Jesus and Ordinary People

On Christmas Eve the Pakefield Church held their walking nativity. Hundreds of people walked around the streets of Pakefield encountering sheep and shepherds, donkeys and wise men, and other familiar characters from the Christmas story.

At the start of the route participants signed in at the Emperor Census station; some stopped to join the innkeeper for a drink at a local pub; all finished at a stable with Joseph and a heavily pregnant Mary. The afternoon ended with carols around the Christmas tree.

Often the Christmas narrative, the Jesus story, is kept inside church walls. To see it or hear it you must venture inside. Here hundreds of folks met it on the streets.

Jesus with ordinary people.

As a young student Eugene Peterson was influenced by Presbyterian pastor George Buttrick. On one occasion Buttrick was asked, ‘What’s the most important part of your sermon preparation each week?’ Buttrick responded:

‘For two hours every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, I walk through the neighbourhood and make home visits. There is no way I can preach the gospel to these people if I don’t know how they are living, what they are thinking and talking about…’

Jesus for ordinary people.

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) wrote: ‘Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world; yours are the feet with which he walks to do good; yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world…’

Jesus by ordinary people.

Musing…

…Yesterday’s conversations… Mike’s wife’s liver cancer… Syd’s Christmas fallout with his wife… Maurice’s anxiety about his son at university… Seeking to live out my Christian faith with ordinary people…

…The Jesus story… Wise men and shepherds, priests and prostitutes… Remembering again that Jesus came for ordinary people…

…By ordinary people? – That’s me! My eyes to see the needy, my hands to care and serve, my feet to go willingly.