Abstract
Christmas: The Kindness of God
Throughout advent, we have been encouraged to think about darkness. We are surrounded by the acts of evil and sin in the human heart and it has ever been so for all of history. Whilst as humans we are capable of great love, our continuing leaning towards pride, power, and the self is overwhelmingly evident. The strength of Advent as a season in the Church’s year is that there is no liturgical attempt to underestimate the darkness that surrounds us and, indeed, inhabits the human heart. One of my favourite carols “It came upon the midnight clear” encapsulates this with poignant imagery of angels “bending near the earth” and goes on, “above its sad and lonely plains/ they bend on hovering wing”. The carol goes on, “Yet with the woes of sin and strife/ the world has suffered long;/ beneath the angel strain have rolled two thousand years of wrong./ And man at war with man hears not/ the love song that they bring.”
However, in this passage from Titus, after hearing a vivid description of the sad acts of inhumanity, we see one of the most beautiful phrases in scripture: 3:4–5 “But when the kindness and love of God our saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy”. In stark opposition to the complexity and sin of humanity described above, we see the glorious character of God revealed as a purity of purpose in both kindness and love. On that day Jesus was born, God interrupted our lives with a gentle kindness, not a show of strength and cunning. This kindness is surprising and powerful because it is truly genuine and innocent. This interruption in the darkness by the birth of Jesus as a baby is also revolutionary because God shows himself to us primarily in the heart of a gentle and vulnerable human relationship. Furthermore, this also sets the blueprint for the entire life and death of Jesus.
I want to unpack the nature of this kindness to us more:
i) Firstly, it is an act of initiation. This might not at first appear to be a kindness. However, Spurgeon likens the birth of the baby Jesus to God introducing himself to us! He does not wait for us to introduce ourselves to him. Metaphorically speaking, his is the hand that taps us on the shoulder and establishes a connection. Maybe we have all had the experience of being in a party or crowd, knowing that the responsibility will lie upon ourselves to initiate conversations and connections. However, through the birth of Jesus, in that great moment of incarnation—God made flesh—we see God making himself known and accessible to us as a human. It is the beginning of a human encounter—a connection through a shared experience. In short, this is a kindness. Charles Wesley explained the idea of God made flesh as this in one of his hymns “Let Earth and Heaven Combine” where he writes, “Our God contracted to a span,/ Incomprehensibly made Man”.
Establishing a shared form of communication is an act of love. You may remember the storyline of Love Actually, that classic Christmas film, where Colin Firth diligently takes night classes so he can go back to Portugal and declare his feelings to the woman he has fallen in love with. We can often forget that God revealing himself in flesh is an act of kindness to us. He wishes to know us and to be known. God’s intention to be known is at the heart of the incarnation event. Have you ever had the disconcerting experience of waiting to meet one of your idols—whether that be a preacher, writer, or an actor? Then in conversation with them it quickly becomes apparent they have no desire to know or speak to you. In this small microsecond of rejection, every word they have uttered, written or performed is completely devalued. Well today at Christmas, we celebrate the truth that God himself, more famous and significant than any of our idols, completely upholds his character by acting with the greatest integrity towards us. He wants to know us personally and he wants us truly to know him. He proves his love and remains true to his authentically loving character in his reaching out to us in Jesus.
If you haven’t yet listened to the famous speech of Dr. S. M. Lockeridge “That’s my King” (1976) who reels off an impressive array of descriptions of the Saviour Jesus, now would be a good time to do so.
My King is the only one of whom there are no means of measure that can define His limitless love. No far seeing telescope can bring into visibility the coastline of the shore of His supplies. No barriers can hinder Him from pouring out His blessing. He’s enduringly strong. He’s entirely sincere. He’s eternally steadfast. He’s immortally graceful. He’s imperially powerful. He’s impartially merciful. That’s my King. He’s God’s Son. He’s the sinner’s saviour. He’s the centerpiece of civilization. He stands alone in Himself. He’s honest. He’s unique. He’s unparalleled. He’s unprecedented. He’s supreme. He’s pre-eminent.
I am struck by the words, “he is entirely sincere”. All of these adjectives describing Jesus lead us to the genuine character of God acting authentically in our lives. In the birth of Jesus, we have a microscope on the character of God.
ii) Secondly, the initiation and kindness of God reaching out to us in Jesus is also a mercy. He does not abandon us to our blindness and folly but reaches out to us in the midst of it, seeing our profound need. And so, through the Incarnation, God also sets the pattern for how we are to reach out to others who may not invite our presence or reject it. Reaching out with kindness and love into situations of conflict and hatred may be seen as useless or a sign of weakness. Today, however, this method of interaction is at the heart of how God reaches out to the world. I often hear it said that this world is such an unsafe place to bring up a baby. Yet every minute babies are born into a world of sin, hate, and violence. The birth of the Saviour into the midst of violence and poverty is a vivid reminder of how God “risks” himself such is his love for us. God’s love, by its very nature, reaches out with a powerful vulnerability and authenticity that we are called to model.
God reaches out to us in the most tender language of all—a human touch—as a baby. God reveals himself to us in a human relationship initially between mother and son. You may have seen how the new-born baby reaches out and grips fingers with a vice-like grip. So the baby Jesus reaches out to us with the human touch of God! Again, we are shown how God makes himself known and fully accessible to us. This human touch of Jesus that begins with his birth continues throughout his life, with accounts of Jesus touching sinners, the so-called unclean, the sick, and the poor.
iii) Thirdly, the birth of Jesus is a perfect expression of how God the Trinity has been interacting throughout all eternity. God is in very essence “relationship” existing as a community of three persons, giving and mutually loving each other. God relates within himself as “relationship” between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So it is entirely natural and in keeping with God’s character that he reveals who he is through the incarnation—in the heart of a human relationship. The incarnation is a “reaching out” of the Trinity to us. It is a great irony that it is common for people to dismiss the Trinity as a complex and irrelevant doctrine. Yet God’s drive to reach out and “be understood” and known is at the heart of the birth of Jesus, God made flesh.
I love creative writing and I sometimes feel sad that in the attempt to bring thoughts to expression there is a form of death in which the words miss their intention. Yet, at the heart of God is a self-sacrifice—an impulse to be understood and known, even amidst confusion, misunderstanding, and evil. The simultaneous pain and beauty of God interacting in such an imperfect world is captured perfectly in the image of the baby born on Christmas night into the poverty of the stable and to parents who will soon go into exile.
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So, finally, this Christmas we are called to remember that the darkness is indeed thicker than we can imagine. Yet, in the midst of this, we are met by a loving, kind, and authentic God risking and sacrificing himself in order to be known. So will we move out to those around us in the same way, risking ourselves and even risking misunderstanding. Are we ready to be lost in translation, modelling the way of the incarnation?