forest hill 
December 24, 2025 7:30 pm
Candlelight Communion
Fragile Beginnings
Luke 2:1-14
Human babies are so fragile!
Baby horses wobble to their feet within minutes of birth. Baby birds emerge from the egg with vigour and fanfare, squawking with insatiable hunger, and pushing each other out of the way. But baby humans can’t even hold up their own heads. It takes almost year before their first tentative steps; and even longer before they can communicate more their most basic needs. We humans are born utterly and completely dependant on the love and care that surrounds us; we can do nothing for ourselves.
As a new parent, I was humbled by my babies’ vulnerability, and terrified that I would not rise to the task. As a preacher, I am awestruck that God would accept this level of risk to set the world to rights. In what universe could it possibly make sense to give up cosmic power and entrust the salvation of the world to untried teenagers camping out in a filthy stable?
Had God really intended to bring peace on Earth, surely there were more effective ways to whip us into shape? Surely a few well-placed words in the ears of those who ruled the world would have been amplified by imperial reach and authority? Surely God could have repaired evil by punishing transgressors without any need to run the risk that the message would be misunderstood, or forgotten, or ignored?
We know the power emperors have. The vast resources of human authorities today are mobilized to stop fentanyl from rotting minds; to stop oil from reaching our enemies; to stop desperate peoples from launching rockets at cities. The best minds humanity can nurture spend billions of dollars and oodles of effort on ever more sophisticated ways to enforce peace, banish hatred, and protect the rest of us from harm.
It’s not working. Minds still rot; hatred abounds; even school children are not safe from gunshots in the wealthiest parts of the world.
If the sacrifices we make to fund the powerful in their quest aren’t sufficient, surely the reason is that we’re simply not trying hard enough. Isn’t that how we behave? We spend more and more on war, that peace might finally prevail.
In what universe does this make sense?
Does God’s vulnerability in this eternal story of love and fragile beginnings show us why all our striving to enforce an illusive peace is so ineffective and misguided? Is the fragile beginning God makes at Christmas a path that could lead to the peace we long for?
Join us on Christmas Eve to wonder at God’s vulnerability. Wonder at good news that comes to peasants and shepherds, that the authorities can’t see. Wonder at the song of angels, and light that the darkness cannot comprehend. The hopes and fears of all the years are met in this story tonight!
A note to readers
Dear Friends, as you know I am retiring from my position at Forest Hill United Church at the end of this month. After 38 years in ministry – 23 of them spent among you in this congregation – the time has come to draw this part of my life to a close.
Ministry has been the joy of my life. I have loved exploring faithfulness together, and plumbing the depths of our Christian traditions together to discover hope, guidance and light in the confusing times we live in. I have loved writing these newsletter articles, because the discipline has given me the chance to ponder my own faith, and the ways that God’s word is still so vitally relevant to our ever-changing world.
Thank you for sharing my journey over the years. Thank you for reading my thoughts, and poking me when I fell short. Thank you for keeping me honest and driving me to stay relevant. My thoughts have been sharper because of your feedback! The places when my thoughts have been trite or shallow are all on me!
Blessings to you as you continue to muse about the ways that our oh-so-human and flawed world is touched with Divine energy and called to a purpose and a wonder that reaches beyond our ken. Continue to strive for a hope strong enough to sustain us, and the promise that we are not alone!