Wednesday 24 December 2008

A thrill of hope! The weary world rejoices

"But amidst all these rejoicings Aslan himself quietly slipped away. And when the Kings and Queens noticed that he wasn't there they said nothing about it. For Mr Beaver had warned them, 'He'll be coming and going,' he had said. 'One day you'll see him and another you won't. He doesn't like to be tied down - and of course he has other countries to attend to. It's quite all right. He'll often drop in. Only you mustn't press him. He's wild you know. Not like a tame lion'" - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. (C.S.Lewis)

On Christmas Eve I find myself thinking about God's timing. History pivots on this night. The old testament leans forward towards it. The new testament is possible only because of it. The message renders Romans 5:6 as "Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready."

As an evangelical it is too easy to race on forwards to Easter. To view this night solely in the context of the future. But perhaps tonight we, like Mary, should treasure the moment in our hearts. For God acts when he chooses to act. His coming, his transformation, his salvation are on his terms, not ours and our understanding of his actions is so very limited.

In the words of the carol

"Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by his cradle we stand.
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here come the wise men from orient land.
The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friend.

He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!
Behold your King, Behold your King."

Wednesday 17 December 2008

Christmas presence

One of the many television advertisements which bombard our conscience to conform at this time of the year has the slogan "Christmas Solved". It plays on the feeling that Christmas represents a problem. It is as if somehow going to a particular website to order all our presents in one go can take a weight off our minds and free us to get on with our lives.

Yet this year I feel some sympathy with that. This year Christmas does feel more of a burden than a blessing. Not because of a list of imaginary tasks I have to accomplish, however, but rather in coming to terms with reality. My Christmas day will be spent in a care home with my Mother. In many ways it is as far away from an ideal Christmas as I can imagine it to be.

In my childhood the future possibility of Christmas with relatives in care never occurred to me. Whilst I may not wish for a return to a childhood Christmas, I do wish that she were better. That she understood more of what was going on around her. That I knew that she was happy (or at least contented - I'd settle for that).

Yet in another sense, however, it is closer to ideal. Christmas will be simpler. Many of the unnecessary distractions will no longer be there. Instead it will be about family. About love and care. About presence rather than presents.

This morning I was faced with the reality of Christmas for millions round the world. Refugees in Congo. Political prisoners in Zimbabwe. Peace on earth seems a distant dream in uncertain times. But in struggling myself to locate the joy at the heart of the Christmas story I find myself closer to their experience, and closer to the original story. Christ comes into an imperfect world not to cure it, but to care. To live and suffer alongside a broken creation. To offer a glimpse of a hope that is to come.

Thursday 4 December 2008

The people walking in darkness

"I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth." East Coker (TS Eliot)


Advent, I was reminded this morning, is a time of waiting, of anticipation. A time for reflection. It leads up to Christmas, which is a time of joy, of fulfilment and surprise. The outcome of the waiting transcends expectation. God's gift, whilst long anticipated, is nevertheless unexpected. God's solution to the worlds problem begins not as grandiose intervention into human history, but in the cries of a child in stable in a backwater town.

I'm not very good at waiting. I get distracted and wander off on to other things. But a distracted waiting is not really waiting. All too often it degenerates into attempts to find my own solution. To construct my own gift. To frame my desires, my hopes, my agenda. Yet as Eliot implies true waiting has no agenda. It's not that it is without hope - but rather that hope arises out of the prospect of the surprise rather than in the definition of what it will be. My hope is in the character of God, not the expectation of what he will do. Or at least it should be.