The Christmas story is a Jewish story. When the writers of the Bible put pen to paper, they were writing the most recent chapter in the story of their people, the Jewish people, a people who knew better than ever to try to put God in a box. The Jews were both funny and rude about the religions of their neighbors who did just that by worshipping idols.

These writers know that God is too big to be put in a box. They know that he is too big, too mysterious, too holy adequately to be described. How surprised they must have been to find themselves recording the strange story of Jesus’ birth, how amazed to find themselves lovingly describing how God came to be in a box -- a box full of straw, a feeding trough for cattle, a manger. Their own joy and wonder shines through their descriptions of the event. They knew it was good news.

It was good news because the box he put himself into was not his own box but ours.

We are boxed in, trapped even, by pride and selfishness. We are boxed in by the weight of some of the things we have done in the past and cannot undo, boxed in by the broken relationships that are their consequence. We are boxed in by some of the things we have left undone, and for which it is too late to make amends. We are boxed in by illness and loneliness, anxiety and fear of the future.

While this is true for us as individuals, is true for us also as part of the human family. We are at war across the world, in wars the burden of which is most sharply borne by children. Almost every major city hangs a pall of filthy air; every ocean is overfished and hangs in the balance; in many parts of the world forests are burned and cut without thought for the consequences.

In our personal relationships, in politics, at sea and land and air, we are no closer to universal peace that we were a thousand years ago, and probably less at peace with one another than we were even ten years ago.

As St. Paul put it, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

And yet it was for sinners, for me and for you, that Christ was born at Bethlehem. From the creation of the world God planned this great work of rescue and restoration. At Christmas we celebrate the fact that God loved us so much that he took human nature from a Jewish peasant girl. He took all that it means to be human into himself, nailed it to a Cross, and raised it up to heaven to prepare a place for us.

This is much more than a promise for the future. We do not stand outside of this story like spectators in a theatre watching an inspirational movie or listening to a motivational speaker. The Christmas story is not just the truth being told about God. It is the truth being told about ourselves, about what God is doing in our lives and how he is recreating the world around us as a sign on earth of the world to come.

To state the obvious, Christ has been back many times since he ascended back into heaven nearly two thousand years ago. He came to earth again the day you were baptized and since then has been active in your life and mine whether we recognize it or not. God's cosmic rescue mission isn't something that started two thousand years ago, stopped, and will be suddenly reactivated at some time in the future. It is going on all around us in our generation, here and now. It is taking place in us - in you and in me.

Christ redeems us every day, bit by bit, and fits our souls for the life of heaven. He does it in inspiring us to acts of kindness and generosity, of patience and prayer. For he does not so much call us out of the box in which we live as to help us see the box of our lives for what it can be - a manger into which Christ can again be received.  For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Anna, Caroline & Peter join me in wishing you a merry Christmas,

+Anthony

Bishop of Saskatchewan