So we approach Christmas.
If you go to church then my plea is to make a special effort to encourage your vicar at this busy time. Ask them how they are. Encourage them. Buy them a Mars bar. Say you love their sermons and appreciate what they are and what they do.
It is a challenging season for clergy and for those who help them. There are hidden perils at the Carol Concert. At one Christingle service we had a fire break out from a candle. We’ve had unseemly spillages. We’ve had family arguments. We’ve had people who have been on the sauce.
What I do know is that every vicar will be exhausted by Christmas Day.
And then there is the uphill run to Easter.
It isn’t helped by some of the terrible carols we sing. In the bleak midwinter seems to have got the Christmas story wrong. Ding Dong Merrily on High has worse rhymes than in a crummy pop song.
And through it all vicars smile and welcome people in.
I did read the obituary of a vicar who got rather tipsy before Midnight Mass. At a crucial point in his sermon he found himself unable to pronounce a certain word and so he stopped. Next Christmas at Midnight Mass he picked up his sermon at the self-same point without comment.
It is quite fashionable to downplay Christmas or at least not to see it in context.
I love Christmas not because of the story of the manger and the like, but because of the incarnation of God. In more normal language this is what I mean.
I am moved by the astounding story that god gave up his might and power and became one of us.
And so if I am ever tempted to see God as distant and angry I always imagine him as a little helpless baby and all that means.
This Christmas at St Cuthbert’s we will have a Carol Concert with our new male voice choir. The only qualification you need to be in it is that you are a man. It doesn’t matter if you sing like a raven.
We will have a midnight service and then on Christmas day a short and lovely family service where we admire each other’s presents and say thank you to God for all he is.
The thing about church is that it is an adventure and like no other institution it involves sharing each other’s joy and pain. And at Christmas we just reflect on all that has been and all that will be.
Over the road from our church we have a farm (yes I know we are in North Wembley). I am tempted to ask the farmer to let us borrow his donkey for a nativity service. The donkey is called Hamish and is a splendid fellow.
What do you think?
Reverend Steve Morris
