The seventeenth day of Advent - new beginnings

 The poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a  poem called, “Moonless Darkness”:

Moonless darkness stands between.
Past, the Past, no more be seen!
But the Bethlehem-star may lead me
To the sight of Him who freed me
From the self that I have been.
Make me pure, Lord: Thou art holy;
Make me meek, Lord: Thou wert lowly;
Now beginning, and alway:
Now begin, on Christmas day.

I love this poem because it reminds me that Christmas is about beginnings. It is about the sun rising on Christmas morning, as children eagerly wake up to gather with their family, and perhaps open presents. It is about Jesus being born into this world, the beginning of a new era of how we understand God and God’s presence with us. It is about how God formed this plan of salvation from the very beginning, as we read in the beginning of the Gospel of John. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Christmas is about beginnings.

We human beings love beginnings. I think, on the whole, we tend to like beginnings more than endings. We love the thrill of setting out on a journey, when the bags are packed and the door behind us is secure and there is no way to go but forward. We love the feeling of cracking open a new book, not knowing where it will lead. We love watching sunrises, if we happen to be awake; watching the light fill the sky and flood the world around us with colour. And we love babies. We love the promises they hold. We love the new life they represent. We love the idea of a life without burdens or regrets; a life that is full of hope and possibility.

I was invited to a Christmas lunch today. I was a bit late. I was told “there’s nothing left” when I got there. Christmas hope and possibility never runs out. There are in the story every year new things to discover. It was lovely tonight to be at a concert by our local community choir the Skelldale Singers. All the carols and songs they sang were about longing for change in the world and in our hearts. With Jesus with us every day can be a new beginning. Let’s make sure we journey well in this season. 

The sixteenth day of Advent - comfort

​In the Book of Common Prayer is this sentence: “Hear what comfortable words our Saviour Christ faith unto all who truly turn to him.” A selection of Scripture passages follows, which are meant to encourage us and give us strength. Which is what the word comfort means in Latin - confirmo.

In Isaiah chapter 40 there is a summons to experience comfort. “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” After generations of exile, God wants his people to be comforted. They had been through so much and now was the time for comfort. 

We need comfort after hard times. 

A comfortable sofa after a hard day.

Comforted by friends after upset.

Comfort food and drink - like a coffee after being at hospital this morning.

We sing in the Christmas story of “tidings of comfort and joy.” God comes to us and wraps us securely in his love. In the midst of upset, uncertainty and a mad world, we find comfort that God gives us care and peace right where we are. 

I’ve already reached Christmas delirium! This is shown by me singing Christmas music out loud. Christmas music is all about comfort and joy! I was apparently singing sweet shining Christmas bells this morning! Then in the chaos of Yorkshire pudding this afternoon on the radio of comfort shout and joy through Paul McCartney’s “wonderful Christmas time.”

Tonight I was called to the hospital to be with a dear man who is about to leave this earth. His faith, said his wife, has been important to him. I had a prayer holding his hand which I hope brought comfort to him and to his wife staying with him tonight: I remembered the prayer by heart (just!)

“The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you his  peace.” I hope for him tonight he knows God’s comfort. 

Incarnation is all about God comforting his people by telling them we are never alone even facing death. There is nowhere that God is not. We need comfort every day. We need a celebration to comfort us through the year. But even I was shocked to see Easter eggs with Easter publicity in a shop today! That’s just mad. For now, where is comfort and joy for us? I guess the question is who needs Christmas most? Be comforted, dear readers, for it is soon come. 

The third Sunday of Advent - rejoice: it is not true this is it!

​I met someone in the week who told me they wish Christmas was over! Being a fairly high church Methodist I told her it’s not Christmas til December 25 and the Christmas season lasts until 2 February! I’m sorry Christmas starts so early these days. I don’t know how you explain to children why Father Christmas appears in November. It’s sad that people will begin to pack it all away on Boxing Day. There are already crème eggs in the Spar round the corner from us. It’s soon over.

