The grace of God has dawned upon the world with healing for all mankind. (Titus 2:11-14)
I wonder what the dawn was like that first Christmas morning. Who saw the dawn this morning?
To us the dawn is a rare thing to see and of no great importance. The contrast with even fifty years ago is stark. Shepherds would long for the dawn to make sure their flock was safe. In the war with the blackout people longed for daylight which the dawn brought.
And there is something very remarkable about dawn. You can have yours eyes pealed looking for it, you can often be misled by what seems to be light but is perhaps only a cloud moving, but eventually you see the spreading and growing light in the eastern sky - and you then know that dawn has broken; but only after the event.
What did the shepherds feel that first Christmas dawn? Tired I should think being up all night being visited by angels and go off to a stable to visit a new born baby. But they were also confused - what did it all mean?
Very much like the dawn, the significance of that birth only became clear much later - as the light from Jesus spread through the Gallilean countryside as he walked about that hot dusty countryside with his friends - it was only then that people realised the kind of dawn that had broken that first Christmas day.
St Paul tells us that what had dawned was the grace of God. That remarkable theologian, WH Vanstone, pondered what this meant and he found that the words the 'grace of God' appear no where in the Old Testament, but that the New Testament is positively littered with them. He looked at what the word grace meant in the language that was used 2000 years ago.
It is actually a very special word because it means something for both the act itself and the way in which the act is received. The single word embraces both the welcome thing that happens and the response which it naturally and inevitably evokes.
In the Old Testament we hear much of God's goodness. We hear and respect virtues - speaking of someone as just, kind, loving or merciful is a sign of our respect for them. But just because we respect these virtues doesn't mean that we always enjoy them. Forgiveness can so often be taken as condescension. Kindness can be oppressive - The old story of the worthy parishioner who is always doing kindnesses to people: and how can you tell the recipients of the kindness? You can tell them by their haunted look. Virtuous people sometimes have a habit of taking over the person they are helping. The virtue of love too - when love is not met by a loving answer it is painful to the lover, and threatening to the beloved. These are all divine virtues rightly respected but not necessarily always attractive.
Grace, by contrast, is the manner in which those virtues can be expressed - the grace of God wins from mankind our response of gratitude and joy - it is kindness ,but with seeing things from our point of view; it is being tactful, being considerate,
It is the new thing that is shown in and received from Jesus Christ.
And if we look at the way Christ loved, not just in his death but in his everyday dealings, we find a graceous love. He doesn't seek to possess or control - very much the opposite he lets everyone make and then learn from their own mistakes. He has no magic wand, all the time he leads us to make our own journey - he teaches in parables rather than setting out a list of rules so it is up to us to discover the truth. When he forgives, he doesn't make the sinner feel small but gives them something to do, welcoming them back to work. The story of Zacchaeus the tax collector expresses this; Jesus didn't say to him I forgive you for your misdeeds or I will forgive you if you apologise, no Jesus healed and saved Zacchaeus by asking a small kindness - hospitality for the night.
Jesus knew what it is like to be human, he knew the mix bag that we are - good sometimes, bad or silly or unwise at others. The grace of God that dawned was the realisation that the God who created us does see things from our point of view - loves us in a way the only response to which is joyful gratitude.
