What to do after Christmas Day…

What do we do with the days after Christmas? We’ve eaten too much and we clergy people are still absolutely done in. The Archdruid Eileen had it right in a post especially as my head is spinning and I’ve picked up an annoying cough from somewhere…

You've done 3 lots of carolling, umpteen assemblies, Christingles, Nativities, Advent Study Groups, crib Services, and written next month's "Thought" for the parish magazine.

You've eaten your own weight in mince pies and stollen. Drunk more coffee and mulled wine than would comfortably fit in Willen Lake.

You fitted in two weddings and six funerals.

Now you’ve just got three Midnight Masses, a dawn service, and a mid-morning service to go.

(And, quite likely, Christmas and Boxing Day meals to cook).

Then it's "you time". Time to relax. Let all the adrenaline go.

It's time to  go down with the 'flu.

Enjoy it. You've earned it.

We went out for Christmas dinner on Christmas Day which was a new experience and much enjoyed then we blobbed in front of Christmas telly. Gavin and Stacey gave us the happy ending we hoped for. Then I slept twelve and a half hours into Boxing Day and in the afternoon caught up with Wallace and Gromit and the evil Feathers McGraw. Superb!

There comes a point where the excess of Christmas becomes too much. I think this year more so because it’s been going on since mid November. We had lunch in Harrogate today and on the menu were chocolate orange pancakes. I was tempted, but I couldn’t do it! A lot of people will in these days have begun to take Christmas decorations down. There are crème eggs in the shops! 

But!!

We had a minister at home who came for a year from the Uniting Church of Australia. His name was Brian Whitlock. He was a very loud and lively Australian! He made us learn Advance Australia Fair and sing it at church socials. But what I remember most about Brian was that he tried to ban Christmas carols until the arrival of Christmas Day. There had to be a small compromise with the choir but I saw his point. This is now the Christmas season and it lasts at least until Epiphany on 6 January and actually until Candlemas, 2 February, 40 days after Jesus’ birth when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple. I’ll be thinking about that on Sunday. 

These days after Christmas are filled with a number of minor festivals, days which we seldom observe unless they happen to fall upon a Sunday. These festivals help us understand just what this birth in a manger means. 

The 26th, yesterday, was the feast of St. John the Apostle. He of course wrote the Gospel and other books in our New Testament. His life was one of lengthy and devoted service. He is the Apostle of Incarnation, struggling to get his people of his day to see that the enfleshment of God in Christmas was vital to the Christian faith. God really does love this physical world and by taking up the flesh of a broken humanity he has redeemed the whole of this physical world. The prologue to his Gospel is perhaps the most beautiful part of Scripture when read in the King James Version. 

The 27th, today, is the feast of St. Stephen, the traditional end of the big party that was Christmas. And when Advent was penitential and the celebration did not start until Christmas Eve, that party would go for several days. Of course, this festival really seems out of place for the fuzzy sentimentality which marks commercial Christmas. This is the tragic death of an innocent man, stoned outside the walls of Jerusalem. Yet, this baby who lies in a manger will come to a cross, and he calls all his followers to take up a cross and follow him on that dusty and dreary road to Calvary. Stephen did. 

The 28th is the feast of the Holy Innocents, the children who were murdered by Herod in Bethlehem at the time of Jesus birth. One commentator estimates that this was about 24 children considering the size of the community. This dark day also stands in stark contrast to the bright cheerfulness of Christmas but is quite necessary. The Saviour came because the world in which we live is so dark. The darkness has not overcome it, but the darkness can be very dark. By insisting that the world is bright and cheery, we often cause people whose lives are darkened by sin to despair. We need in this time of Christmas to remember that Jesus came because our lives are indeed in need of the very salvation which he wrought. 

So we travel through the season of Christmas, and we pray it be real. The froth and excess food cannot go on for ever but these days remind us of the implication of God coming. That coming has to be enough to get us through whatever we have to face ahead. And it will if we remember the gift abides in us when the decorations and excitement have long ended. 

