"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us." Matt 1.23
And a reading from one of my Christmas presents from many years ago – from Winnie the Pooh:
“Pooh”, said Piglet taking his paw.Humans, like piglets, are social animals. We need the sense that someone is ‘there’. We are, for all of our lives, in some way dependent on others.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just checking that you were there…” (The House at Pooh Corner)
God himself is a social being: Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the mystical, eternal intimacy of the Trinity.
Then in his incarnation which we celebrate this Christmas night, God became a tiny dependent baby, mewling for his mother’s milk and subject to Mary and Joseph. The boy Jesus needed them to be there.
As a grown man too he needed companionship and had many friends: men, women and children.
He had an inner circle of close friends: James and John, and Peter - there with Jesus for the transfiguration; there in the Garden of Gethsemane - Jesus wanted them with him in his most agonising hour of decision. He goes off to pray, but keeps returning: “just checking that you are there”.
And they were there at his crucifixion: his best friend John, and his mother Mary, who had bought him into the world in that stable in Bethlehem – (Rood Screen) there are John and Mary, at the foot of his cross as they are in churches throughout the world.
So now, physically, he is with us no more. No hand to hold. No Lion to hug.
But there is an even profounder reality of God’s continuing companionship.
For Mary has conceived and born a son, and his name is Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.
He is with us because he shared our joys and sorrows, he can empathise with us in all that we go through. He is not distant and unmoved, but he is with us in all the richness and vagaries of our lives.
Then he has taught us that all humans are made in his image, and are to be loved and cared for. So all our kinships and friendships are part of God’s being with us.
We cannot hug God, but we can hold the hand of a friend, to check that they are there. And in our turn we can sit with friends and strangers, and by our physical presence assure them that God is with them.
But companions leave us and Christmas is always a reminder, especially as we get older, of the empty seats around the table.
At the end of Matthew’s gospel, the disciples are filled with foreboding as they realise that Christ is leaving them, from the manger to the skies. So the end of Matthew’s Gospel re-echos the beginning: he reassures them in his words of parting: “I am with you always, to the end of the age”. (Matt 28.20)
Here is an even deeper spiritual mystery. For it has been the experience of Christians through the ages, that by God’s Holy Spirit, they sense the loving presence of God; Emmanuel; he’s there.
It’s of course very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that. Loving our partners and friends is very subjective, but nonetheless real for being that.
Last weekend I was in Stockholm with my good friends Stefan and Helena and their little boy Eynar. We were in a flat he’d never been in before and at one point his parents left the room with our host. He looked at me, said something in Swedish, then remembered I was that poor simple man who didn’t understand anything. So he came over, put his thumb in his mouth, and held my hand. Just checking I was there.
"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us."
I hope you have a very happy Christmas, and a deepening sense in your life of the continual and reassuring presence of God.
