Benefice-Priest in Charge
Katrina Dykes
MESSAGE FROM KATRINA - DECEMBER 2019
The birth of a baby is both one of the most amazing miracles but also one of the most ordinary and everyday occurrences of life. More babies are born every day than people die – more than twice as many – 250 births every minute!
It is estimated that about 108.2 billion people have been born in the history of the world, including all of us alive today. And yet on the 25th December many of us in this part of the world will celebrate the birth of one particular baby who was born about 2,000 years ago.
There was nothing that special about it. There was nothing particularly remarkable about his family: They were probably quite poor, but then most people were then, as they are now, if we take a global perspective. Just another baby.
Special of course to his mother and father, their firstborn son. In awe like any other parent of his tiny fingers and toes, and crinkled little face. Hearts so full of love, wonder and expectation.
To most of the world he was a nobody. Except curiously, of course, those visiting Magi from distant lands – they seemed to think he was special. And those eccentrics in the temple in Jerusalem – Simeon and Anna. And King Herod, of course, he was terrified of him. Had to wipe out the infant population to Bethlehem trying to get rid of this one baby boy.
So this family fled, looking for asylum in a distant land. Looking for a welcome, work and a home far from family and friends and all they knew.
This little boy grew up in obscurity. So much we don’t know. But nothing unique about that!
I wonder whether in all the glitter and fairy lights, the food and booze, the carols and the presents, we forget how ordinary our God is. A God of the everyday and God for every day.
Some will go to church at Christmas who go at no other time. But it’s for all the other days that this baby came, to share in our little obscure lives, our challenges, our heartaches and disappointments.
God so loved the world he became ordinary. Now that is extra-ordinary!
May God bless you with love and wonder this Christmas time.
