Letter from the Rector Christmas 2006
My dear friends,
If you look closely at the life-size nativity scene now in the church, you will see a mouse next to a working replica of a medieval mouse-trap.
A mouse and mouse-trap are included in a number of medieval paintings of the nativity. The mouse and mouse-trap at the nativity was a medieval “conceit” in which Jesus was the cheese placed in a trap set to catch the devil. The birth of Jesus meant that the cheese had now been placed, and the trap was ready to spring.
This is an extraordinary image. If someone in our day suggested that Jesus is a piece of cheese in a mouse-trap it might be considered to be bordering on blasphemy. But the image gives us a sense of how free the medieval world was to find ways to express the significance of the birth of Christ. For them that birth was the start of an event of cosmic proportions – it was the beginning of the end of the reign of evil. The mouse-trap helped the medieval viewer to see beyond the surface stories of Christmas to the global significance of what was actually going on.
Do we think that the birth of Jesus is of cosmic significance? In our day I hear more and more people, both inside and outside the church, saying they no longer want to celebrate Christmas by being caught up in consumerism. Nor does the simple story of an innocent mother and sweet babe born in impossibly romantic circumstances provide any sense of important meaning. The challenge for us Christians is to be as adventurous as those medieval painters (and as the artists and carpenter who make our crèche and its mouse-trap) in finding a way to express the cosmic significance of what is going on at the birth of Jesus.
The figures in our crèche are not the typical images you will find on Christmas cards. The artists have taken the traditional scene and made its deep significance shine through. Have a look, and you will see how.
Perhaps a modern painting of Jesus should include a light-switch. Jesus is the light switch which God has switched on so that in the darkness of war, of insoluble problems, and of our sense of helplessness, we can see the magnificent future that is being offered to human kind. Jesus, as such a switch, provides us with the light to see,
and empowers us to confront the Herods of our time, to make the hearts of the poor rejoice, to find shelter for the homeless, and to uphold and not destroy creation. Even if we aren’t the only self-aware beings in the universe, accepting Christ’s power working through us does have cosmic significance.
All of us are artists painting our life as we journey through the years, and each of us being called to re-connect with the powerful reality behind those Christmas stories, allowing them to shine through our lives that we, and all humanity, may know the hope and confidence being made available to humanity by God, and showing forth in our lives the reality of God’s new creation in ourselves.
As you will see in the enclosed calendar, St. John’s provides a wide range of opportunities to connect with the powerful acts of God. Please make use of them, and of the worship – which connects our whole being – during Christmas and Epiphany.
I enclose a special Christmas envelope which you may wish to use to make the light of Christ available to all around through the many ministries of St. John’s.
A very blessed Christmas and New Year to you all from myself and all your staff.
Sincerely,
Harold Munn
The Rev. Canon Dr. Harold Munn
Rector
