Isn’t Christmas hectic?
How many of you have recently set out to go shopping in order to buy gifts and food and decorations only to find out that you are in the middle of a great surge of humanity all with the same purpose, to get everything ‘just right’ (however you care to define that term!) for family and friends this Christmas? How many of you are frantically searching online for pre Christmas bargains so that the gift of giving can stretch a little bit further this particular year. Imagine the stress, imagine the noise, imagine spending over 45 minutes driving around Worcester city centre just to find a parking space in one of the over stuffed car parks, (This happened recently to one of your clergy; we will leave you to guess which one!).
As we briefly come up for breath only to disappear again back into the rush, do we find ourselves wishing that it wasn’t like this; that Christmas could be all “Silent Night”, “Joy to the World” and “Peace on Earth” just like we believe that it used to be in years gone by?
And yet throughout human history, Christmas has never been silent, it has always been a noisy, busy, bustling season. Think of the hoards of people on the move on that first Christmas night in response to Caesar Augustus’ demand that a census should be taken. Think of the little town of Bethlehem so packed out with people that there is no available room in the local inn, indeed it is so busy that the current scandalous gossip spreading around the town is that a recently arrived pregnant young girl has had to give birth to her little son in a manger! Meanwhile, in the hills above Bethlehem, the local shepherds’ silent vigil is suddenly interrupted by the amazing spectacle of an angel choir announcing that a child has been born and that his birth somehow means that our world will never be the same again.
Over the subsequent centuries whether Christmas has resounded with the angels’ singing and the praise of God’s people or with the noise of war, pandemic, poverty and conflict, it has never been a silent affair and I think that the reason for this is that Jesus had to be born into our world precisely because of the darkness of our circumstances. In John 1 v 9 -11 we read:
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him (NIV).
By not recognising Jesus as the fulfilment of God’s plan for the world we discover human beings attempting to sort out ourselves and to live our lives in our own way and on our own terms; and at this point can I encourage you once you have finished this message to go and take a look at the latest news both national and international in order to see what we mean!
However here is the good news; it is possible for Christmas to be proclaimed in a very different way. It can be proclaimed in the Christmas story as we tell it afresh to our parish each year; it can be proclaimed in the handing out of parish Christmas cards to friends and neighbours and inviting them to Christmas events and services in our parish. It can be a time when we as individual Christians and as a parish can proclaim the message that “Unto us a child is born” and we can spread this wonderful message to those who desperately need to hear it, those who are afraid of, and bewildered by, the other noises we mentioned earlier. And the wonderful truth in all of this is that, unlike the world, we don’t need to proclaim our Christian message in loud, aggressive, negative ways. The gentle voice of God’s Holy Spirit will accomplish His purposes in His own good time; we just need to be faithful.
We know that as in other years, the year ahead will bring a mixture of good and difficult times for us all. We know that it will be noisy and brash as we rush headlong forwards and we know that Foodbanks, bigger bills and warm spaces will be with us for many a day to come, but we also know that we can rejoice in the good things we see around us in families, friends, and in serving God faithfully in our parish. Let us take each opportunity to bring the good news of God’s saving love in Christ into our communities and let us spread the glad tidings of great joy all year round by encountering God, following Jesus and living Spirit- transforming lives.
Robert and David December 2022