The
fourth lesson today comes from the letter of Mr Noddy Holder to Top
of the Pops. The whole book.
And
notice how many questions there are. From the enquiry about your
Christmas traditions - are you hanging up a stocking? To the
questions about the origins of Santa - does he ride a red-nosed
reindeer? Does he turn up on his sleigh? Will the fairies keep him
sober for a day? Then the worry about party - do you have guests? The
room at the inn - will you have room for all your relatives? And the
speculations about the weather - will it snow? And of course the
treble pun - will you get Slade, sleighed or slayed?
We
all sing songs at Christmas without noticing the lyrics.
So
the trouble is that this problem - not listening to what we are
actually singing ourselves - is true of some of our carols too. A
parish priest, asked in the late eighteenth century by his
congregation if they could possibly sing some carols at Christmas
replied that they could, but should wait until he left.
Lowly
cattle sheds? We don't know that. Jesus had a sweet head? The Bible
is silent on the matter of the adorability of this baby. Christian
children all should be, mild obedient, good as he? You're having a
laugh now right? Whether it's holly or three ships, or jingling bells
all, in Christian tradition, are contrived to draw attention to the
main focus of this event. The mid-winter festival becomes, for those
who want it to be, a celebration of the miracle that the man who
saved the world was once a vulnerable child. To quote another song
press-ganged into use as a Christmas metaphor - he's just a poor boy
from a poor family.
So
as we make our cribs today there may be some things in it that are
surplus to the biblical records. In the film Love Actually there was
a part in the nativity for a lobster. In one I attended recently the
narration was done by a bat hanging from the rafters of the stable in
Bethlehem.
We
make a Christmas pudding of the story. We chuck everything in and mix
it around and hope that what comes out will be tasty.
Because
the Christmas story is not reliant only on the early parts of Luke
and Matthew's gospels for its sense. If you read them you will find
they are quite thin on the ground.
What
they are reliant on is the end of those and also Mark and John's
gospels. For nobody would have remembered what the carols correctly
describe as this 'humble birth' if it wasn't for the well-publicised
events at the other end of Jesus' life. The carol that describes him
as 'born to die' got it right - yet that is the lot of all of us from
the moment of our birth. It is the gospel - literally a word that
means 'good news' - message that Jesus who was born, lived, taught
and died is still alive that is world-shattering.
It
may shock you to know that we can have very little certainty in the
events surrounding Jesus' birth as historical facts. This man was no
ordinary man says the New Testament and so, working backwards, he was
no ordinary teenager, no ordinary child, no ordinary baby, had no
ordinary birth and had no ordinary mother and father. Some Catholic
traditions take things back further even than that.
And
we are not asked questions about that today. They are as unanswerable
as Slade's questions about Santa. We are asked the question the carol
says the shepherds asked. 'What can I give him?' 'Lamb' is the rather
dull shepherd answer - it is a bit like getting socks off your aunty
or me giving you copies of my books. One of my relatives used to give
everyone a fridge thermometer for Christmas. He was the wealthy MD of
a company that made them. Skinflint.
The
carol says we have only one thing worth giving to the one who came,
not necessarily down, from heaven. Our hearts.
Will
you walk on with this small Christian community to Lent, Holy Week
and Easter with your heart in your hands?
We
may not like thinking about atrocities at Christmas although world
events sometimes make us. We may not be up to it but God is down to
it. Because, in the words of the prophet Noddy, the baby is going to
get slayed.
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