Pentland: Christmas affords alternative to permit peace and hope to be born inside all of us

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In 2022, the time period “Wordle” was Googled extra occasions than some other phrase or phrase, together with that of Queen Elizabeth, FIFA World Cup and Ukraine. Why this fascination with a recreation that challenges gamers to find a easy 5 letter English phrase in six guesses or much less? Maybe it’s as a result of it appears straightforward; the reply is a phrase that we all know and perceive; it’s often a phrase we’ve got repeated time and again 1000’s of occasions; and, it’s a phrase that doesn’t want an evidence.

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As a theologian, I’m intrigued with phrases, their that means and etymology. At Christmas time, we learn and examine the story of Jesus’ start as recorded by Matthew and Luke within the Gospels of the Bible. Oddly, Mark omits the story and John makes use of image and metaphor to inform the bigger cosmic story of the importance of Jesus’ life. For him, Jesus is the divine face of God, connecting again to the Creation, to start with.

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Christmas celebrates what the gospel author John calls, “the Phrase turning into flesh.” On the floor that appears to recommend the start of Jesus, however maybe it’s the opposite — Jesus turning into the voice of God. John didn’t write a conventional Christmas start story. He used symbolic phrases, akin to “Jesus the Phrase made flesh,” to level to the importance of Jesus. John was saying, “Have a look at this individual and also you see the divine face of God.” Christmas celebrates God’s humble and weak start as a baby in a really odd and messy secure. For John, it was a name to motion and the “Phrase” and phrases have been the means. For John, the phrases the grownup Jesus embodied remind us of who and what issues.

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Likewise, after we hear him say, “Blessed are the peacemakers” we expertise each an affirmation to those that are preserving the peace and in addition a person name to work for peace. Is it as simple as that? Maybe the peacemakers are the Ukrainians who refused to stay in a fight zone regardless that it meant abandoning their homeland, their properties, their households, their jobs and their lifestyle in an effort to stay in peace — to be peacemakers.

One other quote from John’s gospel is, “I’ve come that you simply might need life, and life ample.” We rejoice on this excellent news of hope, however is there deeper that means? Maybe it’s a reminder that private abundance challenges a shortage mannequin primarily based on concern. Right here, Jesus invitations generosity and “enoughness.” We’re referred to as to a wider perspective so that each one have ample lives.

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Once we hear Jesus say, “Be not afraid” — which was one among his most typical phrases — we’re calmed and inspired. Once we see him contact the leper and interact the outcast, we’re invited to like and look after our neighbour. We muster braveness to protest injustice and stand with the marginalized in order that love banishes hate from our world. It reminds us we’d like not be afraid to assist probably the most weak in our communities at Christmas time and at all times.

The phrase “the Phrase made flesh” embodies a God who’s current in human type. In doing so, we see what God seems to be like and we see a glimpse of how we’re referred to as to stay. In brief, the phrases tackle flesh and invite us to make use of our our bodies to be the phrases, voice, fingers and toes of Christ on the earth.

Christmas is a season — not a day — and it invitations us to see the start of Jesus as God’s embodied love. We additionally uncover our alternative to make good use of our lives. Christmas clearly is a time to rejoice Jesus’ start but it surely additionally births a chance for us all to refocus, or re-centre ourselves in how we’ll stay our lives. Jesus is born, one thing in every of us can be born anew.

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Jesus actually gave us his physique each in start and in dying; we additionally should use our our bodies as a automobile to precise what issues probably the most together with love, compassion, justice and kindness on the earth. We tackle the flesh of God with our phrases and actions.

Christmas will not be merely a sentimental take a look at a start way back; reasonably, it invitations us to contemplate what could be born in us as properly. That is the present of Christmas — it is a chance to see and listen to phrases of hope, peace, pleasure and love, after which enable them to be born in us.

So, might the phrases we communicate at Christmas time to rejoice “the Phrase made flesh” turn into as simple and customary sense as these easy 5 letter Wordle phrases we seek for each day.

Rev. John Pentland is the lead minister of Hillhurst United Church. 

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