December 25 happens to be Isaac Newton’s birthday. They say an apple set his brilliant mind going. So did a pebble. He likened himself to a boy who inspects a pebble on the beach while the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before him. Newton had a proper sense of his own inadequacy. The brilliant cosmologists and mathematicians who have followed him – Einstein and Hawking, say – have displayed a similar humility. It is fitting that we too should declare our own limitations. There is much, for example, that we do not know about the early days of the Christian faith.
Amongst other things we know that Peter and the other disciples of Jesus had boats but we know nothing about the boat-builders or shipwrights who built them. We know that people in those days handled silver but we have no idea about the miners, smelters and smiths who shaped the finished articles. We know that there were flocks of sheep in those days but we know nothing of the shearers and butchers who produced the wool and chops from the animals. Again, we know that there were weapons in the hands of freedom-fighters and occupation troops but we know nothing about the armament industry. Nor do we know about the musicians and craftsmen who made music possible and had children talking about it.
Surprisingly, perhaps, we don’t know the meaning of the word translated ‘daily’ in the Lord’s Prayer. Nor are we entirely clear about the identity of the 12 disciples. We have yet to untangle the proceedings of the Council of Jerusalem and we have no scriptural authority for observing the first day of the week rather than the seventh.
December 25 then is a good day to reflect as did Isaac Newton, on what has been made known to us and what remains unknown. Christians believe that God became incarnate when Jesus was born (whenever that was exactly) and that self-emptying is something quite beyond our understanding. We do well to be over-awed. Unless we lay claim to minds more capable than that of Isaac Newton and have access to sources nobody else has seen, we must recognise that in some matters both great and small we are all agnostics. (Newton also made some off-beat ventures in the interpretation of apocalyptic.)
Christmas Day is about a birthday, the nativity of our Lord. We can be sure of that. We can also be sure that we are celebrating a birthday even more important than that of Isaac Newton. Christian as he was, he set us an example by recognising his limitations.
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