Reading: Luke 2:1-14
Art, music and dance are all ways to see the world in creative and imaginative ways. They give us insights in what it is to be human and what we need to live full and complete lives.

Art particularly draws us in. A painting can say so many things to us if we stand and contemplate it. It is a canvas on which to draw meaning and truth together. One of my favourites is The Prisoners by Van Gogh, a tall painting which has prisoners moving in a circle at the bottom and a butterfly at the top signifying light and hope to those without it. But it is easy to miss the butterflies if you do not look carefully.

The gospel birth stories about Jesus can be seen like this, a painting with all the elements of Jesus` life portrayed on it, like a kaleidoscope of thoughts, ideas, hopes and dreams. A canvas rich in colour and imagination, rich with meaning if you look closely and let it wash over you.

The painting contains all the images from both Matthew and Luke, the only two gospels with a birth story. From Matthew there are wise men from another country, a star to follow at night but also the cruel king Herod whose fear of Jesus is palpable - who sets out to eliminate this threat after the birth is announced. In Luke`s story we hear about shepherds in the fields, an angelic chorus, the promise of peace and a mother who loves God and her new born son.

So the painting is full of earthly things, and some mystical things. But who is the child at the centre? Matthew describes him as Emmanuel, God with us, all of us, and all of creation. Jesus is the centrepiece of the painting, a revelation to us about where God is and what God needs from us. It is all there if we take a step closer and have a look.

For the birth stories are not really about a baby at all but about a man called Jesus and about his life in God and in the world. The painting reveals this Jesus, who lived and died in first century Judea, but who more than anyone since has shown a new way to live with one another.

This new way is the way of love, grounded in the earthy world that he knew and in the indwelling spirit of God that guided him. For Jesus was born into an ancient and ongoing struggle. On one side stood the kings and their elite company, which included the priests and the Pharisees while on the other were found the prophets, the oppressed poor and the excluded. He was born at a time when Rome was at its most powerful. Caesar Augustus, after bringing peace to Rome was hailed the Son of God and saviour. Law and order was sustained by ruthless suppression of people`s rights and many just disappeared.

Two so called religions guided how people would function in the world. One was a religion of empire, of wealth, rules and rituals, where the rich got richer and the poor poorer. Power ruled over everything. And then there was the religion of Jesus, a religion that united all God`s people together in bonds of love, a religion of creation. This religion was not a set of rules but a way of life, a new way of living together.

The story of the birth of Jesus is a story about his life. It is grounded in justice for the poor, peace for those surrounded by violence and hate, forgiveness for those isolated and compassion for the outcast and the lowly. And hope. Hope that God is with us always, an ever present spirit without end, leading us forward into the light.

Our painting is there to open our eyes to the truth of Jesus and therefore the truth about God. This is what the gospel writers wanted to do, not report an historical event but give us a canvas on which to see a life that has transformed and continues to transform the world. That transformed each of them.

So when we return to the painting, we see that the birth stories actually reflect this reality. They challenge the religion of empire. Jesus is seen as a defenceless baby whose family can`t find accommodation and when they do it is a stable with no bathroom. The poor shepherds of the hills are the ones who hear the message of his birth, rather than kings or rulers. There are lots of animals, not there for the children`s amusement, but to show that all of nature is included. We have in the story a woman, Mary, and the Magi, who are foreigners of varying age, and who come bearing gifts. In fact Jesus and Mary themselves are refugees escaping persecution. We see a powerful and ruthless King Herod, who is probably sitting to the side of the painting, a threatening presence. And at the top of the painting we have the angels singing about peace on earth and goodwill hovering over the whole scene, representing the God of all creation, of Jesus and the hope that this represents for all of us.

A beautiful, evocative, and actually quite subversive painting when you think about it.

So the question now for us all, is what to do with it. Now that we have viewed it do we put it in the shed to gather dust, put it on the wall only at Christmas or leave it up all year as a reminder of what is possible.

More than 600 years ago a male Catholic mystic and theologian asked, `What good is it to me if Mary gave birth to the Son of God 1400 years ago and I do not also give birth to the son of God in my time and in my culture?`

Let us leave the painting up. For the stories that have contributed to it are not just for our enjoyment, although we do enjoy and embrace them, but to challenge us about what really matters and to jolt us into action.

The spirit of goodwill at Christmas time infects even the cynical to believe in the possibility of something different and better - peace on earth, goodwill to all people and the possibility of hope and transformation. The challenge is to take this spirit and make the moment last.

It is a time to entice people to see the painting and then see beyond the painting. To translate Jesus` love and God`s presence into something concrete, into a different way of living.

The work of Christmas lies before us. Jim Strathdee, in response to a Christmas poem by Howard Thurman, calls us to this work in a hymn -

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and shepherds have
found their way home,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost and lonely one,
To heal the broken soul with love,
To feed the hungry children with warmth
and good food,
To feel the earth below the sky above!
To free the prisoner from all chains,
To make the powerful care,
To rebuild the nations with strength
of good will,
To see God`s children everywhere.
To bring hope to every task you do,
To dance at a baby`s new birth,
To make music in an old person`s heart,
And sing to the colours of the earth!

(` I Am the Light of the World,` © 1969 Jim Strathdee, Desert Flower Music)

Today as we celebrate Christmas, let us rejoice and be glad for unto us a child has been born, a child who is hope and light and love to the world. Let us go forth into that light to spread peace on earth and goodwill to all, knowing that God is with us all on the journey, a holy presence seen and conveyed in the life of Jesus.

Amen