Has Christmas the power to draw us towards it? Is it an event? I hear stories in the north east of the excitement of the unveiling each year of Fenwick’s window in Newcastle. I’d never heard of Fenwick’s until I moved up here. Betty’s window in Harrogate has a similar effect.
Today I’ve experienced the pull of Christmas into it. I was a guest at one of the three sittings of Christmas dinner at Holy Trinity school in Ripon at lunchtime. They fed 330 children in three sittings in a military operation. The children were excited about their dinner. Not a sprout in sight I noticed! They were also excited it’s the last day of term and the fact there are six days to Christmas. Meanwhile I don’t know what day it is and people are asking for my hymns for 28 December. I’ve not planned further than a service tomorrow!
Tonight was the winter wonderland in our spa gardens here. Churches Together sang carols for an hour. Sadly no Methodist folk turned out other than me but there was a decent number to make a good sound. As the hour went on we noticed a crowd gathering to listen and some join in.
When I read the Christmas story in the Gospels, I notice how many different people are drawn to see what is happening. Shepherds leave their sheep and make haste to see what’s going on, magi later will arrive having been convinced a journey toward thr divine had to be taken, Elizabeth and Mary laugh with joy when they realise they are part of the drama. I’ve been sad this year that so many of my people in churches seem so tired and we’ve done too much they are stressed. But if the Church is so exhausted it can’t do Christmas we have a big problem.
We need again to have a Christmas in our heart. We need to rediscover the excitement of the story. We need to make haste and go to find it. We need to wonder at its surprise again. As I walked to do the carol singing tonight a little boy told his friend “the real Santa has just rung me up!” He was so excited.
We need Christmas to be something to be talked about and be expectant about and to be happy at what it brings. So as well as a school Christmas dinner and some ecumenical outreach at a city event let me point us to the Christmas chart. The Christmas number 1 announced earlier today is Kylie with her song Xmas. Her fans were expectant at the possibility she’d beat Last Christmas to the top. “Get your Kylie bubbles out!” said one of them. There was genuine excitement she’d got the number 1.
I am worried we’ve lost the excitement and the wonder. God has huge things to show us - a great and mighty wonder - and in these last Advent days he just says come and see what I’m up to. I pray we are not so knackered we just want Christmas over and so we miss the Advent of God coming … which is even more exciting than Kylie at number one or even Fenwick’s window!
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