Author: David Herbert

My name is David Herbert. I started growing up in Leicester. I’m currently growing up in Ellesmere Port. I am a priest in the Church of England. I was ordained in Sheffield in 1974. I have been privileged to serve in communities in Sheffield (Manor and Gleadless Valley) and communities near to Chester (Ellesmere Port and Tarvin). I am a keeper of learning spaces and support continuing ministerial/professional development in the Diocese of Chester.

On Anna, an old Old Testament prophet

David HerbertLeave a comment

This is a contribution to a Lenten sermon series on Old Testament prophets. I chose to focus on Anna. Instead of using the gospel appointed for the day from John’s gospel we followed Mark’s version, reading both Mark 11:15-17 and 12:38-44 (texts below).

March 3rd 2024 – Lent 3B

Prophets speak the truth. The word prophet means interpreter/proclaimer/caller/speaker. They use body language, symbolic actions as well as words to make their points.

    They seem to come from nowhere. They don’t have credentials or pedigree because they are chosen and called by God. Paul noted long ago that when God goes choosing and calling he doesn’t choose and call those who are wise by human standards, nor those who are powerful, nor those of noble birth. “God chooses what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, he chooses the weak to shame the strong.” (1 Cor 1:27). 

    Those who are chosen and called to be prophets are no exception to this rule of heaven.

    There are many prophets (some false, some true) – and among them many women. Given the social, cultural and religious context this is staggering, given that the human institutions locked them out of so much. For example, there are no women priests. But when God does the calling and the choosing there is no distinction between male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave or free. God calls and chooses who he likes, male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free.

    And this means that truth comes to us in strange ways. It’s the proclaimers, the prophets who speak the truth and interpret the times.

    I have chosen to focus on one of the many women prophets mentioned in the Bible: Anna.

    We meet Anna in the second chapter of Luke’s gospel. Even though we only meet her in the New Testament, our Christian brothers and sisters in the Eastern Orthodox tradition celebrate her as one of the last of the Old Testament prophets (along with Simeon).

    Luke tells us that Anna was a “prophetess”, a daughter of Phanuel – a name which means the face of God. She’s from the tribe of Asher. 

    She was of a great age. 

    We have thought that she was 84 – but we might be mistaken in the translations we’ve used. The text might mean that she had been widowed for 84 years. If so, she would have been at least 105 – if she got married at 14. She was married for 7 years and widowed for 84. 14+7+84=105 – meaning that she was widowed as young as 21.

    Incidentally, Anna has inspired a recent initiative for developing Anna chaplaincy in local communities to support older people emotionally and spiritually. They use this prayer:

    Faithful God, you have promised in Christ to be with us to the end of time. Come close to those who have lived long and experienced much. Help them to continue to be faithful and, within the all-age kingdom of God, to find ways to go on giving and receiving your grace, day by day. For your glory and your kingdom.

    Luke tells us she spent all her time in the temple, praising God. God, in her scripture and ours, is the one who can’t be bribed and “executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing”. (Deuteronomy 10:18)

    Such daily devotion prepared her for the sight of Jesus when Mary and Joseph presented him in the temple (as was the custom) and gave her a ready tongue for talking about Jesus. 

    Luke doesn’t quote Anna but lets us imagine her speaking to all sorts of people gathered in the temple looking for redemption, freedom from exploitation, alienation and oppression. According to Luke Anna proclaimed the child to all who were looking for the redemption in Jerusalem.

    The gospel reading appointed for today was John’s account of the so-called cleansing of the temple. I asked to change that to Mark’s account – I couldn’t see why in the year we focus on Mark’s gospel we would switch to John’s gospel for this Sunday. I added the sequel – the so-called story of the widow’s mite which I know some of you were exploring in your small group on Wednesday night. (I say so-called because it’s so much more than the cleansing of the temple, and so much more than a story of generous giving).

    We are jumping from Jesus’ first visit to the temple when he was a toddler to his last visit to the temple in the week before his crucifixion. And we are jumping from one widow to another to highlight Anna’s proclamation.

    Anna’s proclamation is amongst those looking for redemption and she proclaims Jesus as the end of their longing. 

