The Wednesday after Christmas: all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order…

The highlight of Christmas television viewing this year was surely a programme now 50 years old: the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show from 1971. It included the immortal Grieg piano concerto by Grieg and Andrew Preview sketch in which is surely the funniest ever exchange of all time:

“You’re playing all the wrong notes!”

“I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.” 

In these last days of a year as we blob out a bit, we reflect on what’s happened to us. It’s been a year of all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order. It’s not been straightforward and at times we haven’t known what to do. I’ve said many times to people no one taught me how to lead churches in a global pandemic, and as we get to the second anniversary of its beginning soon, we still find ourselves unable to plan as we would like to. So we’ve needed and continue to need to be light on planning and flexible when changes are forced on us. 

I’ve made some pastoral phone calls this afternoon and even talking to a few people, it’s clear for most of us life is hard and unpredictable. Outside tonight is a strong wind, some trees are down in our city, and several roofs are unstable. We need in chaos when the script isn’t how we would like it, to know there’s something or someone we can rely on. 

I take comfort that in the Christmas story, the coming of God isn’t straightforward. Jesus is incarnate in mess and confusion, in poverty, in a nation ruled over by a violent tyrant, incarnate as a vulnerable child, a refugee, an outsider. Remember religious people knew how God would come by heart. He came playing all the wrong notes in their view. We know they were the right notes and maybe in a refreshingly new order which was his intention. 

How boring would it be if we were always neat and tidy and we always knew what was going to happen. In my experience, when you expect God’s plan a, he gives you plan b… 

Maybe tonight take heart if life is a bit in the wrong order or it’s chaos for you. Incarnation is about divine presence in all of that, not some pretty, neat, sugary parcel we dare not touch for spoiling it.

I love at the end of that classic sketch Andre Previn goes with Eric’s version of the Grieg rather than arguing. After all, for ten pound more, they could have got Edward Heath!