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What makes Christmas? What makes a perfect Christmas?

I know there are lots of reasons to think Christmas comes far too early, but when you are writing articles like this in the middle of November, it does really help that the adverts are all on already.

This year there are two very different, but particularly good ones, from opposite ends of the supermarket spectrum.

Waitrose have imagined a perfect Christmas romance, where shy beardy Joe Wilkinson meets superstar actress Keira Knightley at the cheese counter, and falls in love with her through the course of the Christmas season. All is lost when Joe finds a present in her house from a mysterious Mark, but after Joe declares his love with his Nan’s turkey pie, she reveals that Mark is her brother, and that she loves Joe too.

Tesco have gone the other way. A presumably right-wing Grandad has upset the family by “having an opinion”; a couple bicker over the way he is writing Christmas cards; two others sit awkwardly with a neighbour they have nothing in common with; a game of Pictionary descends into a full-on row about who Mum loves the most; a brother and sister can’t get on well enough just for one family Christmas photo. “Christmas isn’t perfect”, a voice says, “but that’s what makes it Christmas.”

Somewhere in the combination of these two very different stories is something like the true meaning of Christmas. On the one hand, we don’t live in a perfect world, and so we won’t have a perfect Christmas. People will argue, turkeys will be overcooked or undercooked or somehow both simultaneously, and someone will be ill. For all the very stylised pictures of the nativity story (my main complaint is how clean everything always is) the truth is that Jesus was born into the muck and mess and chaos of human family life, in the midst of an oppressive regime. Christmas has never been perfect.

Except it is. You and I aren’t perfect, and the world isn’t, but at the heart of Christmas is a love story like no other. It doesn’t start at a cheese counter – even a lovely Waitrose one – but at the moment before the creation of the world when God chose to make us out of a desire for love and relationship with us. And God wanted us so much, that despite us turning away from him, he sent his Son at Christmas. It is even more unlikely than the Waitrose advert, as God bridges a gap bigger still than the one between Joe and Keira, and all of humanity is embraced in the greatest romance there will ever be.

I hope you have a lovely Christmas, even if bits of it won’t be perfect. But most of all, I hope that this Christmas your attention might be caught by the great love story of the Son of God who came to be with you.

Even when you have been somewhere for a long time, and times of year like November, and Remembrance, come round again and again, there is always something new. This year we have a brand new Guide group in Stoke Holy Cross, and I’ll be visiting them at the beginning of the month to talk with them about Remembrance before some of them come and join us at Caistor St Edmund for our service on 9^th November. For me it raises the question of how we can continue to remember, and to talk about remembering, as the generations go past, and those who go back as far as the Second World War are fewer and fewer.

If we are given half a chance, free from the distractions and safety net of every possible piece of information in a phone at our fingertips, people are pretty good at remembering. Cultures have found all sorts of ways of doing it, and there are lots of different examples in the bible.

One of my favourite ones is tucked away in the Old Testament. The Israelites are trying to establish themselves under the leadership of Samuel, and after one of their various victories, he plants a stone in the ground. He calls it the “Stone of help” (the source of the name Ebenezer) because God had helped them get to that point.

Today we still use stones to remember, of course, from individual graves, to war memorials, to the pebbles the Brownies will be painting poppies on. But while our stones tend to remember particular people, Samuel’s looks to God himself. He recognises that most of all it is God who has helped them, and so can we; one of the hymns we most often use on Remembrance Sunday describes God as our help in ages past.

Not just the past, though, which brings us back to where we started: the hymn goes on to talk about him being our hope for years to come, as well. If we say we follow Jesus, we are putting ourselves in a place between his first coming, in ages past, and his return, which is our future hope. He may have done extraordinary things up until now, worthy of many memorial stones, or their modern equivalent, but he will go on doing them until our brand new Guides and Brownies are the grownups encouraging a new generation to remember. And one day, when he does return, he will be what the hymn finally promises us: an eternal home.

As I write, I’m looking ahead to this weekend, and like every year, remembering back to September 1999. It was the first time I went and visited Christoph and his parents in Germany, after I got to know him when he spent some time at our school in England. At that point my German was particularly bad, so I didn’t really understand what his Mum was saying to me that first evening, but I was fairly sure she was talking about watching something on the television. “Lassneit!” she kept saying, with increasing exasperation. “Lassneit! Lassneit! Lassneit of the Proms!”

Suddenly we were both speaking the same language again, and we settled down for the usual combination of old favourites, strange modern classical music, and all those famous songs that everyone really looks forward to.

The Bible is full of famous songs, in books like the Psalms, but some of the most amazing singing comes towards the end, in Revelation. While sometimes reading it can seem like engaging with a foreign language, or listening to some very strange and unfamiliar themes, in the end the bits of the book we remember are those famous words about what we have to look forward to.

It's not really surprising that in the Messiah, surely one of the best pieces of classical music ever written, the climax comes with one of Revelation’s amazing songs: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.” I’m just putting it on again to listen as I type this bit. As they sing over and over “forever and ever”, the music going higher and higher, it’s as if my eyes and my heart lift with them, to look at Jesus, seated on the throne in heaven. And as I do, I agree with the choir that he is worthy of all power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.

What is so very striking of course, is why – why is Jesus worthy? – and there again, the song, and the Scriptures, are clear. It is because he is the Lamb who was slain, giving himself up for all of us. And this is for everyone: it’s not a choir just of Norfolk villagers, but a great multitude of tribes and tongues and peoples and nations.