    What redemption looks like and feels like is answered by those who are bound and those who have been set free, but it is summed up well in the title of a commentary on Mark’s gospel. The title is Binding the Strong Man. That commentator, Ched Myers, sees the strong man as Satan, the temple authorities, the Roman empire and any other domineering forces. The “strong man” we see bound in today’s gospel stories is the temple authorities and their binding witnesses to the truth of Anna’s proclamation.

    Anna may have known the widow Jesus watched at the treasury, particularly if she too had been widowed for a long time. She might have been one of those Anna spoke to in her proclamation about Jesus. Jesus deliberately took his seat opposite the treasury. He watched the wealthy putting in large amounts and studies the contrast with this widow putting her two small copper coins, worth a penny. (Incidentally, I wonder whether this is where we get our expression “can I put my two penn’orth in?” Google disagrees!). Mark tells us “she put in everything she had, all that she had to live on”.

    The temple, the religious institution, “the strong man” had taken everything. There was nothing left. This isn’t the story of a widow’s generosity. This is the story of a widow’s tragic abuse. It’s a safeguarding scandal.

    The abusers are the scribes. Jesus has them taped. He says, “Watch out for the scribes who love to walk round in long robes, and be greeted with respect, who take the best seats in the congregation and places of honour at banquets. Keeping up appearances they say long prayers, grooming widows to trust them with their affairs. With their scams and extortionate schemes they devour widow’s houses, taking everything they had. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They are the strong men.

    Their long prayers are supposedly addressed to God who is the one who is known for defending the orphan and the widow while in fact they attack the very people God defends and leave them with nothing. Jesus binds them with a “greater condemnation” for their heartless hypocrisy.

    Seeing the widow at the treasury in the temple was the last straw for Jesus. It was then that he left the temple. He didn’t cleanse the temple. He condemned the temple for being a den of thieves, full of dodgy dealers exploiting the poor when all the time it was supposed to have been a place of prayer for all the nations, for everyone on all sides of conflict a place of reconciliation.

    He binds the strong man and, according to Mark, people flock to him, and are spellbound by his teaching. Redemption is theirs, the strong man is condemned. “Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down” proclaimed Jesus.

    We live with the promise of Anna’s proclamation – Jesus the redeemer whose work

    Is always with us, to the end of time, redeeming his suffering servants.

    So, I give you Anna. There’s my two penn’orth – with a caution for us not to look for truth in the usual places amongst those who love long robes, who are widely respected, who get the best seats and are the guests of honour at banquets, but to look for truth amongst those God chooses and calls – those whose hearts are pure, those who hunger and thirst for the righting of wrongs, those who are poor in spirit, from the very young to the very old, these suffering servants prophesy, teach and evangelise – like Anna.

    Mark 11:15-17
    Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”?

    Mark 12:38-44
    As he taught, he said, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’
    He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’

    Righteousness rights wrongs

    David Herbert3 Comments

    Not for ever in green pastures …….

    This simple reflection for the 2nd Sunday in Lent (B) is for a small group who gather once a month for worship following the Book of Common Prayer. Hymn singing is not part of what they do, except today when the focus is on the hymn Father, hear the prayer we offer as a way of a simple exploration of Jesus’s way of suffering in Mark 8:31-end.

    We have prayed this morning:

    Almighty God,
    you show to those who are in error the light of your truth,
    that they may return to the way of righteousness:
    grant to all those who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion,
    that they may reject those things that are contrary to their profession,
    and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same

    We have prayed to God who shows to those in error the light of his truth that they may walk in the way of righteousness. God wants his people to walk the way of righteousness, and he gives us the means to do that.

    What is the way of righteousness?

    Righteousness is the translation of the Greek word in the New Testament which gives us also the word justice. In other words, that Greek word, is translated in two different ways: righteousness and justice – and can be summed up in the word rectification. So the way of righteousness is the way of rectification, the way of setting right what is wrong, the way of rectifying what is unjust. It is the way of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Another word we use is salvation. We, alongside many others, including many non-Christians lovingly long for this rectification and salvation.

    And we know it’s not an easy way.

    A song from the heart of the church is Father, hear the prayer we offer.
    Father, hear the prayer we offer, not for ease that prayer shall be, but for strength that we may ever live our lives courageously.

    In today’s gospel Peter again gets it wrong. Jesus was talking openly about how the Son of Man had to undergo great suffering, be reject and be killed, and Peter took him aside to rebuke Jesus about this. To which Jesus said to him what he’d already said to the tempter in the wilderness – “Get behind me Satan”. Peter was suggesting an easier way for Jesus. Father hear the prayer we offer, not for ease that prayer shall be.

