Years ago someone recommended a book called God’s Pauper by the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis. It is based on the life of Francis of Assisi and possibly owes much to the author’s imagination but the picture of Francis which emerges is very much in tune with what we know about him. At one point Francis is engaged in a discussion as to which is superior the mind or the heart and he recalls an incident from his childhood:
‘When I was a young student a learned theologian came to Assisi at Christmas time. He mounted the pulpit at San Ruffino’s and began an oration that lasted for hours and hours, all about the birth of Christ and the salvation of the world and the terrible mystery of the Incarnation. My mind grew muddy; my head began to reel. Unable to stand it any longer, I shouted, ‘Master, be still so that we can hear Christ crying in His cradle!‘ When we got back home, my father spanked me, but my mother took me aside secretly and gave me her blessing . . .‘
The point being that there was much of the preacher’s mind involved in the ‘oration’ and too little of the heart. Perhaps it could be said that he obviously knew much about Christ but gave no evidence that he actually knew Him. His words did not convey His presence and the blessings that flow from His birth, death and resurrection.
For the first time in the 37 years I have been an ordained minister of the Gospel I will not be preaching this Christmas. But I will be remembering all my colleagues in many different traditions who will be seeking to unpack in their preaching what the birth of Jesus means for us today. Far to often in the past I have been carried away with the thought that I need to find some new way of presenting this. It’s then I remember the advice I received from a retired minister when I was just a baby minister: ‘Just tell them the story.‘ We forget the power of the story and the monumental truths that are contained therein.
So all you preachers out there, as someone who will be listening this Christmas, tell me the story and pray for me and others that we will have a sense of Emmanuel, ‘God With Us’, that we will hear Christ crying in His cradle.
