God's Photos of You

Most of the time it’s possible to live quite happily with the absence of religion. Our lives are full and content without it, indeed most people would probably say less restrictive and less judgmental. But then Christmas arrives with its magical talk of angels, a miraculous birth and God with us. The nativity at school, the lit candle in the darkened church and the carol service remind us of a time when going to church and believing in God made sense. The tune of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ is grasped like an old friend – and it takes us to a place of remembered community, of solidarity, of a secure identity and experience. It gives us a story, which stretches way back, that we can be a part of. Our memories, faded and nostalgic as they are, nonetheless are full of hope, reminding us of an identity that we’ve lost, encouraging us to claim a future that will always be ours. Like the Queen’s Speech, Match of the Day, Strictly Come Dancing – Christmas is the photo frame which collects together the diverse experiences of our disparate lives, making sense of them, giving them some coherence.

It doesn’t matter that what we believe is tangled together - half remembered Old Testament stories from Primary School; a once recited prayer; a body’s memory of kneeling, but rather that we remember. Along with the Christmas tree, the mince pies, the sharing of gifts, the caring for the poor, the stockings and the charades, for one night we place ourselves in the photo frame that our maker has crafted of our lives.

The photos that he’s taken may surprise us. He sees as no-one else does: like the lover on the pillow next to ours who is full of joy, the joy of being close to the beloved; or, like a young child who only has eyes for its mother, is utterly devoted and enthralled; or like the father who gives his every breath to the needs of his baby, suffering and sacrificing so that that the baby can thrive. So, God’s photos of us reveal that he has numbered every hair of our head, been to every nativity play, turned up for every prize giving, every birthday. God has been present in the moments of our private grief and public joy, he has been there when we’ve damned him and when we’ve offered a stumbling prayer. He’s been there when we thought we were all alone, unwatched and disregarded. Like the neglected parent who waits for the yearly card, the annual phone call, the belated present, and holds onto each like they are paradise itself. So, God longs for us, for me and for you and waits to show us the beauty and the splendour that our lives contain.

The traditions of Christmas have the power to gather us together, they form community, they create a shared history and they offer us a shared future. Christmas is the reminder we need that despite our turning away, despite acting collectively like independent 20-year olds (determined to make up our own minds and make our own mistakes), that God is always there to come back to; waiting and hoping and delighting in our return. Christmas is an invitation to live again in the eternal hand of our Maker- who turns the cosmos and holds the key, but who most of all longs for us to receive and return his love.