00:00 This year, the skies of Bethlehem are full of fear rather than angels and glory. Ukraine
00:18 hears the wails of the sirens. Sudan and South Sudan ring with warning and terror. Around
00:28 the world we are beset with violence. The skies that rang with the angels on that first
00:36 Christmas also heard the cries of despair, pain and suffering. And what is God's answer?
00:48 The cries of a newborn. Far below wing-born angels, wandering shepherds, wandering magi,
01:00 lies a child. And today a crying child is in a manger somewhere in the world. Nobody
01:11 willing or able to help his parents or her parents, who so desperately need shelter.
01:20 Or perhaps lying in an incubator in a hospital low on electricity, like the Anglican Al-Aqri
01:27 Hospital in Gaza, surrounded by suffering and death. Or maybe the newborn lies in a
01:37 house that still bears the marks of the horrors of October the 7th, with family members killed
01:46 and a mother who counted her life as lost. Or maybe they're not a newborn, but someone
01:57 thinking of next term. Having again to hide their Jewishness on their way to school in
02:04 this country, or a playgroup in our own cities, fearful of the age-old sin, the atrocious
02:15 sin of anti-Semitism. And when we look at the news, when we read, do we say to ourselves,
02:24 "Is the Christmas story a wonderful dream, a beautiful illusion?" Or is it, in fact,
02:36 God's sovereign plan and purpose? Is it a reality to be lived now, daily, in our experience?
02:49 Like an inconspicuous signpost, overgrown by the verges of a country road, so easily
02:56 missed, ignored, untrusted, that child of Bethlehem 2,000 years ago points to a different
03:05 world for each of us and for our world. Such was that child's impact that 2,000 years
03:17 later in our culture it seems natural and right for a king in royal robes to answer
03:24 a child, "I come not to be served, but to serve." And we know that that is the right
03:33 way to be a king. From Joseph in Egypt to Jesus in Bethlehem, to Charles of Westminster
03:41 Abbey, great leadership is seen in serving not being served, in self-emptying not seeking
03:50 power. In serving not being served, we resolve the problems of climate, the threats and realities
04:00 of war, the malevolence of terrorism, the injustice of economic inequality, anti-Semitism,
04:07 Islamophobia, racism, whatever else is dissolved in the sweet scent of those who serve.
04:25 Jesus Christ challenges a power and wealth obsessed world where strength is always met
04:33 by other strengths, read in tooth and claw. The baby's cry is God's voice saying there
04:42 is another way, seek to serve not to be served.
04:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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