Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons -18th December 2016

REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn

Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - Fourth Sunday of Advent

I've never liked meetings; a lot of it has to do with needing to think issues through. I don't have that spontaneous gift of leaping in to give an opinion or comment on what is being discussed. I much prefer to examine what has been said and then look at the consequences. So in many ways I'm not a good committee person, but occasionally the need to resist any attempt to make an immediate decision and think it over is the right one. I keep reminding myself that there is not one way of seeing things, but many different approaches and they all matter.

Joseph in Matthew's account of Jesus' birth is a very unlikely catalyst for the revelation of God's promise. If he had immediately acted on evidence given (and just remind yourselves this is often how we ourselves behave) Mary might have disappeared from the story of salvation, misunderstood and tainted, you can here the voices: 'no smoke without fire!!'

However we must be grateful that Joseph is a generous and kind man, noble is perhaps a better description, no doubt dismayed by what at first seems to be Mary's loose morality, he doesn't throw her out but thinks on it. Then in his dream God shows him the truth and the way forward. Dreams are important for so many reasons and I have never been one to ridicule the idea that God does sometimes communicate through them. Not all the time, but sometimes. Those dreams do not get forgotten but grow in meaning as we ponder them. So with Joseph, his reflective nature and generosity of spirit becomes the way God can act the Word made flesh is born amongst us and lives in a family setting.

It can't have been easy, we know the story but the family and neighbours of Mary and Joseph didn't, so I've no doubt that a lot of gossip followed them around, yet the dream of Joseph will have consoled and strengthened them. As we approach the Christmas feasts, remind yourself that God still speaks to you and it is good news! As you write your Christmas cards, pray for each one you reach out to, in this simple act you too are communicating Christ's love through your own. Even if you can't open your house and table to the lonely and distressed, pray that Christ may somehow touch their hearts and lives through others, and may we too dream the dreams of God!

Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Catholic Chaplain for the Melkites in the UK. He is also an Ecumenical Canon of Christ Church Oxford