by Kieran Webster (Originally published in the Radyr Chain - December 2005)

Getting immunity is a strong desire. We'd all like immunity from bird flu. We'd all like to be immune to relationships that let us down. We also want immunity from an uncertain future but the more we think we know about the risk the more life seems a risky place and the less freedom we seem to have. Little Britain's Computer says 'No' is on the ball: the downside of immunity is in the quality of relationships.

In the film About a Boy Hugh Grant is 38 year old Will. He's a man whose Dad's Christmas song has given him enough money to live as he wants. Free to pursue pleasure he likes to think of himself as Ibiza. He is immune to relationships. That is, until he meets Marcus, a 12 year old boy whose Mum leads an alternative lifestyle of '70's albums, 80's politics and 90's foot lotion' - she's single and depressed. Marcus seeks to connect these two islands. He finds that helping adults change isn't that easy.

The story shows that for a while at least, it is possible to feel immune to love. Will is an easy target for the author Nick Hornby to redeem. He clearly has a small life. His lifestyle excludes relationships of consequence - he is a man who is 'less than' his potential. As Marcus blazes a trail in Will's life it isn't so much that Will is scared. He is. But more than this, he is an untransformed individualist who lives as if he is autonomous, reducing others to play the role of affirming this decision. How many of us also find that whatever got us involved in intimate relationships is not enough to sustain it when life goes wrong?

Often, immersion in work and the materialistic pursuit of pleasure offer the promise of immunity from futility. Is it surprising that Christmas week promises us so much but often delivers so little in the long term? I may be on my own, but I get a bit stressed out trying to experience the things I must experience, get the things I must have, avoid the risks I must avoid. There must be more to Christmas than this?

What really matters it seems is dealing with competitive striving at work when T'd rather not wear that mask today, thank you'; building work-life balance when I feel compelled to work on; anxiety about my status in other people's lives when I'd rather just be myself, if I knew who I should be; being a good parent when I'm no expert but surrounded by inconsistent advice. These are the things that matter at Christmas ... these and other such messy life issues.

Somewhere in the consumer frenzy, we manage to find that moment that really matters: when we can give the people we love what really counts - our time. But what we are really being sold at Christmas is 'me-time' - something that keeps slipping away, never seems quite enough and which gives pleasure that doesn't seem to last. How could Christmas be a radical change from this?

Could it be that we are immune to the story of Jesus? It isn't really surprising. For many years other people have wanted to tell Jesus' story for him. It is easy to hang on to the church's sentimental 'other-worldly' new-born Jesus unlikely to need a nappy change, always serene, a precocious toddler dispensing wisdom to people wearing goldfish bowls on their head. It's easy to buy into the popular myths about Jesus' own story. There are many about.

Jesus himself has a picture of how not to come to right judgments. Growing up as a boy, Jesus would watch his Dad making things from wood. His story is of someone working in a carpenters' shop. Carrying many planks of wood in front of his own eyes someone presumes to try to remove a speck of saw-dust from the eye of someone else. A humorous insight into how to avoid critical judgment.

Jesus tells this story to the religious and cultural leaders - the people who informed the media and popular culture of his day. These were people who 'knew' where life was at before they had even engaged with the lives of other people. These never listened in a way that understood they might change through having a conversation with someone different to themselves. They couldn't see but set themselves up to lead others. They looked into Jesus' eyes but were so concerned with smaller less important things, it was like picking the kettle scum out of their mug of tea only to swallow the tea-bag.

The story that informed what Jesus knew of himself is also a story About a Boy. The picture that he paints is from the Hebrew Scriptures. It is of God's love for the world he created and the promise of a King to rule it. It begins in the gift of life and God binding himself to a people in their messiness. He rescues them from tyranny, takes them aside and shows them the way of life - a 'more than' life. They know how to celebrate. They have a picture of what it is to be complete as a person.

And in the deepest, darkest days of defiance, when the chain of human weakness threatened to ruin it all -God still persisted, still sent his messengers, still pointed the way ahead, still promised that there was more to come. What is far away will be given immunity and brought near to him. The person who would do this would be God himself. He would suffer for his people. He would give his own life for the world he loved. The end will be better than what is visible now.

About a Boy is a story with a point. Will discovers that 'No man is an island. Island living is not for me'. Marcus, being a 12 year old boy, discovers 'We need back-up'. We can add to this that as Will discovers more of his influence in the lives of Marcus and his Mum, he is discovering his own uniqueness in relationship with someone other than himself. He is finding his true self. Christmas is the amazing story of how this can happen between you and God through Jesus Christ.

We celebrate the birth because the King arrives. The more which we crave in life has arrived! It is the end of a story of longing but also a continuing new story offering a free gift - the fullest possible life. Maybe we are immune to Jesus' own story because it is an oddly risky business to accept a free gift from someone -even God. When someone offers us something for free at their own personal cost, it doesn't feel quite right. There must be a catch. It is probably tat - a sales gimmick. I don't need charity. I don't want that sort of relationship'.

The Jesus we meet at Christmas in his bed in a stable begins the story about a boy who could have looked for immunity from suffering. A story about a boy who finds all his joy and pleasure in the world in the joy and pleasure he finds in God. To celebrate his birth is to celebrate that in Jesus, God became like us. It leads directly to the heart of God: love is not immune ... love hurts ... but love wins.

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