Lockdown baby – Luke 1: 26-38
I don’t know how we manage it but for the last few years we have always seemed to have a new born baby with us in the congregation at Christmas time. Last year we welcomed Francis and his Mum and Dad, Clare and Seba as part of our nativity scene.
This year Leo has been welcomed into our family of
Newtownbreda and even with the restrictions and safety protocol which had to be followed – he has been baptised and welcomed. But I know this has not been an easy or usual time for all new mothers. There has not been the normal visiting to see the new arrival, no baby showers, no cuddles from anyone outside the family bubble. No Mums and Tots groups to find support and advise and coo over all the other new born babies. The time which traditionally has been seen as celebration and family coming together has by and large had to be conducted in isolation. Facetime, WhatsApp, Zoom, Skype – all have played their part in keeping families
arms as you gaze into the face of your first grandchild or sing softly as you rock your niece or nephew to sleep. Cuddling the babies is my favourite part of the baptism service and it has felt very strange and removed to be unable to touch Leo and make the sign of the cross on his head as I have done countless times before – but maybe when this time has passed – and we know it will – I will be in line for double cuddles.
For the past few weeks we have been looking at the
characters we find within the Christmas story in fresh ways. Comparing their experience of the Nativity with our
Pandemic Christmas. And we have found ourselves drawn closer to shepherds and innkeepers and census takers than ever before. Today our thoughts turn to Mary and Joseph and the birth of Jesus.
And maybe once again we are struck anew with the
similarities of situations separated by 2000 years – isolation, uncertainty, different expectations, fear. All the things we have felt and continue to feel as 2020 draws to a close. The
new year will not flick a switch and make everything ok –
rather these have been deep felt emotions that will take time for each one of us to accept and process and grow from.
Mary too had to accept and process what was happening.
None of us had any perception of how long and deep and far- reaching this pandemic would be. We had no way of knowing that 10 months down the line we would still be living with restrictions and limitations. Unable to travel freely,
prevented from our usual social activities of eating out, going to the theatre, meeting friends for coffee with out booking ahead or queuing for a table. Even worshipping it ways that are so strange and alien to what we once knew. And it is
probably good that we did not know because I don’t think we could have coped with that knowledge – even if we had
believed it.
Well Mary didn’t experience the news of a pandemic but her news was just as earthshattering and life changing – the
angel Gabriel appeared to her and told her she was going to have a child – this was to be God’s Son – conceived by the
Holy Spirit – and she was to name him Jesus. Now in the Luke account we are told Mary immediately responded – I am the Lord’s servant – may it happen to me as you have said. Oh if only life was as easy as that.
Perhaps it took a while for Mary to process what she had been told, perhaps she wouldn’t or couldn’t believe it, maybe she was numb with shock and couldn’t respond at all but at some point she came to this realisation – She was the Lord’s servant and she accepted this was what God required from her – more than accepted – rejoiced in this news.
However she was not told that she was going to have to give birth to her son in a stable, having travelled hundreds of
miles from her home and her family. It wasn’t revealed to her that Joseph was going to have to take her while heavily
pregnant on a journey to a town she had probably never visited – no Elizabeth to comfort her and help with the birth, no familiar faces, not even her own four walls. And Gabriel certainly didn’t even hint at the pain she would have to
endure, watching her Son grow up and teach and preach and witness love and acceptance, only to be treated cruelly and
unfairly and eventually killed as a public spectacle. No that news would have been too much for even this willing servant of the Lord to bear.
So Mary was simply told she had been chosen and she in turn chose to accept the role of Christ bearer. And Joseph knew even less. He hadn’t experienced the momentous visit of Gabriel, instead he had to make do with a dream when an angel told him this was all in God’s plan, that he too was part of God’s plan. We are not told of his response – certainly nothing as eloquent as the Magnificat but his actions show he believed and accepted – he was God’s servant just as Mary was.
But knowing these things – limited although they were – did not change what they felt. They had to endure a difficult
journey, pain and discomfort, Mary had to go through labour with no family support, Joseph had to give up work to go to Bethlehem so fear, uncertainty, isolation, frustration, anger must also have been part of that first Christmas.
A time of joy and celebration also became a time of pressure and despair and aloneness.
These are all things we understand because we have felt the same – we have been under pressure – jobs have been
furloughed, work has been done at home while home
schooling children. Elderly relatives have been seen thorough windows and on doorsteps, hospital visits are limited to one a week and the despair that brings to the patient and the one sitting at home waiting for a phone call is unimaginable. Fear will keep some families apart at Christmas, others will know a sense of isolation as they are unable to visit or be visited. We find ourselves able to identity with this little family as never before. Yet in the apparent bleakness of this situation they found a welcome in the stable of the innkeeper. In the
uncertainty of how they would cope, swaddling bands were found to wrap the baby. In the despair of being away from family and friends, shepherds and wise men arrived to help celebrate the birth of their first born child. In the uncertainty of what the future would hold, the Son of God was born
This story has not changed. We are living this story even now. We have experienced welcome through kindness of friend and stranger. Support during our darkest hours with a timely phone call or text. Visits on our doorsteps and thoughtful gifts to keep us connected. Worship through online services allowing us to continue being a community with many
others. And in Leo today we are reminded joyfully – we still have hope. Jesus Christ was born as a baby and grew up to be a man who challenged the status quo and witnessed to the kingdom of God and welcomed those who knew nothing but rejection and treated all as made in the image of God His father. These things happened – this pandemic does not change that truth. We still have hope and we still are asked to do our part. So may we in time be able to say I am the Lord’s servant, may it happen to me as you have said.