This hymn, lost from our current book expresses to me what Christmas that is deep and pastoral really means… 

And art Thou come with us to dwell,
Our Prince, our Guide, our Love, our Lord?
And is Thy Name Emmanuel,
God present with His world restored?

The world is glad for Thee! the rude
Wild moor, the city's crowded pen;
Each waste, each peopled solitude,
Becomes a home for happy men.

Thou bringest all again; with Thee
Is light, is space, is breadth and room
For each thing fair, beloved, and free
To have its hour of life and bloom.

Thy reign eternal will not cease;
Thy years are sure, and glad, and slow;
Within thy mighty world of peac
The humblest flower hath leave to blow.

Then come to heal thy people's smart,
And with Thee bring thy captive train;
Come, Saviour of the world and heart,
Come, mighty Victor over pain,

And let our earth's wild story cease
Its broken tale of wrong and tears;
Come, Lord of Salem, Prince of Peace,
And bring again our vanished years.

The world is glad for Thee! the heart
Is glad for Thee! and all is well,
And fixed and sure, because Thou art,
Whose Name is called Emmanuel.

Christmas Eve - anticipating and hoping

I led a Christmas Eve communion in Bedale earlier. Here’s my Christmas Eve thoughts…

On Christmas Eve I offer you this prayer from Nite Blessings:

May you be reminded of the breathtaking love of God. Remember that He reached out to you before you reached out to Him. He found you before you were looking for Him. His embrace will hold you secure through every storm and every season. You are safe in Him always.

A man called J. B. Phillips wrote a book called: 'Your God Is Too Small'. What he addressed within that book was simply the attitude of people toward God. Not simply their attitude, but the imagination that they had about Him - whether it was a 'Father Christmas' figure that sat on a cloud and twanged at a harp, or whether it was a God of wrath who had no love or kindness, but just used us, the human race, as pawns in His big almighty plans.

And he said, “We cannot understand God, and no matter how many schemes or systems or theologies we give birth to, God is beyond our understanding.”

I asked my congregation on Sunday morning whether we have to have Christmas to a script. I recalled with them Christmases growing up which were held at my Auntie Doris’s. Auntie Doris had Christmas dinner scripted. My mother was made to eat a sprout because it was Christmas and she would swallow one whole. If dinner wasn’t perfect, Auntie would burst into tears and it had to be cleared away by half past two so Auntie and mother could go upstairs to change before they saw the monarch at three. As if the Queen could see them!

I just worry this Christmas Eve, unlike children going to sleep later with big dreams of tomorrow, we grown ups have made Christmas small and stressy. There’s another sermon in me called “Ian went to M and S yesterday lunchtime and saw humanity at its worst.” Isn’t it time to rediscover the wonder of the story, the breathtaking love of God, the God who is beyond our understanding and yet chooses to break into his world and share life with all its complexity with us. Wow!

Let’s think for a moment about the initial reaction to Christmas. Mary asks “how can this be?” Joseph’s head spins. Zechariah is made mute. Elizabeth and Mary laugh. The shepherds are “sore afraid.” The magi are compelled to make a long journey. Herod is rattled. Simeon and Anna find peace. All the participants in the story find God suddenly at work in a wonderful and awesome way and life can never be the same again.

May you be reminded of the breathtaking love of God. Remember that He reached out to you before you reached out to Him. He found you before you were looking for Him. His embrace will hold you secure through every storm and every season. You are safe in Him always.

It isn’t Christmas for me until I hear the wonderful prologue to the Gospel of John, which I have included in my services tomorrow and I will read it myself in the glorious King James Version. “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory,”. That’s what we’re about to celebrate – a great and mighty wonder.

God chose to humble Godself to the level of a poor, limited, human creature. And more than that—notice that John adds, “And we have seen his glory.” Jesus didn’t just become human for a minute or an hour or a day and then go right back to heaven. He lived among us for thirty-three years, enduring the messiness, the heartbreak, the inconvenience, the joy, and the pain of human life.

