Not Christmas.
I’m not going to wish you a merry Christmas even though this is technically my last opportunity before the great day to infest the whole diocese with my festive cheer, at least in print. Please understand that it isn’t that I DON’T wish you a blessed and happy Christmas – that would be unusual and distinctly unclerical, (not to mention untrue). But as I write this, the thoughtful season of advent has not even begun – the time when we God-Botherers ponder how much we need a Saviour – so I don’t want to ho ho ho at you just yet. I do hope that despite the chill in the air caused by national and global events you will avail yourselves when the time comes of all the hope and joy that your local church and community can muster.
Advent is about looking at ourselves and at the world and realising just how much we need a Saviour. Christmas would be pointless if we didn’t - just a marketing ploy cooked up by sellers of toys, perfumes and frozen party nibbles to get us all to spend as much money as possible. Let’s face it, if a fire engine screeched to a halt outside your house with sirens blaring and blue lights flashing you might wonder what it was doing there if your house was not on fire. You might be mildly interested but you would hardly celebrate your salvation! In the same way the baby whose birth we celebrate on Christmas Day and who we hail as Saviour is similarly baffling and underwhelming if you cannot see anything that we need saving from!
Sometimes it seems easier to believe in evil than in God. But if you do believe that evil exists – if you see it in all its brutality in our daily news, if it touches you in grief, fear, loneliness, hatred, jealousy- then you may dimly begin to understand why we need our Saviour. If you look at the impact on individuals of national, international and corporate greed then you may begin to understand why we need our Saviour. If you look at the wars devastating communities across the globe you will understand why we need our Saviour. If you dare to look into the devices and desires of your own heart you may begin to ruefully understand why you need a Saviour.
Perhaps deep inside we all vaguely sense the need for a Saviour because we can all see what is wrong. It is only a step- a stride admittedly- from faintly sensing the need for a Saviour to considering that salvation might come from God and not human endeavour and then another step again to truly recognizing Him from the Christmas story repeated every year for 2 millennia by those persistent folk in the churches and deliciously enacted by our tiny children with tea towels on their heads.
The Very Revd Sarah Brown
Dean of Hereford