That evening I spent in Germany all those years ago, finding something we had in common in spite of our differences, has stayed with me ever since. But you and I can look forward to something that is not just for an evening, or for once a year, but forever. One day we will be with Jesus, who is seated on the throne, forever. And ever. And ever. Amen…

Hello everyone

The summer months often feel very different, with people away on holiday, children off school, and lots of other things which can either keep us from home, or feel that there aren’t so many people around when we are here.

Feeling someone’s absence can be a powerful and difficult thing, as all those of you who have been bereaved will know only too well. Earlier this summer I was thinking again about the time Jesus himself went to the funeral of his friend Lazarus. Now there is a lot about this story which is remarkable including, of course, Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, but one of the things that struck me was the sense of how much difference the absence of Jesus made. “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

For Jesus’s friends during his earthly ministry, it is easy to understand them thinking this way. A lot of what Jesus does happens when he is visibly present. He wasn’t with Martha, and Lazarus, and their sister Mary, when they really needed him. It would have made all the difference in the world.

As I reflected on this story for the second time this summer, Martha’s words were playing over in my head again, and I realised something in a way I never had before: they’re not ones that we can say any more. Jesus promises that if we believe in him, we will never be on our own. It might raise a lot of questions for us that Jesus was there when difficult things happened, but what we can’t say is “If you had been there.”

Something you might like to do, which helps me sometimes, is to think through difficult times and situations, and see if we can picture Jesus in them. How did he look? What was he doing? What did he say? It helps remind me that the fact that Jesus wasn’t physically present doesn’t me that he wasn’t absolutely there with me, by his Spirit, then and always.

It is sad when someone is absent, and a shame (sometimes!) when we can’t be in lots of different places at once, but perhaps it’s a helpful reminder that Jesus is the one person of whom we can never say “If you had been here…”

Aaarrrrrrrr!

As I write, final preparations for Treasure Seekers Holiday Club are underway, hence the pirate greeting, and the somewhat unusual photo above. (I hate to disappoint, but this is for one month only – as much as I am enjoying the prospect of having hair for 3 days!)

As the name suggests, there is treasure to be found. I was very grateful to the person who first explained to me that that was what the cross on a treasure map meant, because I had always assumed that sign meant the treasure definitely wasn’t there, but apparently it is the opposite.

It is a confusing symbol isn’t it, the X? At the bottom of a card or note from a friend or family member, it’s like a kiss - it means that they are sending us their love as they think of us, wish us a happy birthday, or whatever it might be.

Naturally I also assumed that was what it meant when I was at school, and my work would come back to me from my teacher often covered with these kisses, normally lots of big red ones all down one side. I was a little disappointed to learn that when you are at school, it means you have got something wrong, rather than that your teacher loves you. The fact that for a couple of years my Dad was my maths teacher didn’t make this any easier for me.

Now that I knew this of course, I only got more confused with the treasure map. I had to learn that the cross is the place where the treasure is to be found. It’s not the last place to look, but the first.

It was the same with going to vote the first time. I was at risk of doing the same thing as Baldrick in Blackadder, and putting a great big X next to my least favourite candidate, until somebody explained that the cross was a sign that that person was the one I was choosing to trust with my vote. The cross also marked the place on a contract where I could sign to say that I agreed to what was proposed.

I think by this point it is fairly obvious what I am getting at. The cross of Christ is God’s amazing declaration of love for all of us; God says to each of us, “I love you.” At the same time, like a good teacher, the cross is honest about our mistakes and our mess, and does something about them. The cross points towards the great treasures of love, forgiveness and eternal life in Jesus, and shows us where they are to be found. And the cross also challenges us – it asks us to choose Jesus, and commit to following him.

Next month my pirate photo will be gone, and my middle-aged hair will have returned, but the invitation will still be there, for the children we have welcomed at holiday club, and for all of you. The treasure will still be waiting to be found.

Until next month, me hearties

Rob

If you haven’t given up watching the news yet, you might well have the feeling that things continue to get worse, rather than better. In June, as I write this, Iran has been attacked by Israel, and retaliated with numerous missile attacks, and any sign of the hostilities easing seems far away. The terrible situation in Gaza is ongoing, and where once America’s influence would have been a calming one, the White House has become… a bit unpredictable.

When I was the same age my teenagers are now, there seemed to be a bit more optimism. Maybe it was just the song, but somehow we were convinced that “things can only get better.” For my parents’ or grandparents’ generations, brought up with the experience of World War II, and the threat of the Cold War, I am sure things really were better for a long time.

Now, we’re not so sure, are we? Since Covid, then the cost of living crisis, the war in Ukraine and now the Middle East, with the fear about how far it might spread, things have combined to make it feel like the opposite. It raises lots of questions for me, not least as a parent, as Cathryn and I wonder what we would like our children to be reading on the internet, or how much we should talk about what is going on.

All of this can leave us feeling entirely despondent, and wondering whether there is any hope at all. But the good news of Jesus is that there is always hope, because Christian hope is rooted in something bigger than even the most significant global events of our lifetimes: it is rooted in God, and in eternity.

Christian hope gives us something to look forward to. It doesn’t necessarily mean that some of the immediate things tomorrow will be better than today, but it does mean, looking further forward, that in the end, everything really will be well. Jesus really will return for his people, and make everything new, and “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

At the time our oldest son was born, the beginnings of what would become the global financial crisis meant that it already seemed like things might have stopped getting better. Any hope at all would have been quite surprising. But at exactly that time, as we prepared to welcome him into the world, I was reading a book called Surprised by Hope. It explained again how, for all of us who follow Jesus, hope may be surprising, but it is eternal, and it is true.

In the midst of such uncertainty in the world around us, may all of you be surprised again by God’s eternal hope.