    We went to see the film about Nicholas Winton this week – One Life. He was a stockbroker who in 1938 went to Prague to witness the plight of refugees there – people fleeing for their lives. He took an enormous risk going there. His mother didn’t want him to go. She knew how dangerous it was. She wanted an easier way for her son. But he insisted, “I have to go”.

    He was horrified by what he found in Prague and immediately set about finding a way to rescue some of them. It was the plight of the children which most affected him. He didn’t know how he was going to be able to help them – nor did those who were with him. He just knew that he had to find a way – a way that would need visas, foster homes and money. Gradually he found the way and organised the trains that would rescue 669 children.

    Father, hear the prayer we offer:

    Not for ever in green pastures do we ask our way to be, but the steep and rugged pathway may we tread rejoicingly.

    Esther Rantzen’s programme, That’s Life, featured his story. They invited him as a guest and in great appreciation surprised him with an audience made up of the children he had saved back in 1938. The final credits of the film One Life suggested that over 6000 people owed their life to him – taking account of the families the children he rescued went on to have. He never talked about his work. His wife only discovered what he had done when she found a scrapbook in their home many years later.

    He is remembered in Israel and named as one of The Righteous among the Nations – they are non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust. He is one of the righteous who followed the way of righteousness, righting wrongs in his small ways, the only ways he could.

    We have heard a lot this week about the former leader of opposition to Vladimir Putin. Alexei Navalny died in his cell in his prison inside the Arctic Circle – most likely he was killed. Alexei Navalny was a Christian. The Beatitudes were his inspiration. He called them his instruction book. He was particularly inspired by the blessing on those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. That is what he did. He hungered and thirsted after righteousness, all the while knowing the risks he was running, undergoing great suffering, getting rejected, and finally being killed ….

    We don’t live with the same extremes as Alexei Navalny. We are not victims of Russian imperialism, nor are we Jews facing persecution and extermination, nor are we living in Jesus’ context in Israel, where their life wasn’t their own because of the Roman occupation and the cruelty that went along with that.

    We could say that we live in quieter times in this rural setting of Warwickshire – but Christian prayer isn’t about having an easy time. There is a temptation to turn our backs on the suffering world, and we can do that because we might have built up protections. It is a temptation – to turn our back, to close our eyes and to not engage our hearts and minds. We have to resist the temptation to turn our back, to turn away from trouble, and instead we need to turn to face the realities of life and engage with the suffering of those who are the victims of wrongdoing. This is the way of righteousness – making things right, righting wrongs in our own small ways.

    Father, hear the prayer we offer:
    Not for ever, by still waters, would we idly rest and stay.

    There are two ways we can go. We can go the way of the tempter, or we can go the way of Jesus. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” That’s the way of righteousness. It’s the harder way and the way that those who love us may prefer us not to follow.

    Mark 8:31 – end

    Then Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

    He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’

    PS I am grateful for Fleming Rutledge’s work. She is the one who has pointed out the meaning of righteousness as rectification in her book The Crucifixion.

    We have nothing to prove and everything to love

    David HerbertLeave a comment

    Here’s a sermon for two rural churches in Warwickshire for the first Sunday in Lent. I’ve wondered whether Jesus only went into the wilderness for 40 days, or was his whole life there? Is wilderness a way to see “life”? The gospel for the day is Mark 1:9-15.

    Catching my eye this week were these words of a benediction by Cole Arthur Riley; “May you rest in the immanence of your own worth, knowing you have nothing to prove and everything to love.”

    Know you have nothing to prove and everything to love.

    It’s the first Sunday of Lent and we’re just getting started. The question is, do we begin with shame, or do we begin with love? When/if we choose to give up chocolate or social media is it because it’s a shame we eat too much chocolate or spend too much time on social media? Do we begin with shame or do we begin with love?

    Lent is the opportunity to intensify the awareness in our lives – our behaviours and the life around us. But do we begin with shame, or do we begin with love? Perhaps we begin with shame, and perhaps we begin again with love.

    We are fond of thinking that Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days – to be tempted by Satan. And that is what the gospels tell us. But were those 40 days an intensification of the wilderness experience which was to consume his whole life? The temptations didn’t stop after 40 days. The wild beasts didn’t go away – they bruised him, beat him and crucified him. They were hard times in a harsh and barren landscape – a lifetime in the wilderness. 

