Escape from reality?
19th December 2023
This is the reflection from the Carol Service a couple of weeks ago
What sort of Christmas lights do you like? Tasteful, minimalist, warm white? Or every possible colour mix, psychedelic flashing, over the top?
A street near us has got two of those houses that seem to be having a competition. Lights everywhere flash hysterically, and the garden, the house and the roof covered with reindeer, Christmas trees, stars, snowflakes, huge inflatable Santas and snowmen. I imagine that each year when one sees what the other has put up there might be a frantic dash to B and Q to go one better…
Christmas lights are one way to get through these dark dismal days of December – and maybe November. An escape from the reality of winter. And not just the lights – the Christmas songs, the adverts, the magazines with instructions for a perfect Christmas meal … the whole Christmas celebration can be an escape from the grey reality of day to day life.
So what about the story that we’ve heard today – the story seen in a thousand nativity plays – kind Mary, caring Joseph, the beautiful baby, friendly animals in a nicely arranged stable, a sky full of angels – is that all escape from reality too?
When we look closer, the backdrop of this story isn’t too far away from the hard reality of parts of our world today. It’s set in a country ruled by two powerful and pitiless forces – the remote, hard faced Roman empire and Herod the great, a local meglomaniac, both using violence to get their way.
Mary and Joseph, ordinary people in a northern backwater, lived under this harsh rule. We’re told that they were forced to travel many miles over difficult country just to be counted by the Romans so they could pay them taxes – taxes which went straight into the empire’s pocket.
And their personal lives were not very advert worthy either. Mary’s encounter with ‘an angel’ and her shocking pregnancy must have led to anger, disappointment and jealousy. Mary then rushed away to see her cousin. Joseph was left trying to decide what to do. After his own message from God he stuck by Mary, but it can’t have been easy for them in a small village community.
Whatever dreams they both had about their wedding were turned upside down. And when the birth of their first child came it was not at home, with the support of those who loved them, but in a strange place miles away where they couldn’t even find a room. So they found shelter with the animals – perhaps in one of the caves people often used for their animals – full of dirt and dung. Not the place for a long first labour, with no help, a real time of fear and danger in those days.
So this wasn’t an escape from reality – it was a reality all too similar to the challenges faced by many people around the world today. But into the middle of this comes the wonder and the joy of a new baby. We’re celebrating this week with Sarah from our team whose first grandchild was born on Monday – also a first niece for Suus. Her name is Mariam Rose. It was wonderful to see on WhatsApp the look on Sarah’s face as she held Mariam… Where has she come from, asked Mariam’s father – and then answered his own question: she has come from God.
Birth brings wonder, and joy and love – even when it comes in the middle of dangerous and difficult times, as it did for Mary and Joseph. And that is the message that this first Christmas baby came to live out, and to share. Even in the very worst that this world can throw at us, love is there.
The poet Madeleine L’Engle puts it like this:
‘He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.
‘We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!’
Jesus came not to help us escape reality, but to draw us into a new reality – the reality of indestructible love. It’s a reality we can glimpse even in the darkest places, when love goes on being shown by people of all beliefs and backgrounds. Like me, you might even have seen some of those stories of shared humanity and love in the news even in these last weeks.
In times like this we need to listen to those stories. Christmas can be a celebration of this different reality, a reality infused with love – a reality that would be lived out in the most costly way by the man this baby would grow up to become – the one who showed, even when this world had nailed him to a cross, that the deepest love is indestructible.
As well as listening for this deeper reality, we can play our part in making it heard. It’s been wonderful having our assortment of music instruments today – from the deep cello to the high strings of the mandolin. The story we remember at Christmas is a story that calls us to play our part in playing or singing this love song with our lives, in whatever way we can, because this is a song that no amount of noise can drown out – this is a song which brings hope to the world.
Our prayers use the words of a song which we used it in our gathering for peace here a few weeks ago: We will hold you in our circle, we will hold you in our love.
There are places and situations that are in our hearts tonight… we can hold them before God – praying that people may find healing and hope – praying that even in the middle of terrible times, they may know love. And as we pray, we offer ourselves to be part of bringing that love – through our support and care….
There are people that we bring in our hearts today – people we know who may be struggling, or going through change. We can pray that they will know God’s love surrounding them …
And as we come here we bring our own challenges and hurts – the wounds inflicted on us by life, our uncertainties about the way ahead, we can pray for each other – and trust that God holds each of us in the circle of his love.
We pray for the places and situations where we long for healing and for hope, and for love to be known.
We will hold you in our circle, we will hold you in our love.
We pray for the people that we bring in their hearts – that they may know love holding them.
We will hold you in our circle, we will hold you in our love.
We pray for each other and for ourselves – may we know God’s love, the love Jesus showed us, holding us now, and always.
We will hold you in our circle, we will hold you in our love.