The Kindness of God

Life can be unpredictable. We can be happy one day and sad the next, healthy one day and sick the next, rich one day and poor the next, alive one day and dead the next. If the last eighteen months has taught us anything, if the last eighteen days has taught us anything, it is that our lives are fragile. We are vulnerable – and of course one of the places where we see that vulnerability most clearly is in the face of a newborn baby.

At Christmas, we celebrate the extraordinary mystery that God shows his face to us in the face of a new-born child. This is the Word made flesh. We hear this Word, as we look upon the face of one who cannot speak a word, and we puzzle understandably about what this word might mean.

Some of the earliest writings in the English language come from a number of contemplatives, who lived in the fourteenth century: there is the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, Richard Rolle, a hermit who lived in South Yorkshire, Julian of Norwich, an anchoress who lived in one of the parish churches in Norwich and who was one of the first women to write in English, Margery Kempe, a contempory of Julian, who wrote the first autobiography in English. These contemplatives bear witness to a rich and vibrant tradition in English Spirituality – a tradition which we have largely forgotten.

Julian often refers to Jesus as ‘our kinde Lord’ – to the modern ear, we assume that Julian is simply talking about kindness. But in Middle English, it also refers to ‘kinship’. The words ‘kind’ and ‘kin’ were the same. As the Cambridge theologian, Janet Martin Soskice, points out: ‘to say that Christ is ‘our kinde Lord’ is not to say that Christ is tender and gentle, although that may be implied, but to say that he is our kin – our kind.’ (Janet Soskice, The Kindness of God, 5).

God chooses to show his face to us in the face of a new-born baby, as one of our kind, as one who knows not only the dignity of being human, but also the precariousness and vulnerability of our humanity. And in the face of the unpredictability, the many pressures, the fears and anxieties, that we all face, he teaches us not only how to live, but also how to love, how to forgive and, above all, how to be kind.

In our frailty, we discover two life-giving certainties – the kindness of God, and the eternal forgiveness of Christ. We learn that grace comes to us through weakness. So in the warmth of the candlelight, as you gaze on the face of Jesus in the manger this evening, ponder the Word made flesh and consider what you might learn from it – what can the kindness of God teach us? How shall we care for the most vulnerable, the most fragile among us? How shall we learn to be kind?