A few years ago I was at a Christmas lunch, and pulled a cracker with my neighbour. Out came a hat, a joke, a toy …. and a Safety Warning. “These crackers are for adult use only” it said. “They may contain a functional sharp point of edge, or small parts, which may constitute a choking hazard.”
Well, it’s as well to be prepared. However, the fact that the lunch was with veterans of the D Day Landings and Normandy campaign rather put the potential danger posed by a cracker into its right perspective.
This is a dangerous and different time. A time where we do unusual things, like: buy socks; eat an enormous meal, then have sandwiches and trifle less than two hours later; watch three films in a row; wear a paper hat with your best clothes and not laugh at people who are doing the same. It’s a time where we use unusual words, like:
Privily
Tidings
Yon
Seraph,
Abiding
Gromit
It’s a time when we send cards to people we’ve forgotten and get them from people we’ve never heard of. My favourite comment overheard in the street is this: “I’ve sent Eileen a card. I hope she’s still alive.”
The joy of all this is that it’s so unusual, so full of things we do only once a year. We are in the blessed time – by my calculation around a maximum of eight hours, in between people hoping that we have a good Christmas, and people asking us if we’ve had a good Christmas. It can be as if the world has stopped, and all is peace.
If there’s a danger in the way we do Christmas, it’s right there. For a few blissful hours we can shut things out, do things which are unique and lose all perspective. That’s what drives people to say that it’s particularly bad when a difficult thing happens ‘at Christmas’, as if the world should know that volcanoes should not erupt, as if people of ill intent should know not to disrupt air travel, as if machines should know that they should not malfunction, as if our creaking bodies should give us a respite, as if death should know that it should at least be on pause.
This is a unique time, but for reasons which mean that the whole world is right in here, not locked up so we can eat and drink too much without being bothered. It’s a remarkable time because God’s gift of Christ to us is for this world in all its complexity and difficulty. There are some words we sing only at this time which bear this out:
Jesus was born – God is ‘veiled in flesh’ (Hark the Herald)
Jesus was human: he shared our “tears and smiles” (Once in Royal)
Jesus was God: “our Lord Emmanuel” (O little town)
Jesus died for us: “sealed in the stone cold tomb” (We three Kings)
Jesus rose from the dead to set us free: “he hath ope’d the heavenly door” (Good Christian men rejoice).
We are celebrating today not so that we can be anaesthetised from all this for a few hours before we go shopping again, but because we have “tidings” which we offer “to all mankind” (While Shepherds watched). To those recovering from natural or human caused disaster, to those who mourn and grieve, to those who are ill or lonely or homeless or far from home, we can say: God is with us. God in Christ loves us. And that means we will offer you that too: companionship and a bed and a home and warmth and prayer and a presence at a bedside.
All that would be pious if it weren’t for the fact that here, and across God’s church, we offer shelter to the homeless, a home to the refugee, care and concern for the lonely, a presence with people with dementia, prayer for healing and support for agencies across the world in the most complex of circumstances. Today is unique as we celebrate Christ’s birth. And it is the expression of the eternal, 24/7/365 love of God.
Today then, as you do the things you do only once, don’t do the dangerous thing of shutting real life out. Remind yourself instad of the truths “sent from above”: that this is about God’s love for you and place in your life, and your place in the life of God, every day. Thanks be to God.