In my last blog post in reimagininghealth.com, I talked about the concept of meta-narratives and how they effect our health and wellbeing. For me the Christmas story is the ultimate meta-narrative (the big story with which I align my life). It changes the idea forever that God is a far off hierarchical, imperial, power-hungry megalomaniac. It eradicates the notion that we must go to him, where he is, in some special sacred space and will only find him if we clean up our act and start behaving in certain ways. No. He comes to us. This story (as JRD Kirk says) is not one of God changing his mind about humanity, but about humanity changing its mind about who God is.

He comes to be with us and changes himself in the process. He becomes utterly human, not some weird, ready-break glowing child, but deeply human and in so doing destroys the stories we have told ourselves about what he is like. He comes to us. He comes right to our very situations, our joys, or triumphs, our brokenness and our shame and says, I AM with you.  And if you run away, I’m there with you. And if you turn away, I’m there with you. And if you hide away, I’m there with you. And if you fail, I’m there with you. And if you don’t believe, I’m there with you in your unbelief.  Because contrary to the caricature of Dawkins, I am love itself. A love that will pour itself out time and again.  A love that is stronger than bitterness, hate and division. A love that is willing to be misunderstood, misinterpreted and misrepresented. This is not the story of a God who slaughters his enemies in order to protect himself and those he holds close (a narrative upon which the nation state is built and uses to predicate the violence it does to others – and if you don’t believe me, then you haven’t read enough history). No, this is a story about a love that will lay its own life down for its enemies and enables us to do the same.

As Steve Chalk says, Jesus never came to start a religion. He came to start a political, social, economic and spiritual revolution. God with us – wherever we are. The God who prioritises the poor, the refugee/marginalised/outcast, the sick, the prisoner, the woman, the child, the environment. The powers have never and will never understand or overcome this light. The promise of the light is peace. Peace on earth. If we embrace the way of love, anything is possible. Even in the midst of all the turmoil in our world this Christmas, I find great hope in the idea of God, who is love, with us in it all. I believe that when we embrace this light and this love as our meta-narrative, as our raison d’être, we find healing for ourselves individually and corporately.