My Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ

All history is measured in relation to the birth of Jesus. We speak in terms of BC and AD or, more commonly today, the Common Era. But, whatever words we use, the point of change remains the birth of Jesus. No other life has so changed the course of history. And yet, while this is true, the birth of Jesus is not about change at all, but about transformation. And the two are not the same.

Antjie Krog draws a clear distinction between 'change' and 'transformation', in her book, "A Change of Tongue." She says that people use the words 'transformation,' 'change' and even 'metamorphosis', almost interchangeably, as if their meanings are identical. But, she says, their meanings are very different. The word "transform", has two parts: a prefix "trans" which in Latin means 'across, the other side;' and "form" which means 'to give structure to, to create, to bring forth'. Therefore 'transformation,' she insists, linguistically, implies much more than change; it means a crossing over and bringing into being something completely new. Thus transformation will include both change and metamorphosis, but change implies neither metamorphosis nor transformation.

She goes on to say that that is why so much of the supposed 'transformation' that has been taking place in our country has left so many people feeling that nothing has changed. Replacing white people with black people is change, but unless new structures, systems, visions and attitudes are developed in the process, there will be no transformation and the new black appointees will find themselves caught up in the existing structures and ways of thinking, which will cause them to behave not very differently from the whites.

The incarnation is not about change, but transformation. Jesus did not come to change anything, but to transform everything. It is not about repairing the old, but about making all things new. And that is good news. That is why the story of Jesus' birth has such a strange ring to it. It doesn't fit into our scheme of things, it just doesn't make sense.

God is not what we expect. The incarnation is not what we expect. Instead of royalty, we have peasants; in the place of palaces, we have stables. The king of kings, contrary to all our expectations, is born in poverty, dressed in rags, and laid in a manger for a crib. And the news of his birth is not announced to all the world, but only to lowly shepherds watching sheep in a field filled with dung. The old is turned upside down and inside out; things are no longer what they seem, and even though it may not yet appear so, the old has passed away, the new has come.

In the incarnation, God breaks into our world, confronts our distorted worldview and values and invites us into a new life "in Christ." It is an invitation to participation96 to be a part of the incarnation of Christ in the world. For, as Ronald Rolheiser insists: -

"The incarnation is not a 33 year experiment by God in history, a one-shot, physical incursion into our lives. The incarnation began with Jesus and it has never stopped. The ascension of Jesus did not end, nor fundamentally change, the incarnation. God's physical body is still among us. God is still present, as physical and as real today, as God was in the historical Jesus. God still has skin, human skin, and physically walks on this earth just as Jesus did. In a certain manner of speaking, it is true to say that, at the ascension, the physical body of Jesus left the earth, but the body of Christ did not. God's incarnational presence among us continues as before."

This has immense implications. It means that God continues to dwell among us and make all things new. And we are invited into a life of participation in this new thing; to be a part of this transforming process, both for our own transformation and that of the world around us. That is why, for us as Christians, time can only ever be measured in terms of Christ. For us, he is the centre of everything, the one who in the incarnation is busy making all things new.

As we live "In Christ", so we meet Christ physically in the flesh, in the Body of Christ of which we are a part. Every moment becomes an encounter, every touch becomes a sacrament, and we are transformed. And then, as we are transformed by the presence of God in everything we see, touch, smell, taste or hear, so we become agents of transformation, inviting others to participate in the wonder of the incarnation.

During Advent, as we prepare once again to celebrate God's breaking into our world, let us reflect on the ministry to which we have been called. Are we agents of transformation or of change? Is transformation visible in our lives and our leadership? Do we teach our people to keep the rules or are we bringing them to that strange place where a manger is filled with the glory of God, where everything is lit by heavenly light, and where we can only kneel in awe of what we see?

Only in the place of wonder is there encounter, only in the touch, a sacrament. Only there, as Gerald Manley Hopkins says:-

"The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness .....
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings."

Grow through Advent, be filled with the wonder of Christmas, and kneel in the presence of God's transforming love

+ Brian

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