I was in the new Harrogate branch of a major supermarket chain which opened this week yesterday and visited the café. At least in this one you order what you want from a real person. In the new Ripon branch of that same major supermarket chain you order what you want punching numbers in a machine. Anyway I sat with a coffee reading the paper, and because I wasn’t holding the cup in my hand and hadn’t for a while a girl came and whisked it away believing I’d finished! It reminded me of a Scarborough guest house we stayed in in the 1970’s. The proprietor watched us eat breakfast like a prison guard. The minute your knife and fork went down he was there clearing the table. Christmas can be like that, gone in a flash, over quickly and then what…

I was at Harrogate Choral Society’s recital of Handel’s Messiah yesterday. Lis sings with them. A full church had a treat. I love to hear the Messiah every year, especially the Christmas bit. It reminds me this event we remember year after year after year is not something that only lasts a few days but it is huge, big, vast, revolutionary, and eternal. Handel includes the prophecy of Isaiah 40 as a reminder to us: “And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together : for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” You can’t reduce it to a few carols or parties or dinners or once a year greetings. You can’t make it narrower than it is. You will know there was a far right rally in Whitehall yesterday to put Christ back into Christmas. A white British Christ. There’s a counter campaign which uses artwork by Andrew Gadd which depicts the nativity in a bus shelter. Posters with slogans including “Christ has always been in Christmas”, “outsiders welcome”, and “Whatever your story, Christmas starts with Christ”, are on display on bus-stop billboards this weekend.

Let’s not make Christmas – incarnation – too quick, too small, too narrow. Let’s see it as so big – incomprehensible – that God chooses to break into his world as he sees fit.

I know this Christmas time it is very easy to despair in the face of all that has befallen us in the world. It is difficult to remain positive, or optimistic, but ‘the word incarnate’, the Son of God should be our starting point. The incarnation refutes the pessimism of our times, the despondency, the negativity and challenges the truth of the popular narrative of despair. It’s big!

A poem by Alan Boesak, entitled, ‘This is True’, challenges us. Our source of hope is grounded in the incarnation and these are the words of that poem.

It is not true
that creation and the human family
are doomed to destruction and loss. This is true:
For God so loved the world
that He gave his only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him,
shall not perish but have everlasting life.
It is not true
that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination,
hunger and poverty, death and destruction. This is true:
I have come that they may have life,
and that abundantly.
It is not true
that violence and hatred should have the last word,
and that war and destruction rule forever. This is true:
Unto us a child is born,
unto us a Son is given,
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
his name shall be called,
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
the Everlasting, the Prince of Peace.
It is not true
that we are simply victims of the powers of evil
who seek to rule the world— This is true: To me is given authority in heaven and on earth,
and lo I am with you,
even until the end of the world.

How does Christmas come to those in fear, those who are fed up, those who’ve been bereaved, to Ukraine and Gaza, to those with narrow vision and ideas scared of the different, to tired churches, to those who think good news doesn’t last. How does Christmas come to you? Well I like to use John Shea’s marvellous Sharon’s Christmas prayer to help us see we cannot narrow or water down or limit divine excitement…  

She was five,

     sure of the facts,

     and recited them

     with slow solemnity

     convinced every word

was revelation.

     She said

they were so poor

they had only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

to eat

and they went a long way from home

without getting lost.  The lady rode

a donkey, the man walked, and the baby

was inside the lady.

They had to stay in a stable

with an ox and an ass (hee-hee)

but the Three Rich Men found them

because a star lited the roof

Shepherds came and you could

pet the sheep but not feed them.

Then the baby was borned.

And do you know who he was?

     Her quarter eyes inflated

     to silver dollars.

The baby was God.

 And she jumped in the air whirled round, dove into the sofa and buried her head under the cushion which is the only proper response to the Good News of the Incarnation.

 Isn’t that great?

Today I’ve had three very different services. Boroughbridge had their carol service this morning, Dallowgill had an Advent communion this afternoon and Bishop Monkton a lovely interactive Christingle tonight. All three were times of pointing us to hope and peace being real in Jesus being about. 

Someone asked me the other night what I think the message of Christmas 2025 should be. I wonder whether it is this:

We know, even when life gets us down, that our God loves us and promises to be with us. And this can fill us with joy, even in the midst of our sorrow. The Jesuit writer Henri Nouwen got it right:

“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. It is a choice based on the knowledge that we belong to God and have found in God our refuge and our safety and that nothing, not even death, can take God away from us.”