    His 40 days in the wilderness with the wild beasts were part of his whole life in a wilderness with the wild beasts of empire and religious authority baying for his blood.

    Our gospel tells us it began with love, not shame.

    Mark gives the sequence of events – and his sequence is his version of “in the beginning”. Beginning the gospel, beginning the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Mark gives this sequence of events:

    1. First, John appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance, and crowds came out to the wilderness to be baptised by him.
    2. Jesus, from a backwater village in Galilee was one of them. Just as he came out of the water he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him, and a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”
    3. Immediately the Spirit drove Jesus deeper into the wilderness
    4. Then John was arrested

    The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. It began with love. “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” He was driven into the wilderness by love ringing in his ears, giving him the resilience for devilish temptation and for a life with the beasts. 

    And with love he walked the wilderness for the rest of his life, facing the wilder-ness of human nature and the be-wilderment of the victims of that wilder-ness and beastliness.

    Resounding above all the voices of that wilder-ness, the beasts baying for his blood, the crowds shouting “crucify him”, the mockery – above all that din is the voice of heaven: “you are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased”, and the sound of the angels who waited on him in the wilderness, whose only sound is the sound of heaven and their lyric, “do not be afraid”.

    The wilderness is our world too. We are in serious denial if we ignore the wilder-ness of our human nature and the beastliness that so many suffer: if we ignore the beasts that force themselves on us and the beasts that we entertain. 

    Lent is our opportunity to intensify our awareness of the wilderness of our lives, to take stock of the wars around us, the greed that threatens us, the environment we’ve neglected, the injustice that is suffered, the emptiness of so much of life, the distance between us, and the isolation which is so much a feature of life. 

    Life is wilderness. The wilderness is so much bigger than any of us can ever imagine – too big for our hearts and minds. We have a problem if we reduce Lent to a personal remedy for our over-use of social media or our over-indulgence of chocolate. Lent will have been a waste of time if all we do at the end is reach out for a Cadbury’s cream egg. The devil will have won big time then.

    Just as it was the love shown to Jesus in his baptism that drove him into the wilderness, to love in the wilderness, to do wonders in the wilderness, so it can be the love shown to us in our baptism that drives us into the wilderness, into these 40 days, into the rest of our lives.

    We’ve got nothing to prove and everything to love. The wilderness isn’t an easy place to be. Heaven knows we’ve suffered enough there already. The landscape is often bleak and unforgiving. We may be tested to our limits. We will take wrong turns. There will be complicated choices for which there are no easy answers. We will be be-wildered and bothered by the wilder-ness around us and within us

    The wilderness isn’t easy. But it’s the only place to be – or, the only place to be is where love drives us, where God’s Spirit takes us. Just don’t make it a guilt trip. Don’t let shame take you there these 40 days, and into the rest of your lives. Let love take you.

    From the beginning God brought love to the wilderness. That is clear to us when we open our scriptures. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep.” In other words there was nothing but wilderness and chaos – and a wind from God swept over the face of the waters, and he did wonders in that wilderness and chaos.

    Similarly, at the beginning of Mark’s gospel, there are all the signs of wilderness and chaos – that is why the crowds came to John, for his baptism of repentance as a way through the wilderness and chaos they were facing. It is the Spirit of God which drove Jesus into the wilderness and chaos which has never gone away. It’s our wilderness, our chaos – and he begins with love.

    When we are baptised, we are christened – becoming one in Christ, driven by love into wilderness. St Teresa of Avila gave us this blessing which will surely help us follow Jesus in his love into the wilderness, far from the easy life some of us may have been tempted to choose. It is the truth of our christening and being in Christ.

    Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours.
    Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassionately on this world.
    Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
    Yours are the hands, with which he blesses the world.
    Yours are the hands.
    Yours are the feet.
    Yours are his eyes.
    You are his body.
    Christ has no body now but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours.
    Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassionately on this world.
    Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

    Jesus began with love in the wilderness. We don’t need to begin with anything other than love. We don’t have anything to prove but we have everything to love.

