Peace on Earth Goodwill to All: No Way! Yes Way!

Christmas is going to be different this year. This year has certainly been different, of that there is no doubt. Our usual Christmas rituals are not going to be the same. We are going to have to adapt our usual patterns and activities. This may well feel like we are somehow losing out on something, that we will be lacking something from our lives. This need not be case. Yes we will not be doing the things we would normally do, but does that mean that we will still not feel the spirit of the season in our lives, perhaps we can find ways to multiply this spirit at the heart if the season in our humble human lives. Well I have already noticed this happening. One lovely example is taking place on our street. One of our neighbours has come up with a lovely idea of creating a neighbourhood Advent Calendar. Each day an Advent theme will be revealed in someone’s front window. It is an attempt to bring something of the Christmas cheer to the neighbourhood as we unable to mix as we would normally do. I have learnt that is an idea that has been around for quite a few years. The historic town of Saltaire in Bradford have doing this since 2006 and other towns throughout the land and other lands far away have being doing similar projects. The tradition is believed to have begun in Stockholm in Sweden.

We are taking part in “The Living Advent Calendar”. Our house has been given the 12^th December. Our theme is based on the carol “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” written by the Unitarian minister Edmund Sears, whilst serving the congregation in Wayland Massachusetts. It was written during a time of personal turmoil as well war in Europe and between Mexico and the USA. It seems that the world at the time was not hearing the Christmas message. Now while the carol is inspired to some extent by the verse from Luke Ch 2 v 14 it is different to most other carols as it is actually a commentary on the times that Sears himself was living through.

Last Sunday Oliver James Lomax and I recorded a wonderful contemporary, poem/carol. Oliver’s poem “How still we see thee lie” is a moving observation on our contemporary world while linking his words to the classic hymn, “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem”. I see echoes in Oliver’s poem and Sears carol. Both are perhaps retellings of the original Christmas mythos, something that can get lost in many of our Christmas rituals.

Our window on the 12^th will say “Peace On Earth Good Will To All” Bethlehem today is not place of stillness either. Is there peace on earth good will to all? There certainly isn’t in contemporary Bethlehem. Would peace on earth be the gift of Christmas. There is much work to be done in order for us to bring the spirit of Christmas alive here on earth.

Maybe while we think about the things that we will miss this Christmas that we ought to consider what we can give instead during this season and in the years to come. This brings to mind some powerful lines from my favourite carol “In the Bleak Mid Winter”

“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 can I give him: give my heart.”

Now carol singing, in church and chapel, or indoors at all is something we cannot do this year. Gosh this is going to be tough. Like most people I love singing carols, well as you know I love singing anything. We can though sing outdoors and perhaps we need to find creative ways to do this.

“In the Bleak Midwinter” may well be my favourite carol. Yes I know it is not the jolliest, but I suspect it is the most beautiful. It is certainly the one that touches me the deepest. There is a version of it in the Green Hymn book, but I prefer the one we sang earlier, it is the one I remember from primary school. It is the final line that has always tugged at my heart strings. The words “Yet what can I give him: give my heart.” This to me is the message of the whole Christmas story; this is the message of the universal Christmas “mythos”. This is the religious message of Christmas and the message that the life of Jesus brought to humanity. It is a message that applies as much today as it did then. What shall we give? We give our hearts. We give ourselves wholeheartedly to one another. Perhaps this is how we bring about “peace on earth, goodwill to all.”

The story is echoed in John Midgely’s piece on Poinsettia. “Even the most humble gift if given in love will be acceptable.”

“What shall I give him? Give my heart” or if you prefer   “Even the most humble gift, if given in love, will be acceptable”

Perhaps this is the spirit that we need to bring to life through our lives this Christmas season and beyond. We are going to need to as we attempt to rebuild once we eventually come through the other side of this pandemic. Good news about that this week of course as the vaccine will begin to be offered in the next week. Spring is coming, even now in deep mid-winter, let’s keep that light alive.

The Christmas “Mythos” is that of perfect love incarnating in human form. That love can manifest itself today in our hearts and lives. We all have the capacity for great good, if we would but feed the good wolf within each of us. It is surely here that the hope for the whole of humanity lies. If we feed the loving wolf within us the wolf of hate and fear dies off. If we do we have already begun to spread love and we begin to bring joy to the world.

Isn’t this the true spirit of Christmas? Found, I believe, in those simple words from my favourite carol “In the Bleak mid-winter” that we sang earlier “What shall I give him? Give my heart”

Gordon B Mckeeman once said “Christmas is not so much a matter of explanation and interpretation as it is a mood and a feeling. It is a time in the cycle of the year set apart by hope and fellowship and generosity. Christmas is the season of the heart.”

We can bring the gift of Christmas alive and it comes by giving our whole hearts, whole heartedly. In so doing we can once again truly know and experience joy, but not in childish way, in a childlike and yet mature way.

I believe in Christmas, the soul of Christmas, the spirit of Christmas, the heart of Christmas the religion of Christmas more today than I ever did at any moment in my life. Today I believe everything about Christmas and a whole lot more than everything that we think we know.

 

Now don’t get me wrong I am not suggesting that I believe that everything that the Gospel accounts recounted actually happened. I really can’t answer that, I wasn’t there. Were any of us who argue about it actually there? No of course not. What I mean when I say I believe in Christmas more today than I have ever done before is that I believe in the universal mythos that lies in the soul of the story. I believe in the story and what it has to teach humanity regardless of time and or space. That in giving our hearts we bring to life the spirit of Christmas and in so doing we begin to bring peace on earth and goodwill to all. Don’t we all need this so desperately.

 

I believe that we need Christmas more today than at any other time before, for we mock the bells at Christmas time probably more today than we ever did before. The problem I suspect is that we do not hear the message at the heart of Christmas…Maybe we have forgotten how to listen or perhaps we have forgotten how to deliver the message

So let’s begin to bring the spirit of the season alive once again, let us listen for those old familiar carols. Let’s bring peace on earth and goodwill to all. For if we do we may just begin to make it Christmas every single day. Can this be done, well it can if we still believe in the spirit at the heart of this beautiful season.

Let’s bring peace on earth and goodwill to all.