Colour Supplement

Articles by Christians around the world

Sunday 23 March 2008

 

From Christmas to Easter

a letter from Revd Jim Cox, Vicar of St. Andrew's Church Taunton

With Christmas and Easter being so close together this year, it is a good opportunity to see the links between the two. I read recently in a short book by Fr R E Brown (SS) that gospels are written “backwards” – like novels, they work up to a conclusion which is already in the writer’s mind before the story begins.  

The conclusion – or revelation – that made the gospel writers begin their journey was the overwhelming and baffling experience of the resurrection. Defying any ordinary explanation, it gave to those who first knew it a profound sense of new life and hope. The risen Christ was the exalted one, the Son of God. 

Following on from the reality of this experience, it then occurred to those first Christians that the risen Christ must also have been Son of God during his earthly ministry.  All four gospel writers insert this piece of knowledge at the beginning of their story. 

The details of the birth narratives, so familiar to us at Christmas, attempt to show the main themes of the gospel to come. Matthew sets out Israel’s future rejection of Jesus with the story of Herod’s hostility. And the subsequent slaughter of innocents and escape connect us to the idea of Jesus as the new Moses coming out of Egypt. The point is made by the end of the gospel that, despite the rejection, Jesus is the hope of Israel and the nations. 

Luke has slightly different concerns. He places the birth in the context of the Roman Empire to emphasise the universal importance of this birth and also the role that Rome will play at the end. 

These stories have great charm and that is part of their enduring appeal. But there is more in them for us than charm.  We are likely to get something more meaningful from the stories as adult Christians if we take each account on its own and hear the deep resonances each is trying to make with the grand story of salvation revealed throughout the whole of scripture and on the grim hill outside the city wall. Their purpose is to make serious points about Jesus and offer insights into the events of Holy Week.

 

(Ideas taken from R E Brown "An adult Christ at Christmas". Only 50 pages! Available on request from the vicarage).

Jim           

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