Child’s timely reminder that carol’s message is at the heart of Christmas story

TOMORROW is Advent Sunday. The first of four Sundays before Christmas marking the approach to the great day itself. No doubt, this year, we will hear similar thoughts and grumbles about the season becoming more commercialised and that we have lost sight of the real meaning of Christmas. Yet despite this I can guarantee that there will be one aspect of the “traditional” Christmas that will have people flocking to it regardless of their affiliation to any faith or none. The fact is we do love a carol service. In the coming weeks cities, towns and villages will resonate to the story of shepherds watching their flocks by night, angels in the realms of glory and a lowly cattle shed.

A perennial favourite for many people is Away in a Manger. I find it a little sentimental for my tastes. On more than one occasion I have commented on the fact that its creator is “anonymous”. My observation being that if I had written it, I would have wanted to stay anonymous too.

However, as is often the case, it was a five-year-old child (my son as it happens) who made me think again. He told me that his class would be singing this carol in the school nativity. I told him to ask his teacher what kind of baby it was that never cried (as the carol asserts). My son looked at me and said, “Dad. This was Jesus and God’s power was on him”. I retreated from the argument abashed and ashamed.

I am sure that Jesus as a baby did cry (and we are told in the gospels that he did as an adult) but my son had latched on to what really matters. Amidst all the Victorian sentimentality of the carol is the conviction that at the heart of the Christmas story is a baby. A baby who would come to be, dare I say, the most significant figure in world history. A baby who has changed and continues to change lives. That’s enough to bring a tear even to my cynical old eyes.

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