and culture has a song for him: the Christmas song. The songs of Christmas always make for joyful singing. They are sung not only as the lilting expression of interior gladness at the birth of the Saviour, but also as a way of radiating the spirit of good cheer, springing from the heart that wishes well to all. The happy acclamation of “Joy to the World”, the sweet sublimity of  “Silent Night”, the placid depth of “While Shepherds watched…”, the tinkling gentleness of “Sweet Chiming Bells”, and the haunting echo of “O Holy Night”, all mark the season with their message that there yet is hope for the age of peace, as foretold in the Scriptures. The songs of Christmas, with their simple words and catchy melodies, sound best when sung with voices rising from childlike hearts, no matter the age of the singer. For if the Saviour could be a child, why not the one who sings about him?  The songs of Christmas have a flavour that the passing years cannot erase. They and their flavour, like a sweet contagion, cannot be taught, only caught !  For what is sung with the lips sinks gently inwards to expand and gild the heart for the descent of the Eternal Wonder, named Emmanuel.  The songs keep alive the story, and the story gives substance to the songs, for without the story the songs would ring hollow.

            “Once upon a time.” That’s how it began. Our faith did not come to us initially as theology, but as story. “Tell me about God.” “Well, once a time, there was a beautiful garden, and in the middle of the garden there was a tree. A man and a woman lived in that garden. The owner of the garden was very friendly with them and allowed them to eat any fruit except from the tree in the centre of the garden.  And you know what they did ?”   “Tell me about Jesus.”  “Once upon a time there lived a boy in a little town of Palestine called Nazareth. His mother’s name was Mary.”  “Tell me about salvation.”  “Well, when the boy grew up, he loved people so much that the rulers began to get frightened of him. And you know what they did ?”

            Think of what it would be like if there were no Christmas story, and no one to tell it. How it began with that childless old couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth, marvellously conceiving and bearing a son, named John, who would herald the long awaited Messiah. We would miss the sense of hope in God’s goodness, in spite of appearances, which this story arouses. No one would hear of the angel’s announcement to the maid of Nazareth, the hush of the universe, sweetly punctuated by the twittering of birds, as it held its breath for an answer, and the sigh of relief when it heard her say, “I am the handmaid of the Lord…” Who would tell us the story of the Virgin Mary and Joseph who went to be enrolled in the great census, little knowing that the One in the womb would in turn enrol the whole world to himself ? Who would tell us of the Infant King on the manger throne, swathed in circumstances of utter poverty, his royal chamber a stable, his canopy the loose spread cobwebs, the reek of the beasts the incense, his courtiers two homeless human beings, and his first subjects the rough and ready shepherds ? We would not hear the story of the Child in the Temple, the carpenter’s son of Nazareth, his kindness, his strength and honesty, his single-hearted devotion to God’s kingdom and God’s people. But for the story, we would never know that the desire of the everlasting hills and the hope of ages has appeared and has surpassed all expectations. We would not know that our death has lost its sting and been swept up into the vibrant joy of the Resurrection. We might have experiences of our hearts burning within us when we meet a stranger and would not know what to make of it, were it not for the Emmaus story.

            We must recover the story, if we are to recover the faith for our day. Each of us has their story. Alongside them is the Christian story, the stories of the heroes and heroines of the faith. Could the pair of stories impact upon one another ?  Sometimes we hear another person’s story in biography, fiction or a movie, and we say, “Ah, that’s my story, too.” In hearing the story of Abraham Lincoln, Jane Adams, Frodo Baggins, of Abraham of Ur, or Deborrah or Ruth or Jesus or Peter and Paul, we say, “That’s my story too. In hearing about them, I’m learning about myself.” We are discovering that the Bible stories are not just what happened “way back then,”  but our own story as well, firmly planted in “the here and now.” In losing the story, we lose the power and the beauty in the very midst of oppression. A very simple Christmas carol invites “all poor folk and humble” to come to the Bethlehem stable. They are “not to feel afraid, for Jesus our treasure, with love past all measure, in lowly poor manger was laid.”  Poor, humble folk, crude surroundings, makeshift cribs, child of poor and oppressed people. There is the oppression side of it laid out clearly. But as the carol continues, and the poor present their gifts, there is an unexpected line: “…and Jesus in beauty, accepted their duty.” This is the beauty side of it laid out equally. The Christmas story will never be lost !

            We need people to tell us the story of Jesus and of their experiences of him to help us make sense of our own, to feed our imagination, give body to our songs, and warm our hearts for God and his peace. “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger of good news, who proclaims salvation and says to Zion, ‘Your God is king’” (Isaiah 52.7). Without the story’s power and the teller’s feeling, we would be sadly locked in a stuffy Noah’s ark, looking out on to a bleak world. But once we have the story and are warmed by it, we become storytellers ourselves, each one becoming a piece of the Good News for those we meet. We can be hearty tellers without being compulsive, and tell an important tale without self-importance; because, after all, we are children, commuting between singsong and prose, one sliding into the other  -  the story and the song.

            And what shall we sing and tell about ? About the helpless Child among the helpless, about dispossessed infinity, naked and cold, that we may give him the universe for the stable, and for his manger our hearts and their warmth. We want to listen to him and hear that nothing greater he puts before us to achieve than that we love him, love one another for him, and bear him faithful witness always. But today let there be only the story and the song, and leave out the large talk about this “omniscient, omnipresent and immutable” God.  We have the Baby, and there is no need yet to twist ourselves into intellectual knots, figuring how to squeeze the “divine attributes” into him. After all, when babies are born, we don’t force an identity on them; we let them tell us who they are as their lives gradually unfold and their personalities, dreams and goals take shape.

Today, we have the Baby !

C H R I S T M A S