    Mark 1:9-15

    In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

    And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

    Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

    Cole Arthur Riley’s book from which the opening benediction is taken is Black Liturgies, published in 2024 by Hodder and Stoughton

    The sound of the genuine

    David HerbertLeave a comment

    From Howard Thurman‘s cummencement address at Spelman College:

    “There is something in every one of you that waits, listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself – and if you cannot hear it, you will never find whatever it is for which you are searching and if you hear it and then do not follow it, it was better that you had never been born … And if you cannot hear the sound of the genuine in you, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else.”

    Reading through Lent with Cole Arthur Riley’s Black Liturgies.

    Beginnings and the meaning of life

    David Herbert1 Comment

    A sermon for the 2nd Sunday before Lent. Both epistle and gospel of the day are about beginnings and the meaning of life. This sermon was for a church in rural Warwickshire.

    In the beginning. In the beginning – such a lovely phrase. In the beginning – such a good place to start.

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. That’s how John prefaces his gospel.

    Our scriptures open at the beginning. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth

    Some of you will remember Maureen Lipman’s British Telecom adverts. In one she rings her grandson to see how he got on in his exams. He goes through all the exams he failed. She asks, “did you pass anything?”. “I got pottery” – to which grandma says “that’s good, people will always need plates”. “And I got Sociology”. To which Grandma says, “you got an ology and you said you failed!”.

    In the beginning was the Word. I’ve not got much in the way of an ology, but I’ve got enough of an “ology” to know that the Greek words for the Word is o-logos. O logos. It is from those two Greek words that we get all our ologies – whether sociology, psychology, geology, astrology, criminology – anyone awarded an ology can claim the credit of beginning to understand the meaning of an aspect of life. 

    Putting aside any clever, clever ologies we may have we could all say that we have an OLOGY because the Word became flesh and dwells amongst us, with us always, to the end of time. That’s an ology that God has gifted us. He has gifted us his Word, o logos, made flesh, embodying the meaning of God from the beginning. If we want to know the meaning and purpose of God we have to look no further than Jesus.

    The Word means meaning. O logos, the ology given to us, means meaning and purpose. From the beginning life has meaning and purpose. This is the viewpoint of faith, hope and trust.

    In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. That is such a beautiful opening for our scriptures. 

    Our generations, with all our ologies, have tended to scoff at this creation story. “It can’t have happened like that” we say, as if the inspired authors of this literature ever believed it happened like that. We are not looking at God’s first diary and to-do list. Inspired fiction sits alongside inspired history in our scriptures – what matters is not what happened, but what is true. In the beginnings described by the first chapter of Genesis, the openings of John’s gospel and our reading from Colossians – in all of them we have inspired theology that conveys truth.

    I am ever more conscious that our scriptures are the scriptures of the Jewish people, so frequently overpowered, conquered, enslaved, exiled, occupied, persecuted, oppressed, impoverished and hated, as well as being so often disobedient and misled (just like the rest of us). They become our scriptures as long as we open our hearts and minds to join those who suffer, redirecting the power and wealth we have for their sake, becoming poor in spirit.

    When we read scripture we are always looking through the eyes of a people (like Paul writing to the Colossians from prison) who suffered so much and yet dared to wonderfully imagine that from the very beginning God is working his purpose out, that there is meaning even in the midst of tragedy.

    The beginnings described in Genesis and in John’s gospel and in our reading from Colossians are profound theological reflections on the meaning of life in the midst of chaos, surrounded by so much diversity and difference, a wealth of creation – and the part we are called to play. 

    The “beginnings” of Genesis and John are not the start of things. It’s not a blank page. In the beginning described by John there was stuff going on. There was darkness, and the Word became the light of the world that darkness has never been able to overcome. There was darkness going on, and on and on.

    Likewise in Genesis, there was stuff going on. There was formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep. In other words, it was chaos – and the creation story imagines what God does with chaos, ordering it and making so much of it for our delight.

    The beginnings described by Genesis, John and Paul are all of them in the midst of things. There is always something going on. These scriptures belong to people who are in the midst of things, and passed on to those going through so much. There has been so much love gone into them – their meaning is to inspire faith, hope and love – in us, in the midst of things.

    Sometimes life doesn’t seem to have any meaning – particularly when bad things overwhelm us. Sometimes that is about discovering that life doesn’t mean what we thought and that there is a new meaning we have not yet discovered. As we lose sight of the meaning of life we can often forget the meaning of God. We may have been misled into thinking of God in a way he just isn’t. 

