CHRISTMAS
2014
“All the world’s a stage and all the people
are the players”. That’s how Shakespeare
puts it. And every stage, we know, has a
painted backdrop to it; a painted backdrop that sets the scene and puts the characters
in context. The scene might be indoors
in a quiet room, or outdoors in a forest.
It might be on the open sea or on a mountain top. Whatever it is, the appropriate backdrop has
a great role to play in creating the whole atmosphere of the scene. So, this evening we can well imagine the
events that took place on that first Christmas Night as being “A scene set on a
stage”, a stage that was world-wide.
Centuries
before the advent of the international television broadcast, this scene was destined
by Divine Providence to be set on a world-wide stage, and it was to be set in
fact, on a stage much greater than this
world alone. The backdrop to this scene
reaches from the very dawn of our race to the end of time itself and it even
reaches up into the very heavens themselves.
St Luke tells us: “Suddenly there was a great throng of the heavenly
hosts praising God and singing: ‘Glory to God in the highest and peace to men
of good will’.
Here we have
another very important part of the drama:
the musical accompaniment, the singing of the angels. The musical score is
always understood by the great film directors as something of the utmost
importance in bringing the screen-play to life. What kind of fee would Cecille B De Mille not
have been prepared to pay for the heavenly chorus that the Babe of Bethlehem
had? And what kind of fee would he not
have been prepared to pay for the centuries of world-wide publicity that this
Christmas Story has had? In all this, we
are the audience to this wonderful play, this wonderful drama. It’s a story thought up by the divine mind of
God himself. It is a play inspired by
the Holy Spirit of God and produced by God the Father. And we all know who the Hero, the leading
character is, and who the Leading Lady is.
But noblesse oblige and we are bound to take this little scene very
seriously and to analyse it, character by character and try to enter into the
depths of their hearts, whether it be the principle characters, Jesus, Mary and
Joseph themselves, or the choir, the angels
in the heavens, or supporting cast, the
shepherds in the fields, and the magi from far away.
We have all
had the privilege of being invited to this great ‘First night’ of the
play. We have all been given free
tickets to what is truly the ‘Greatest Show on Earth’. So let us all, with the Shepherds, ‘hasten to
Bethlehem to see this great thing that has come to pass’ and surely, if we hasten with faith, we will
find the joy that comes from the inner conviction that it is all just as the angels have told us. All the hype of the patriarchs and prophets
of old was no exaggeration. All the
wonderful promises of old were so much less than the reality that has now come
to pass amongst us.
In the
beginning the Word was with God.
And the Word
was God
And the Word
was made Flesh and came to dwell among us.
Shepherds and angels
In the
picture, a couple of shepherds are on the right-hand side, and one of them is
playing a flute. Below them, their sheep drink in a river. One of the shepherds
looks up and is blessed by an angel looking down on him. The middle group of
angels is kneeling or bowing in worship before Jesus, lying in his cave, while
the angels on the left of the picture stand like a choir, singing.
http://www.rejesus.co.uk/site/module/nativity_icon/P5/
