Are you ready for the festivities ?!
I have been taken this year with the adverts
for sparkling jewellery. Swaroski. Should I shouldn’t I ? All the advertising is playing on our
anxieties about getting everything ready for Christmas. We don’t want to let
anyone down, it has to be a perfect Christmas.
Be prepared. Fill up the fridge, buy
all the shopping, ….surprise, delight your guests. (Perhaps at the back of our
minds there’s compete too…)
So much of our economy runs on exploiting
anxiety. Marketing creating needs that we can only satisfy by buying something.
We know it’s wrong, and we know it doesn’t really brings happiness, but we do
it anyway.
Unlike commercial Christmas froth Advent
is a time of preparation for something profound. But what are we going to get
ready for? How do we get ready for Christmas, for the arrival of the baby Jesus?
Each year we re-enact the drama. We
pretend Jesus hasn’t arrived. It’s a very good practice because it means we
have to refresh and renew ourselves. Jesus has come, this is historical and cosmic
reality, he has been born in our midst, but we hope for more, we await his
coming amongst us again. We have the perfect gift, but we look to the Lord God
to save us.
I have been hearing in my head
recently that’s opening song from Godspell. Prepare ye the way of the Lord.
It speaks to me on several levels;
personally, as a church and as a society.
I had the privilege of going on
retreat with some people from this benefice (Christ Church Healey and All
Saints) on Thursday. I got away from the busyness, the expectations, the church
duties. I spent some time in silence. We looked at at the nativity story and
let it talk to us. We used our imagination. I think we each found that when we paused,…
God spoke to us. This was an attempt at getting ready. It helped.
The trouble with our economy and
social world we create to sustain it, is that it seems design to stop us from
looking deeper, searching for the more important things. We have to break free
and get ready, get prepared, get to a new level.
You don’t need to go away on retreat
this week. Not everyone can manage that. However we can put ourselves in a
place of silence, of openness to His coming, of repentance from all that
diminishes the divine in us. We can be ready. And Gloriously, you can do this
with no money, no shopping required.
We can hear the call of John the
Baptist. His message was radical, and called people back to the important
things. Turn back he said. Excessive consumerism wasn’t a big problem in his
time, but I’m sure he would have spoken out against it ! A few locusts and some
honey was all he sought. Jesus signed up to his movement by being baptised by
him. He and many others were baptised in the river Jordan. But John pointed to
the one who was to more than take over the mantle. Jesus
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The second track of Godspell is called Save the People.
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It’s written by Ebenezer Elliott who was one of the leaders of the Chartist movement in England, 1781–1849;
known as the “Poet of the People,” and by his enemies as the “Corn-law
Rhymer”)
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A strong message, cloaked somewhat. A
yearning for God to act, a prophetic voice, a yearning for a better world.
Solving the problems of an unjust
society and damage to the planet begins with each of us doing some spiritual
work. It is amazing to think that the future well-being of people and planet
depends on us. (We don’t need to be terrified by this – we are not alone, we
have the Holy Spirit). This doesn’t need effort or great holiness, rather a
letting go and stopping.
So the first two tracks of this perhaps
dated Album have given me a nudge – prepare inside and yearn for a better
society.
So I Have been trying to pray through
the news. Today I see that our MP Tony Lloyd is in Bangladesh supporting the
needs of the Rohingya I hear…
Don’t write Christmas off as some do –
as too materialistic, too empty.
I love the exchange of gifts. These can
be precious tokens of love and affection, acknowledging our relationships and
connections. As you may know, It all began with Saint Nicholas that wonderful
Saint, from Myra in Turkey, Patron Saint of Russia. He cared for the poor and
the outcast. One of the many stories about him was that when two girls lost
their parents and were at risk of being drawn into prostitution because of
poverty, he got the money to get them dowries. He saved them. Thus for our good
Saint Nicholas encouraging the giving of gifts to the poor children was a way
of caring for the poor.
We still give gifts – but has good saint
Nicholas become a Bad Santa. Is Saint Nicholas losing the battle to Santa Claus
(we have lost the Nic) ?
The good news is that this season,
this time of year, can be filled with hope and joy. It is not irredeemable ! We
can write our own new song for Godspell
Here’s my own thoughts for an advent
song of hope. Your challenge (should you choose to accept it) will be to put it
into words and perhaps music.. !
As John joined Jesus movement, so can
we. We have been baptised into his new community, a world-wide church that
lives for his mercy, his justice, his peace. As we recommit to day in this
worship, we renew our commitment this kingdom
We are in Jesus’ cosmic time. The new testament
reading tells us that one day is like a thousand years. We yearn for a new
heaven and a new earth, and we need it, but it is here. We yearn for him to
come, but he has come, and will come again.
When we follow him, here in cold Healey,
he comes again
When we comfort his people (as Isaiah has
God tell us) we find him alongside us.
Because what we have and what we yearn
for is #Godwithus
(Follow the hashtag on Twitter if you
can)
Our song this advent can be a song of
yearning, a song of sorrow at injustice, but it must also be a song of hope.
The messenger will come, has come, will come again.
We must stop telling ourselves lies
about the world, we must seek the truth, we must make space for some depth, an
encounter with pure truth and love born among us. But we must get ourselves ready,
hungry even, for it.
From 2 Peter:
Therefore
beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at
peace, without blemish or spot and regard the patience of the Lord as
salvation.