From the minister... 

Dear friends

We’re nearly there. By the time you open up this issue of INSight, Christmas will be just a few weeks away, a fact which will generate a range of emotions from us, depending on our attitude to this festival and what it asks from us: excitement for those looking forward to opening presents and spending time with loved ones; unease at the thought of enforced happiness and celebration for those for whom the festive season can magnify the sense of loss or loneliness we feel; and panic, for those who are thinking of the food to be prepared, the presents to be wrapped, or even the sermons to be written before we can truly relax.

The evidence that Christmas is approaching comes to us in a variety of ways. We watch adverts appearing on the television, see festive food on display in shops and hear Christmas music on the radio. And in church, the first signs of the festival are the lighting of Advent candles and the singing of carols. In recent weeks, however, I’ve been thinking afresh about the songs we sing at this time of year and pondering the gap between their words and the reality of the Christmas story and the complications of life as we know it.

Many of the Christmas traditions that we might think of as timeless are relatively recent inventions, often originating in the nineteenth century. It was the Victorians who gave us Christmas cards and crackers, and who first decorated their homes with trees, holly and ivy. The most famous festive story of all, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, was published in this period.

It was also the Victorians who wrote most of the carols we sing in church at this time of year. I love many of these songs, timeless and beautiful pieces which speak eloquently of the wonder of the incarnation and the love of God which causes him to send Jesus. On some occasions, however, I wonder if the words are more reflective of Victorian beliefs about right and proper behaviour than the reality of the Christmas story.

Take, for example, ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, written by Cecil Frances Humphreys, who we can also thank for that school assembly favourite, ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. The third verse of this carol speaks of Jesus’ impeccable behaviour while growing up before concluding that, ‘Christian children all must be, mild, obedient, good as he’. It’s hard not to escape the implication that Jesus was being cast as the template for the model Victorian child, the ultimate exemplar of the principle of being ‘seen and not heard’.

When I was growing up, I sometimes felt pangs of guilt when singing these words, an awareness of the moments when I fell short of the perfect compliance described here. I was also puzzled by the word ‘mild’. I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew it must be important because it appeared in another carol, ‘Silent Night’, with its soothing melody and reference to the ‘Holy Infant, tender and mild’. I presumed the word was another way of speaking of Jesus’ calm character but I couldn’t escape the feeling that the word implied a form of deference that verged on the dull. The adult Jesus was anything but mild, the turner of tables who told witty and memorable stories and also the friend of sinners whose behaviour scandalised the prim and proper Pharisees.

The most famous carol of all originated in Victorian times but on the other side of the Atlantic. The first known appearance in print of ‘Away in a Manger’ was in 1884, in a Boston publication entitled The Myrtle. The paper claimed that the lyrics were by Martin Luther, hence the reason why the piece is sometimes called ‘Luther’s Cradle Song’. However, no one can be sure who exactly wrote the piece, which is now thought to be North American in origin.

While its provenance may be uncertain, I think we can say with confidence that ‘Away in a Manger’ wins the prize for the most ridiculous line in a carol, as well as the most theologically dubious. Any parent who has ever struggled to get a baby to sleep will have raised their eyebrows at the description of ‘Little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes’. I don’t think it’s going too far to say that these words are verging on heresy, a denial of the full humanity of the one who was also fully God but humbled himself completely when he came to earth. I’ll still be singing these carols this Christmas and will enjoy doing so. I can’t wait for the moments when we’ll gather in church at evening time, lighting candles and sharing the familiar songs which remind us of the light that arrives in the darkness. But as we gather to celebrate, it might help all of us to remember that Jesus arrived first in a world wracked by conflict and a country under military occupation, a situation that was messier and more complicated than Victorian society but one which more closely resembles the uncertainty of the times we live in. As we sing these songs, let’s remember the vital truth of which they speak, that God loves us more than we could possibly imagine and that he wants to be part of our lives, so much so that he enters the world in the form of a frail and helpless baby, the beginning of his thirty-three year journey to the cross.

However you celebrate Christmas, I pray that you would know afresh the truth of the gospel, that we are not alone, that we are loved by the God who comes to be with us in Jesus and who has promised to be with us always.

Wishing you God’s grace and peace Trevor