 

Nothing can take God away from us, and so we can always choose joy. We can choose joy knowing that it is deeper and stronger than any surface happiness or sadness that we may find in this world. Joy is our way as Christians of refusing to let the headlines in our world win.

So Joy to the world the Lord is come! Don’t rush the story so it is over, don’t limit its power, don’t narrow it to exclude, don’t stress so much about the season you miss it, and let it abide in you for ever. What do you see and hear, says Jesus? The glory of the Lord has been revealed…

The fourteenth day of Advent - Light being counter cultural

​

Light looked down and saw the darkness.
I will go there’, said light.
Peace looked down and saw war.
‘I will go there’, said peace.
Love looked down and saw hatred.
‘I will go there’, said love.

So he,
the Lord of Light,
the Prince of Peace
the King of Love
came down and crept in beside us.

I love to revisit these words in Advent. Just when you think it’s hopeless and dark a light can be revolutionary. I’m very concerned that there was a far right rally in London using Jesus to get Christmas back and reclaim the nation earlier today. An Anglican vicar called Sally Mann set up two chairs and invited conversation there. She wanted to remind people Jesus was a dark skinned refugee. 

Our public issues people have also made a stand…

This was to counter one of the political parties who did this the other day…

Lord have mercy. We need to shine light on narrowness and dangerous rhetoric. The world has been here before and it’s scary but we can with a positive different narrative make a difference.

When it’s dark we need light else we stumble. For various reasons time has been haywire today so I’ve just left my church after a three hour writing session preparing three services and a Christmas card. I took the cards into the hall for tomorrow being all cocky that I knew the way from the vestry to the hall in the dark. Alas I started to miss doors so I needed light after all but where I thought light switches were was way out!! Things are very different in the dark. 

I took the picture at the top of this post at St Wilfrid’s Church in Harrogate tonight after the Messiah. More on that tomorrow but in a dark world we need Christian hope and confidence to shine out urgently.

If our faith is that God comes down we cannot stand by and let dark things run riot. Goodness - bit of a serious message today! 

The thirteenth day of Advent - holding the Christ light

​I’ve discovered this Advent the writing and accompanying images of the Rev John Swales of the Lighthouse Project in West Yorkshire. His website is here. 

https://www.cruciformjustice.com/

He has some powerful paintings of priests or vicars or ministers in different contexts. The image above reminds me of our call to hold the Christ light for people in the darkness every day. The image below is of a priest who sits on a bench on Blackpool prom and has lunch and waits for people to come to chat to. 

There’s a powerful phrase in our ordination service “let no one suffer hurt at your neglect.” It’s always unsettled me. We make mistakes and our load is heavy. But all of us want to make a difference to people by reminding them of light and being where they are. 

So fellow clergy today’s thought is for you. Keep lighting candles, sit on benches, have conversations, remind people of the light that shines in the darkness always. And when you balls it up and you make a mistake, don’t dwell on it too long. Admit you’ve made a mistake and move on. We are as entitled to a new start as much as anyone.

And congregations reading this less than two weeks to Christmas if you insist on saying to your priest or vicar or minister “I expect you are busy” like we aren’t busy at any other time of the year, be kind to us. The seasonal delirium might have started and we might be carolled out already but know we are still here for you… in the middle of mayhem. You might be caller number six in the queue which might be delayed by “have you sorted the carol service?”and “can I have your hymns for Christmas Day?” But we will get to you. 

Maybe we need a slower December. We are too busy to do Advent properly or attend to everyone because it’s Christmas and that’s wrong. Maybe to get things sorted we need to light a candle in a church and be for a while and maybe we need to intentionally be where people might be after we’ve recharged our batteries. There’s nothing wrong these weeks with a bit of sleep in the day! Or is that just me? 

 

The twelfth day of Advent - Incarnation for others

We had our mission area gathering tonight and part of it was me giving a workshop on sharing Christmas with our communities. My topic was…

​How do we do Christmas for those outside our church? 

