Bible Reading: 1 John 1:1-4.
‘We write to you about the Word of life, which has existed from the very beginning. We have heard it, and we have seen it with our eyes; yes, we have seen it, and our hands have touched it.
When this life became visible, we saw it; so we speak of it and tell you about the eternal life which was with the Father and was made known to us.
What we have seen and heard we announce to you also, so that you will join with us in the fellowship that we have with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
We write this in order that our joy may be complete.’

Message.

I wonder how many people saw Jesus during his lifetime? Mary and Joseph were the first, of course, gazing tenderly at their new-born bundle of joy; closely followed by the shepherds and then, at a distance, the Wise Men. Later on there would have been the people the Holy Family met during their exile in Egypt and, on their return to Nazareth, that town’s men, women and children. Jesus was known in his synagogue and, as he began his ministry, he was seen by his disciples, by ever-growing crowds of onlookers and by his enemies, hoping to witness mistakes. We can picture Pontius Pilate staring into Jesus’ eyes during his trial; and the Roman soldiers looking with grim satisfaction at the man they’d nailed to the cross. They all saw Jesus.

How many people heard Jesus during his lifetime? Mary and Joseph must have been kept awake by his crying at night – none of that “no crying he makes” guff for me, baby Jesus made himself known just like any other. As he grew up there would have been conversation in the household while we know that, when he was twelve, Jesus amazed an audience of academics in the Jerusalem Temple with his words. What he said in Nazareth’s synagogue one Saturday shocked his hearers so much that they wanted to do away with him; during the next three years he spoke publicly to crowds, intimately to his disciples, lovingly to those who were ill, challengingly to those who questioned him, and angrily to the traders who were defiling the Temple. At his trial that Jesus ultimately refused to speak – but many people had heard him by then.

And what about touch? How many people touched Jesus, or were touched by him? Mary would have held him lovingly at her breast and Joseph must have given him cuddles – or, as he grew, had fatherly tussles with him or guided his hands in the carpentry shop. During Jesus’ ministry, many felt Jesus’ healing hands being laid on them and a desperate woman reached out to touch his cloak. Terrified Peter, trying to walk on water, frantically grabbed Jesus’ hand to stop himself sinking; Mary gently washed her Master’s grubby feet; the soldiers roughly manhandled him as they drove nails through his hands and feet, making wounds into which Thomas gingerly stretched out his hand. Could people touch Jesus, feel him with their fingers? They certainly could.

The Apostle John wrote about “the Word of life which has existed from the very beginning”. That phrase takes us right back to the book of Genesis where God said, “Let there be light” and then spoke all creation into being. That being so, what John says next should utterly astound us: “The Word of life: we heard it with our own ears, we have seen it with our eyes, our own hands have touched it”. This is no ordinary “word”, a mere sound or vibration in the air; this is a physical and living presence, in fact a person who we know as God, the almighty Creator of the universe. And John says, “Can you credit it? We, yes we, have heard and seen and touched him! We know that’s hard to believe – but it’s news which we simply cannot keep to ourselves!”

This is the story Christmas – far more so than a fairy-tale crib scene which may paint a very different picture to what actually happened. Yes, we believe that a young woman gave birth to a baby; yes, we believe that he was laid in a manger because visitor space was at a premium; yes, we believe that shepherds, prompted by angels, came to visit. But we need to get beyond all that and start thinking what the story actually means. For it isn’t about – or isn’t “just” about – a mother and a baby and angels and shepherds and Wise Men; it is about almighty God deigning to come and live among us; involving himself in the joys and sorrows, the nitty-gritty, of ordinary human life; of bringing life and hope to those who were prepared to listen to him. As an old carol says, “Behold, the great Creator makes himself a house of clay”. Or, to use a word we sing but may not fully understand, Christmas is about “Emmanuel”: God among us and with us. Does that thought still amaze us? It should!

Some of the folk who heard, saw and touched Jesus liked him but were ultimately indifferent to his claims; others were actively hostile; a few became his disciples. We can’t of course encounter Jesus with our senses in the way they did; he’s no longer physically present. But we can see people living out the caring life of Jesus, however imperfectly; we can hear his words read to us from the Bible and preached from the pulpit; we can touch (and even taste) something of Jesus in Communion bread and wine. But that’s not enough, as it’s possible to do all those things yet avoid them making much impact on us – unlike on John and his colleagues.

This Christmas, in fact every Christmas, Jesus asks us to make a choice. He says, “If you believe that the story is true, if you believe that God really did come to our world, if you accept that the people who said that they saw and heard and touched were not mistaken, if you are willing to realise that the baby grew up to be a man who not only declared God in word and deed but was willing to sacrifice his life on the Easter cross – if you believe all that, what will you do with your belief? Will you merely say, “Yes, that’s fine” but not let it touch your life once Christmas is done and dusted? Or will you say, “I never realised how truly amazing that story is. I want to become Jesus’ devoted disciple and servant”.