A Christmas Reflection from Archdeacon Colleen O’Reilly
At the dawn of time you wrought from nothing a universe of beauty and splendour. [Then] in the fullness of time you sent your Son to be born of Mary, bright image of your glory.
APBA Thanksgiving 2.
Members and friends of Victorian Anglicans Together will recognise these words from Thanksgiving 2 in The Holy Communion service, Second Order in A Prayer Book for Australia, 1995. The prayer makes explicit the relationship of God’s creation of all that is, and God’s incarnation in the coming of Jesus, the Word made flesh.
Christmas invites us to celebrate so much more than simply the birth of Jesus. It is an opportunity each year to focus on the unfolding story of God’s unwearied love for God’s creation, of which we are a part, but which is far older than even humanity ourselves, and far larger than even the edges of the universe we have so far detected.
When we look upon the infant Jesus in the manger scenes or on the Christmas cards we gaze into the mystery of the intertwining of God’s divinity and our humanity, into the wedding of heaven and earth, into the Word, the very being of God, made the same fragile, vulnerable flesh of which you and I are made.
If that does not take your breath away, or evoke your wonder, I am not sure how else God might lift your eyes. God’s hope is that you will see even the stars and angels rejoicing to accompany such a remaking of creation that begins with the birth of a child in the most ordinary of circumstances.
Of course, we love our familiar ways of keeping Christmas in our parishes and our homes, the well-known carols and readings, the special meals, and the family gatherings. Enjoy it all but with a larger heart and mind; with a looking beyond to the coming of the Holy One beyond defining, beyond containing, who embraces us with a steadfast and irrevocable commitment of love beyond our full imagining.
The love made known through the Christmas story is the same love and remaking of creation we celebrate in Easter and embrace for ourselves as, over the years of faithful attention, we are formed by the gift of Holy Spirit into the likeness of Christ, once the baby we so gladly welcomed.
The Ven. Colleen O’Reilly AM SCP
Vice-President - Victorian Anglicans Together
Archdeacon Colleen O’Reilly is a respected Australian Anglican priest and advocate for inclusive leadership, currently serving as Acting Vicar of the Parish of St Paul’s Kew East and Archdeacon of Stonnington in the Diocese of Melbourne. She has been a passionate champion for women’s ordination and leadership in the Church since the 1970s and was made a Member of the Order of Australia for her significant service to the Anglican Church and religious education.