This year at Emmanuel we have had to think creatively about how to celebrate Christmas in a time of COVID. Initially I had grand plans for a live nativity in the playground with a donkey taking Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, sheep and their attendant shepherds, and llamas playing the role of camels carrying the wise men. As restrictions tightened, it brought into focus what we really wanted to share this Christmas time: the light dawning in the darkness, hope breaking into despair and joy which cannot be stolen.
So instead of animals in the playground, yesterday we took our first carol service to the streets of Littlemore, with lanterns shining in the darkness, some beautiful singing voices from children and staff, and to share with our neighbours the truth that, when all around us changes, God does not.
Children at Emmanuel know that I don’t have a favourite song; I have many favourite songs. But the carol, ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ is close to the top of my Christmas Top 10. When we lived in South Africa and the Christmas season was hot, it felt inappropriate to sing. Then I remembered that the carol works at two levels, physical and metaphorical, and the latter is the more poignant. It reminds us that we live in a bleak world, where without God, it would ‘always be winter but never Christmas’, with hearts which are cold, hostile and full of fear.
In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago.
But it is into this world that He made and sustains, that God breaks in to rule and restore. I find great comfort at Christmas that God breaks into darkness with tenderness and humility. Our human tendency is to rail at the darkness in frustration, to counter strife with strife, but as Zechariah prophesied before his birth:
By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Or as Christina Rosetti writes, he comes from on high to the lowly, to graciously reveal the light of himself:
Our God, heaven cannot hold him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign;
In the bleak midwinter
A stable place sufficed
The Lord God incarnate,
Jesus Christ.
Christmas also calls us back to beautiful simplicity. This year, the llamas in the playground would have been a distraction from the one thing which is needed this year: worship. 2020 was a year which many of us had ‘vision statements’ for, and none of us envisaged the year we have just had. It’s a year which has revealed our brokenness on so many levels: our fear of death, our fear of what others think, our fear of the future. It’s a year which has exposed an existential crisis about what it means to be human and the nature of love. And the Christian faith declares that the answers to these fears and questions are found in a stable in Bethlehem and can be grasped as we bring our hopes and fears to Him in humility and trust.
What can I give him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him —
Give my heart.
We had our first carol service yesterday on the streets of Littlemore. We’ll be out again on Monday 14th from 4 to 5 p.m. as we celebrate, even, or especially, in this midwinter, that light will always overcome darkness, hope always defeats despair, and love will drive out every fear.
