God in the manger

To the St James Church for the (St James) School end of term service. The older children filled the galleries and the younger children filled the seats downstairs - and Simon Hughes, our local MP and chairman of the school governors was with us.

A technical hitch prevented us projecting the words on the screen but the children sung O Holy Night and We Three Kings word perfect. (OK its not Epiphany yet but the St James version of this carol comes with actions that the children love, especially loudly stamping their feet for 'guided to they perfect light).

Penny led (bringing calm to an end of term excited school with quiet authority) and I gave the talk.

I began by measuring three children - I said I had been doing a lot of measuring (windows, curtains etc) since moving into my new home and  I thought I might measure some of them to see how tall  they were.

Having measured my three willing volunteers I said they would all be bigger next year, and last year they were smaller. Once upon a time they were very small.

They were an example of something very small becoming big but Christmas is about the exact opposite: something very big becoming small.

The song 'Our God is a great big God,' I knew, was a school favourite. Our great big God who made the earth, the planets and the universe, became a tiny baby for us at Christmas.

This is the wonder and marvel of the incarnation: God-in-the-flesh, God-in-the-manger.