And he never walked out on that pain. He could have used his power at so many moments to ease his way. There was no reason for him to suffer the pain he went through, from getting sick, to getting in arguments,  to having clueless disciples, to having friends die, all the way up to the excruciating suffering he experienced on the cross. But he did it because he loves us, and he would never abandon us to suffer alone.

Let’s return briefly to those characters we know well. Mary said let it be to be according to your word. Joseph doesn’t have a speaking part but he stands by Mary and fathers the child and sorts things out after hearing angels. The shepherds declare let’s go and see. The magi follow the star. Elizabeth giggles about blessedness, Zechariah talks of the tender compassion of God and the dawn from on high breaking in upon us, Simeon can depart in peace having seen what he’d prayed for years to come and Anna found consolation and Herod – well he went berserk didn’t he threatened by what was occurring around him. And you dear people of Bedale and District Methodist Church this Christmas what is your response to all of this?

 I worked out from a week last Sunday to this afternoon I’ve had fourteen carol services or other Christmas worship. Two more in the morning. Every one of those has been special as I’ve watched people get caught up in the story again, from the lady with dementia in the nursing home shouting out one word from every carol we sang, to the whole school at Boroughbridge primary coming into church for their Christmas service which made the place rock, to people sharing a quiet blue Christmas with me at Allhallowgate as we lit candles and shared companionable silence, to the hoards that made their annual pilgrimage in the wind to Dallowgill on Sunday nightto sing their carols to their local wacky tunes and have great fun together.

There’s a lovely verse at the beginning of the book of Joshua where the people of God are about to enter the long hoped for promised land. And they are told “sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will work wonders among you.” This afternoon we come to quieten ourselves before the event, to remember and take in the wonderful fact that God is coming again. Don’t make your God too small this Christmas Eve.

And remember how and when God comes. I read this this morning:

Night was the time when the shepherds were used to being hounded by Roman soldiers, their lives threatened, chased off hillsides, living constantly with fear of attack, if not from soldiers, then wild animals that would circle their livestock. And it was their night that was pierced with light when the messenger from God came to the ones living on the very margins of society, ridiculed and shut out, and Divine glory shone around! It was night when the shepherds saw the messenger, the angel and heard the invitation.

We too can experience dark nights – even dark nights of the soul. Night.

Sometimes they are crushingly dark. Sometimes we are weary. Sometimes unbelievably empty and lonely. Sometimes we are weary and feel lost in the night. It’s then that we fear the most and feel most isolated. We may wonder if light and day will ever come.

But night is always there just before light and day kicks it firmly into touch.

Day always follows night. The light always comes. And today is no exception.

So - on this Christmas Eve may we look right into our night and know this….

That the day will soon be here. Hope is on its way. The Light of the whole world will pierce the darkness so that it bleeds with astounding, penetrating, inspiring, breath-taking, beautiful, radiant, glorious, eternal light and life.

 I don’t know how I ended up coming here this afternoon but I’m glad to be here to say to you find that breathtaking love of God for you, not just tonight or tomorrow but into the year ahead when life is hard and church isn’t joyful and it all feels so difficult. God comes, will come and incarnation is a reality every day – you are not alone.

Advent - carolled out??

With only three days left to Christmas I think I’m all carolled out! I don’t think I’ve ever sung this many in such a short space of time. This last week has had services in church, nursing homes, schools, and schools in church. 

Boroughbridge Manor on Wednesday was very hot but lovely. Especially moving was a lady with severe dementia shouting out one word of each carol we had - hark, comfort, joy. Her brain obviously knew what we were singing and she could join in in her own way. Then there was my lovely lady from Darley who was as usual a verse behind so we had a solo! 

On Thursday morning, Allhallowgate had their annual coffee and carols morning with 70 people choosing their favourites. It was a fun time and the end of the year for the coffee morning which is an important outreach for our church. Then on Thursday afternoon I helped lead the carol service for Roecliffe School in the ancient church in the village. The children enjoyed the carols especially singing along to the Boney M version of Mary’s Boy Child. I didn’t tell them I bought that version on vinyl in 1978! 