    When we lose that sense of meaning for our lives, when we’re burnt out and exhausted by excessive busyness, or responsibility, or trauma, when we’ve lost our way in the forest, then we do need to retrace our steps, unwind to the beginning to the time when there was always meaning. 

    When we lose sight of the meaning of life we need to follow the sound of music and start at the very beginning, a very good place to start, the beginning when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us – a down to earth meaning, embodied in our lives, in our times and in all we try to do.

    The meaning of God is the meaning of life. In our first reading, the letter to the Colossians, we have the phrase He is the beginning. Christ is the beginning for God. 

    The letter continues: “in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross”.

    This is the meaning of God and the meaning of life.

    We are all “in the beginning” – we are part of the body of Christ who is the beginning. He is the beginning of the work of reconciliation ………. He is the beginning of the repair of broken and exploitative relationships. That is his work, his meaning and purpose. We are all “in the beginning”, in the beginning of a new creation, in the beginning of something new, in the beginning of something better as long as we listen to his word and love his meaning.

    In the midst of things, a lot of which we’d rather not be in the midst of, in the midst of things we have the beginnings of life, its meaning and purpose, and the beginnings of God, his meaning and purpose – to find our way where we might lose our way. In our beginning is the Word to inspire our faith, hope and love, the ology which means the world to us.

    Colossians 1:15-20

    He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. 

    John 1:1-14
    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

    There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
    He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

    And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

    Discovering consolation with Simeon and Anna

    David Herbert3 Comments

    The weekend of Holocaust Memorial Day is the day we celebrate The Presentation of Christ in the Temple. Here’s what I prepared for a small worship gathering in a Warwickshire village.

    Presentation of Christ in the Temple – January 28th 2024

    I don’t know how many of you watch films, TV or read books. Charles Darwin read novels to relax. But he had one requirement. The book had to have a happy ending. If it didn’t he would fling it furiously on the fire.

    So says Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska in her poem called Consolation.

    The poem continues:

    Roaming in his mind over so many times and places
    looking back on all the extinct species,
    such triumphs of strong over weak,
    so many tests of survival,
    sooner or later all in vain,
    that at least in fiction
    and its micro-scale
    he had a right to expect a happy ending.

    I don’t know what you make of evolutionary theory, whether you agree with it or not, but I suppose that our usual viewpoint is that of the “survivor” and the “strong” and “fit”. The theory is about the “fittest” surviving. The theory is very good news for the strong as they continually score triumphs over the weak, but it’s very bad news for the forever beaten, weakened to extinction. The logic of natural selection and survival of the fittest was behind the Nazi death camps – their catastrophe we remember this weekend in Holocaust Memorial Day.

    Seeing life like that, it is understandable that Darwin looked for happy endings when he read to relax.

    Our gospel this morning is about the search for happy endings. Simeon, we are told, was “righteous and devout” and was “looking forward to the consolation of Israel”. His consolation was to take the child Jesus in his arms and to find in him the hope of salvation, “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” and for glory to the people Israel.

    The old lady in the gospel story, Anna, started speaking about the child “to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” – in other words, those looking for consolation because of the state of Jerusalem.

    The poet continues her poem by listing all sorts of happy endings. Here they are, some of them:

    And so, necessarily: sunrays behind a cloud,
    lovers together again, kin reconciled,
    doubts dissolved, faith rewarded,
    fortunes recovered, treasures dug up.
    Neighbours regret their mulishness,
    good names restored, greed put to shame,
    old maids married to respectable ministers,
    schemers expelled to the other hemisphere,
    forgers of documents cast down the stairs,
    seducers of virgins hurrying to altars
    orphans taken in, widows embraced,
    pride humbled, wounds mended,
    prodigal sons invited to the table,
    the cup of bitterness poured into the sea,
    tissues wet with tears of reconciliation,
    universal singing and music-making,
    and the puppy Fido,
    lost already in the first chapter,
    let him run home again
    and bark joyfully.

    We’re here, not just because we are survivors. We may have survived many plots and lived through many twists and turns but it is because we love our neighbours as we love ourselves that we are here. Together we stand. We know those who are going through hell. We know those who are hanging on by a thread. We know those who are beaten, rejected and weakened by those who are stronger, wealthier and better connected. We know the plight of the poor, the refugee. We know the victims of hate crimes. We know people who aren’t allowed to be themselves. We cry for the children killed in war, for the families who go hungry. We’re here for them, to worship the God who brings consolation.

