God in the face of the other

A very happy Christmas to all those who are walking this journey with me at the moment. 

I’ve been to Christmas Eve communion and to service this morning. The services were all about relationship. God comes in vulnerability to share our vulnerability. I tried so hard to sing some carols. I nearly choked last night during O Little Town of Bethlehem. Why are carols so high? We sang it again this morning with a verse I’ve never ever sung before:

“Where children pure and happy, pray to the blessed Child, where misery cries out to Thee, Son of the Mother mild; where Charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door, the dark night wakes, the glory breaks, and Christmas comes once more.”

Phillips Brooks, who wrote the hymn, had it when the hymn was first performed in 1868, according to my internet research. (My Wife is watching some rubbish on Pick and I’m bored!) It never then appeared in any hymn book. Goodness only knows then why it was on our hymn sheet this morning? 

If today is about relationships and people will either be together partying and eating or feeling acutely lonely yearning for relationship or mourning one - then we are called into relationship with others as a priority. 

The leader of the services included this story last night from the Jewish Talmud as a challenge. A rabbi sits with his students. 

“How do we know,” the rabbi asks, “when the night is over and the day has arrived?”

One student replies: Rabbi, night is over and day arrives, when you can see a house in the distance and determine if that’s your house or the house of your neighbour.

Another student responds: Night is over and day arrives when you can see an animal in the field and determine if it belongs to you or to your neighbour.

Yet a third says: Night is over and day has arrived when you can see a flower in the garden and distinguish its colour.

“No, no, no” thunders the Rabbi, “Why must you see only in separations, only in distinctions, and disjunctions. No. Night is over and day arrives when you can look into the face of the person beside you and you can see that he is your brother, she is your sister. Night is over when you can see that you belong to each other. That you are one. Night has ended and day has arrived when you can see God in the face of the other.” 

 May today bring a new commitment to care. May we be better people, less selfish and self obsessed. Let’s think about others round us a bit more. It’s not 3 yet but I think the Queen is going to say this too. I’m grateful to those who care for me today. 

I’m grateful for the person who led the services we have shared in. I told him my story on the church step last night (well, at 1am this morning) and he told me to relax! This morning he grasped my hand and said, with no prompting, “I hope your recovery is quick.” He sent me on my way feeling I mattered. That’s the message of Christmas too.  

We both wish all our friends who read my stuff a happy Christmas and a blessed and for many, a much better 2019.