Later on Thursday we went into Leeds to the Howard Assembly Rooms for an evening of Christmas music with Eliza Carthy and friends. It was a lovely time to receive for a change in this mad week! 

Friday saw the whole of Boroughbridge Primary School have their carol services in our church for the first time. The place was rocking and it was lovely to see the children having fun sharing the story with us and to see parents hanging over the balcony and to have our church full. 

Saturday had me leading a Blue Christmas service where we sang two carols and had a supportive space for those struggling. It was a peaceful and powerfully quiet time. Then in the evening I was glad to be at the village carols in the hall at Sawley. It was really good to be at a non church village event and just join in. Sixteen carols were sung in just over an hour. 



So to today. A morning service on Mary and Elizabeth, an afternoon carol service at Allhallowgate with over forty people there and then a full church at Dallowgill tonight where they come from near and far every year to sing some carols with local tunes and traditions. Dallowgill at Christmas is like a piece of elastic which pulls those who have been part of it in the past back. We filled an hour happily choosing our favourites and remembering those we sang when we went out singing in the community years ago and those requested on doorsteps every year. 

I’ve been reminded this week of the power of the carol. It tells the story and it evokes memories and it can be the only vehicle some share to hear the Gospel. A lot of people come and join in with them once a year. We sing the mightiest theology in them. How would it be if we had to explain some of the verses? Lo he abhors not the virgin’s womb anyone? After so many of them this week I’m nearly carolled out! They are great and they link church and the secular world like no other thing but please can I have one day without singing any tomorrow??! 

Advent - Time for seeking

So my mobile rings yesterday which I didn’t hear and I ring the person back.

“We can’t find the carol sheets.”

“Have you looked in the vestry cupboard?” I ask.

“Yes, they’ve looked in there.”

Then I see an e-mail:

“We can’t find the carol sheets. Do you know where they are? We may need to use hymn books.”

Minister says he will see if we can borrow some from another church. 

Minister spends time he hasn’t got researching how we can get new carol sheets as the ones we have are from about 1899 and there are two different versions and every year they give out two different versions and it’s chaos :) 

Minister is in vestry last night and just checks the vestry cupboard. Three folders of carol sheets are the first thing he sees! He rings up and shares the good news then emails another person who had been looking for them including in the vestry cupboard. 

“They weren’t in there yesterday!!!” 

Don’t you just love what you do?

The Christmas story is all about searching and finding and just maybe this year what we are looking for is right where it has always been things or people we have forgotten about. 

“There is no use saying, ‘Look! Here it is’ or ‘Look! There it is.’ God's kingdom is here with you.” 

So if you lose your carol sheets try the cupboard! Even if they aren’t there they may mysteriously appear again just when you need them. 

Advent exceeding expectations

There’s a verse in the hymn There’s a wideness in God’s mercy that reminds us that we make God’s love too narrow. Maybe also we make our expectations too narrow. 

Take this afternoon. Sawley chapel was hosting a Christingle and Carol Service for the two churches in the village and the community. Our services at Sawley start at 2pm. I looked out from the schoolroom at 1.55pm and there weren’t many there. At 2pm the chapel was full of folk including families and children. My steward exclaimed “there are people here!” Andrew, the Anglican house for duty priest who was to preach exclaimed “there are children here. I need to rethink my sermon!” Which he did! We had a lovely time of worship and sharing. My point today is no one expected a full chapel! We say we want more than the usual few to come to things and when it happens we are shocked like the church we turned up at in Durham City last Sunday evening when the man at the door almost said “really?!?” when we said we wanted to join them. 

Have we got bogged down in a church climate that says no one is interested, no one will come and we apologise that not many are here when we gather as happened in my service this morning. Have we turned so insular that we don’t even bother inviting people to join us because we really believe no one is interested? I’ve had several churches that have told me with five minutes to go that we are all here so we may as well start. I’ve been to churches that put out six chairs for six people and if a seventh person turns up there’s a commotion! 