    Nicholas Winton saved the lives of many Jewish children. His life is featured in the film One Life now showing in cinemas.

    We all understand that fiction is fiction and that too often there are no happy endings. There is too much tragedy and that grieves us so. We live in the world where the strong rule over the weak, and where the weak, if they survive at all, continue to suffer. If only there could be a happy ending to all the unhappy endings.

    And so we pray – for those who are poor, those who are sick, those in prison, those who are vulnerable. In our prayers we are looking for consolation for those for whom we pray. We are with Simeon whose eyes were fixed on the consolation of Israel, and we are with Anna in her conversations with those looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. We are with them looking for the happy ending for all those who have been wronged and for all those suffering in the state of things today.

    We will do all in our power to help those who need our help. We will fight for better lives, happier endings. We gather our energies to make sure that the vulnerable do survive. We know they deserve their happy-ever-after and we will do all in our power to stop those who don’t care for the way it ends for them, the heartless beasts, the wolves, the tyrants.

    Israel was suffering from heartless beasts. They were prey to wolves. Tyrants ruled them. They had a history of exile, persecution, oppression – a vast accumulation of trauma and tragedy. Simeon felt that. Anna felt that. And all those Anna spoke amongst felt that. That is why they were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem – a very different ending to the ignominious end which seemed to be their destiny.

    Simeon knows there is a happy ending. He has seen it with his own eyes. He has held it in his arms. He has embraced the ending which will see many “fall” and many “raised”. The poor will be blessed. They will rise up. The beasts will be slain. This is the consolation of weak, occupied, isolated Israel. The consolation of Israel is the survival of the least, the last and the lost. The consolation of Israel is the humiliation of the beastly strong. The consolation of Israel is the child. The consolation of Israel is the vulnerability God takes to heart.

    Not everyone knows that the Christmas season is a 40 day season in the liturgical year, just like Advent was and Lent is. The Christmas story ends with the presentation of Jesus in the temple. There is a Feast on February 2nd to celebrate this ending. That is the 40th day which churches keep on the Sunday before feb 2nd if they don’t keep weekday festivals. Our gospel reading is the reading for that 40th day.

    There are many twists and turns in the Christmas story. There is the danger Mary is in by getting pregnant outside of marriage, there is the discomfort of the journey, there not being any room for them in Bethlehem, the threat to Jesus’ life from Herod, having to take flight to Egypt as refugees. All this is part of the story, let alone the battle between light and dark. There is a happy ending. Simeon finds the consolation Israel was searching for and Anna names their redeemer.

    Musicals were playing in the background when I was finishing this sermon. The earworm was Love changes everything. It is love that changes everything. It is love that gives Charles Darwin and ourselves a happy ending. The happy ending is not the survival of the fittest. 

    The happy ending is the unhappy ending for the villains (often the fittest, strongest, riches and most powerful). The happy ending is the survival of the people God loves – those so easily lost and so often last and least.

    Luke 2:22-40
    When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons.’

    Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,
    “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
    according to your word;
    for my eyes have seen your salvation,
    which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
    a light for revelation to the Gentiles
    and for glory to your people Israel.’

    And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own heart too.’

    There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, and then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

    When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favour of God was upon him.

    Mary’s words in our prayer for Christian Unity

    David HerbertLeave a comment

    Here’s the bones of a sermon for two village churches for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2024. The gospel text is John 2:1-11 in which Mary makes her voice heard. Women have had far less “say” through the Christian centuries, and even now – a sure sign that there is no unity in Christian community.

    This week is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It always begins on the 18th January, the date when we celebrate what God did with Saul, converting him from a zealous persecutor of Jesus’ followers, into someone who came to love them as his brothers and sisters.

    It has been a special 8eightday period pf prayer each year since 1908 – co-ordinated by the World Council of Churches – the idea being that we pray “for the unity of the Church as Christ wills it, and in accordance with the means he wills” (Paul Couturier)

    Our first call in our prayer for Christian unity is to lament that the lack of Christian unity. Christians remains divided on so many things. Churches remain divided. We rejoice when there is reconciliation, when we find the way to work together, but divisions run deep, hurting the body of Christ. 

