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Created on Thursday, 01 December 2011 00:00

Written by Richard Avery

If our British press had been in the Holy Land two thousand years ago, I wonder what headlines they could have come up with to! that special birth. What angle would interest the editors? Scandal of a birth out of wedlock, the decline in the morals of young adults, rental housing shortages, fear of usurpers by the murderous despot on the throne?

Some of you know that I had a brush with media fame last month I never dreamt of my photo making page 3 of a tabloid. And In the Sunday paper. There are lots of important things happening around the world that never surfaced on the pages of our press that weekend. But the whole of a paper's page 3 was given over to the wedding of couple with no special celebrity status, who happened to have their falling out with a relative plastered over the papers back in the summer.

What is news? Stuff that matters? Anything that sells more papers? The latest celebrity gossip? A birth that changes the whole human story?

The day when BC turned to AD might have made a line or two in the Births page of the Bethlehem Gazette. But it would not have rated any mention in a national daily Only a few were let in on the surprise. A few of the boy's family circle were told; some rural labourers found they were at the intersection of heaven and earth and discovered that something special was to be found in the backstreets of Bethlehem.

The king was completely unaware that God's Chosen One had entered his realm. It took travellers from afar to alert him to the challenge months later. Had our present day media barons been around back then, it would have passed them by too. Only decades later, when Luke was compiling his take on the Good News of Jesus, were those fragments of the story of his coming gathered into the opening of a Gospel book.

The truly important things don't always make the headlines. Many acts of great courage or kindness happen away from the flash of a camera or the tweeting of a celebrity. The daily dedication of a teacher or carer usually happens away from the spotlight Great discoveries in science sometimes go unnoticed by all but a few peers. And God seems to prefer to keep out of the international headlines. As the Apostle Paul wrote "God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things .... " (1 Cor 1 :27). In that letter Paul has in mind the end of Jesus' life on earth, but it could be applied to the beginning equally well.

If God planned to enter the very fabric of creation, to make a personal appearance and give us a glimpse of the nature of the divine creator, he could have captured the headline news in Rome or Athens. Instead he entered as an illegitimate baby in a small town on the edge of the great empires of the time. He who was "rich beyond all splendour all for love's sake becamest poor". If the press ever were to tell us what matters the most, this would be front page news. It was back then, but only a few heard the heavenly choir sing the headlines. It still is, so we plan a few headline events in our churches, to tell the story and what it means for us all.

"This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this why so that no one need be destroyed, by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life." John 3 -The Message

Happy Christmas

Richard