A QUESTION OF FAITH
With Rev Angela Tarry Curate at St Mary’s
WE’RE now well into the season of advent. And you’d be mistaken for thinking it seems to have lasted for at least a month already – I’m not sure exactly when the countdown appeared in Asda, but it was long before I wanted to start thinking about advent, never mind Christmas.
And now we are halfway through advent: a time for waiting, for preparations, for looking backwards on what has been and looking forward to what is still to come. It’s also a time for reconnecting with friends and family who we perhaps do not see very often, and a perfect time for reconnecting with God: beginning with finding him in a manger, lit by stars.
However, celebrating Christmas is not about keeping Jesus as a baby in a manger. We celebrate Jesus’ birth because we know that the story of Jesus does not end at the manger, but he goes on to live a life preaching the good news of God’s love to everybody.
Daniel D. Brereton recently wrote:
“Don’t keep Christ in Christmas. Let him out.
Let him out of the box of decorations stored in the attic,
Let him out of prayers you only say at Midnight Mass,
Let him out of carols as background to your shopping.
Let him out of a sentimental story cleansed of violence and pain.
Let him out of the creche, where he remains a helpless infant:
...where the only woman present is silent and meek;
...where poverty is romanticized with no threat and no smell;
...and shepherds are cuddly and everyone is white;
...and there is no messiness to obscure the miracle.
Let him out of December’s candle-lit coziness:
...where his heat melts the wintry ice of our selfishness;
...and his buds unfold amidst the mud of injustice;
...and his flowers overtake the borders of manicured gardens;
...and his harvest fill barns with fruits we never knew existed.
Don’t keep Christ in Christmas. Let him out.
And then, when Christmas comes ‘round again,
we won’t have to “keep him in it”,
for how could he not be “in Christmas”
when he has been here, the whole time, keeping us?”
This Christmas, I hope that you are able to celebrate God’s love for you, seen in the birth of Jesus. And as you celebrate that birth, you can look forward to those places in the coming year where God has good plans for you.
Have a blessed Christmas.