Holy Cross Church,
Wilcot
Wilcot
What does the Christmas Story tell us about this man Jesus?
Jesus’ birth was accompanied by cosmic events – visions of angels and the appearance of a new star. These have have been signs for believers throughout the centuries since his birth that Jesus is Immanuel – God with us.
His birth was also accompanied by political events – an inspection by the international community, the suggestion of regime change and a tyrant’s bloody suppression of opposition. The Roman census, the visit of the Magi and Herod’s slaughter of the innocents have been signs for Christian believers that Jesus is the King promised by Israel’s prophets in the centuries preceding his birth.
What is perhaps most remarkable is that Jesus’ birth was accompanied by some very ordinary human events – an unmarried mother, a tax return and an encounter with society’s underclass. God’s appearance in the womb of a poor young girl, Mary, the journey to Bethlehem at the order of Caesar and the visit of the shepherds are signs for believers that God with us, the promised King, came to share our humanity and identify himself with the poor, weak and vulnerable.
In Jesus’ birth we see that God’s power to save is not about the overwhelming power of force but the power of love – expressed in the vulnerability of a child.
His birth was also accompanied by political events – an inspection by the international community, the suggestion of regime change and a tyrant’s bloody suppression of opposition. The Roman census, the visit of the Magi and Herod’s slaughter of the innocents have been signs for Christian believers that Jesus is the King promised by Israel’s prophets in the centuries preceding his birth.
What is perhaps most remarkable is that Jesus’ birth was accompanied by some very ordinary human events – an unmarried mother, a tax return and an encounter with society’s underclass. God’s appearance in the womb of a poor young girl, Mary, the journey to Bethlehem at the order of Caesar and the visit of the shepherds are signs for believers that God with us, the promised King, came to share our humanity and identify himself with the poor, weak and vulnerable.
In Jesus’ birth we see that God’s power to save is not about the overwhelming power of force but the power of love – expressed in the vulnerability of a child.
What did Jesus teach His followers?
Jesus was a master story teller. Much of his teaching was in the form of parables – pithy folk tales that communicate profound truths about God and his relationship with humanity.
Jesus’ primary message was about the ‘Kingdom of God’. God’s kingdom turns the world’s values on their head. For the people of his day, material success was the sign of God’s favour, but Jesus taught that it’s not the powerful, rich or even ostentatiously religious who enjoy the blessing of God. It’s the weak, poor and sinners. These are the people who recognise their need of God.
That doesn’t mean he was at odds with the moral teaching of the Old Testament. Instead he saw himself as rescuing its truth from those who had turned what God intended for liberation into a means of oppression. He summed up the Law of Israel in two commandments – love God and love one another.
He lived out his own teaching to the utmost degree. He is, in himself, the fulfillment of his own teaching. In his coming, the kingdom of God comes. Loving God and loving neighbour is revealed in Jesus as meaning being prepared to lose one’s self for the sake of the other. That’s why his teaching remains a powerful challenge, even after 2,000 years.
Jesus’ primary message was about the ‘Kingdom of God’. God’s kingdom turns the world’s values on their head. For the people of his day, material success was the sign of God’s favour, but Jesus taught that it’s not the powerful, rich or even ostentatiously religious who enjoy the blessing of God. It’s the weak, poor and sinners. These are the people who recognise their need of God.
That doesn’t mean he was at odds with the moral teaching of the Old Testament. Instead he saw himself as rescuing its truth from those who had turned what God intended for liberation into a means of oppression. He summed up the Law of Israel in two commandments – love God and love one another.
He lived out his own teaching to the utmost degree. He is, in himself, the fulfillment of his own teaching. In his coming, the kingdom of God comes. Loving God and loving neighbour is revealed in Jesus as meaning being prepared to lose one’s self for the sake of the other. That’s why his teaching remains a powerful challenge, even after 2,000 years.
about Jesus