The Christmas story we are preparing to celebrate is one of large vision and huge possibilities. It’s invitational and it invites us to invite others to join in with it. It’s a story that draws you and others in. It’s an opportunity maybe just once a year to tell people of good news for all people. And we mustn’t be surprised if people engage with it. 

This evening we’ve been at a performance of the Messiah by G F Handel given by Harrogate Choral Society. My wife is in the choir along with two other minister’s wives from Harrogate by the way! The Messiah, remember, is in three parts, Christmas, the passion and the resurrection. In the Christmas bit there’s a huge vision and invitation and a reminder we need to think much bigger where God is concerned. There is no notion people won’t take notice of divine activity.

After hearing the Messiah, the Earl of Kinnoull complimented Handel and told him that it was wonderful entertainment. Handel is reported to have responded, “I should be sorry if I only entertained them, I wish to make them better.”These words from Isaiah point to that transformation – “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.”

Isaiah is telling the exiles in Babylonian captivity that the Messiah is coming, and to get ready, changes will have to be made, both within themselves and society at large.

Exile isn’t just a status for the Israelites. This side of eternity, exile is the human condition for each of us. As a result of sin we are all separated from God and in desperate need of forgiveness and redemption. This is only possible through the Messiah. The remedy involves much more than, in Handel’s words, being made “better.” Through Christ we can be counted right with God and begin a lifelong process of sanctification. 

“Behold your God!” God is doing something and frankly we need to catch up with what he is up to.

When we start apologising or when we expect nothing or we can’t cope with new people well… you know the verse don’t you? Where there is no vision… the people perish.” 

And that’s just not the Gospel. So when we are narrow, remember this God sends Jesus into the world that we should not perish but have everlasting life. And that’s HUGE! And people might just join in with it. 

Advent taking us out of ourselves

I haven’t watched Strictly for several years but I found a bit of grit in my eye playing the result of this year’s contest on the BBC News app while getting dinner ready. Chris McCausland and Diane Buswell have been outstanding not making a disability matter. He’s just said the trophy is for Diane and “it’s for everyone out there that got told they couldn’t do something or thought they couldn’t do it, and it just shows that with opportunity and support, and just determination, just anything can happen.” 

We all need things that make us see not all of humanity is bad. We need feel good times. And when we are excluded like sadly some disabilities still are today, we need to know with “opportunity and support and just determination, just anything can happen.”

In the Christmas story, the shepherds weren’t disabled but they were outsiders. No one wanted them to be the first at anything. But (and this is cheesy o reader) they won the divine glitterball - the prize of being first to see the Christ child parents and animals aside. No one expected them to be the people who got there before anyone else. They were determined to take the opportunity given to them not by a Strictly producer, but by an angel and an angelic host and they made haste to take it. 

So tonight let’s enjoy tv good news and celebrate with Chris and Diane and in our faith let’s keep dancing! (Sorry! I still miss Brucie!!!)

Advent Light and Lucy

I am writing this a few hours late so yesterday was the feast day of St Lucy. Did you know that? 

I enjoyed the lights last night at the winter wonderland in the spa gardens where we sang carols for an hour and looking at the windows in Kirkby Malzeard before a concert. 

One tradition in church history is that a girl called Lucy would be crowned with a wreath with lit candles on it and in darkness would walk down the central aisle of her local church.

The seven candles on her crown represented how St Lucy would go out every night to give food to the hungry. The tradition holds that she used the money from her dowry for this charitable act and her intended husband was so cross about this, he informed the authorities of her faith, and she was martyred in 304. The catacombs in Syracuse, where the persecuted church met have early inscriptions mentioning her name.  

Lucy means “as of Light” and might therefore be a description of one martyred, shining as a light in the darkness of persecution. There are various other traditions connected to St Lucy from the sixth century onwards.

I am reminded remembering Lucy of what we shared in church at the start of Advent and what we will celebrate at Christmas itself
“The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”