At Christmas time 2020, Deacon Nigel and  I put Christmas posters in the windows of Allhallowgate telling the community the story in Covid time. Someone from church said “you’ve put them the wrong way round. We can’t see them.” The next year nativity figures were put in the windows. Mary’s backside with Gift Aid 25p on it was facing the street. The figures were for the church to see. This year – alleluia – the figures are facing the street! 

We can easily tell the Christmas story to ourselves or just do fripperies. In a church I had which had a community carol thing I was told “don’t read out of the Bible. We don’t want to put people off!”

If incarnation took place in the world we need to share this story with the world and in the world. We have people who will come to church or go to a nativity play and this will be their only interaction with church all year. I worked in an office with a girl who told me she was a regular churchgoer. By that she meant Christmas Eve. 

So how well do we know the story? Where do you start? 

Several churches go for a theme. The C of E this year is focussing on joy. The great joy of Christmas, of course, is the good news the angel declared to the shepherds - the news of Jesus’ birth as Emmanuel (God With Us). The Methodist Church is focussing on us all being a gift. There are some really good videos on the website from the President and Vice President.

 

What for you is the key message to share this Christmas to your part of the world as it is in December 2025? How is your church letting people know Jesus is coming? 

 

So a checklist - 

Have you posters up outside your church advertising your services? Are they in magazines which go through doors? Have you leafleted the local area with a card giving Christmas greetings from your church? 

Do you take time to go to non church Christmas events and have conversations? 

Are we providing different contexts for people to engage with the story? 

From my December diary:

A riotous evening last Friday with the local scouts and cubs and beavers. 

Several nursing home services allowing those with dementia to sing old carols to old words.

Parents who rarely come into the village church are there next week for a school carol service and a youth club nativity. What message will I give at them? 

A Blue Christmas service for my bereavement café people who don’t want to do Christmas but need to hear of being loved this year. 

——

A final thought from the Advent book I’ve been reading - how do we remember and live as though this story matters? 

“Advent and Christmas could be a time for courageous protest. There is, is there not, a protest of sorts at the heart of the Christmas story. We see God breaking into human history in the demonstration of gentle rebellion against the ways of the world. While the world tears itself apart in violence and hatred, God asserts his love for creation by becoming incarnate. 

While the world seeks the ways of wealth and influence, God is born in a humble stable, upholding the way of vulnerability and weakness. While kings and governors seek to rule with power, God follows the path of service and self-giving.

 

I love the lights and tinsel, the nativity plays, and the gifts under the tree as much as the next person. These are good things for us to enjoy, but let us never forget the real story of Christmas is about a divine protest that also issues a challenge, asking how we too will participate and join the demonstration. 

Advent and Christmas urge us to consider what needs to change and what it is that prevents us from playing our part and joining the dance of rebellion against the status quo in favour of a transformed and better future. It's with small changes, we confront our fears and challenge our instinct for self-preservation. In those changes we make,God's promise is glimpsed, a better future is seen, and we live it in the present moment.”

I hope the people who came at least thought about Christmas being outwards in the world not a holy huddle. Here’s hoping! 

 

The eleventh day of Advent - everyone matters

​"Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbours worthy." 

These words of Thomas Merton were posted on Facebook today, the anniversary of his passing. Alongside this I saw a video of a certain American President banging on about people from shithole countries. Then we have in our country Tommy Robinson and his “Christianity” - the claim that Jesus might be into nationalism and supremacy of some over others. 

Today I’ve been with one of my dear people whose husband has just died. It would have been their golden wedding a week on Saturday. She needed to know she was cared for today. Then we had our monthly bereavement cafe at church. We shared that Christmas is born in the darkness and pain. The two hours were a safe space for people to be themselves. 

If all the outsiders, those society would erase from the picture weren’t in the Christmas story there would be few left in it. The fact is God came long ago for everyone. And he still does. Our pastoral care and our conversations cannot exclude anyone. 

I love Khalil Gibran’s words ‘On Giving’ ….”surely he who is worthy to receive his days and nights from God is worthy of all else from you.”

We need to remember the divine story how God came and is and we need to learn again to be truly inclusive. Don’t we?