    In the past our focus for prayer may have been the relationship between the denominations and those prayers have borne fruit. Or our hearts and minds may have gone to the troubles in Northern Ireland, as prayer for the Catholic and Protestant communities there.

    But, here and now, what does disunity look like andfeel like to us? What is our experience of disunity? Materials for this year’s Week of Prayer have been gathered by an ecumenical group from Burkina Faso. They have invited us to join with them in a process of self-reflection as they consider what it means to love our neighbour in the midst of a security crsis.

    We may be less vulnerable to acts of mass violence than in Burkina Faso, but many here live with the memory and/or threat of serious violence centred on issues of identity and belonging. There are also groups within communities who feel particularly vulnerable to violence. For them, prayers for Christian unity become urgent – that we discover the unity Christ wills in accordance with the means he wills.

    There is no unity
    as long as people are not free to be themselves,

    as long as people are disrespected, or disabled or silenced by people more powerful than them,
    as long as there are victims of abuse and the injustice inflicted on them has not been righted,
    as long as people are frozen out, talked down, talked down to
    because of who they are
    because of the colour of their skin, because of their gender,
    because they’re women,
    because of their age (too young, too old),
    because they’re gay, or haven’t had the right education
    or because they are caught up in historic conflicts and they’re bound to one side or the other,
    because of who we are.

    Differences don’t have to lead to conflict and division. Differences can be the cause of great rejoicing. They are also the places where love grows.

    There will always be differences. Our scriptures open with God celebrating difference in the creation stories with the creation of all sorts of life. He creates relationships by making man and woman. He loves what he has done. God doesn’t iron out differences.

    We have a choice. We can love our differences, or we can hate our differences. When we hate our differences we can feel threatened, we can seek to control and manipulate, we can hide the truth of the other and finish up sowing seeds of division.

    When we love our differences we rejoice in the gifts of others, we will see our differences as a blessing (even when there is disagreements among us). We will love that the world has so many different points of view, that there are so many different ways to understand things, that there is so much to learn, so much to discover.

    Some of our media would have us afraid of our differences, as would the gossip on the street. Sometimes we have to put our hands over our ears on radio phone-in and instead tell ourselves what we hear from scripture as the heart of vocation – “do not be afraid”.

    Day by day we make this choice, loving our differences, or hating our differences and thereby creating divisions and seeing life break apart.

    One of the great divisions within society and within the church is the difference between men and women, the different ways they’ve been treated. We see this in the politics of the church – about who can speak, teach or lead. We see it in our scriptures. Men play a far more prominent role. They are more powerful and they have a lot more to say. 

    Yet, in spite of all the patriarchy, it is Mary’s voice that we hear in today’s gospel. She doesn’t say much, but what she does say is truly significant.

    She says to Jesus, “they have no wine” and to the stewards, “do whatever he tells you”. “They have no wine” and “do whatever he tells you”. Just nine words!

    It would have been no surprise that the wine ran out. Cana was just as poor a village as nearby Nazareth. The farming families there struggled to make a living while at the same time they were being heavily taxed – the Temple tax, tribute to the Roman emperor, and the tax they had to pay to Herod for his various vanity projects. This was a community of poor people.

    Mary’s four words, “They have no wine” addressed to Jesus is as a prayer – a prayer trusting the one she is speaking to to be the one to answer the embarrassment of the poor hospitality which was all they could afford.

    Mary can lead our prayer. We can follow her in spelling out to Jesus what concerns us. The lack of wine may not be our concern, but we may make similar prayers, such as “They have no food”, “They have no justice”, “they have no room”, “they have no one to care for them” – and her words “do whatever he tells you” becomes the answer to the prayer.

    As we pray for Christian unity, as we note any temptation to hate our differences, and our inclination to demean those who disagree with us, we can make our prayer “There is no unity, there is only difference and division”. As we work our way through a PCC meeting, or face up to any resentment we may feel about how we have been treated by others we can follow Mary’s prayer, “there is no agreement”, or “there is no love”.

    When we pray for Christian unity, we turn to Jesus and offer ourselves as the answer to the prayer of the church. There may be no unity, but we turn to the one we know to work wonders with difference, who loves difference. Paul sums it up: In Christ, there is neither Jew nor Gentil, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for we are all one in Christ. These are the wonders God works in our differences. 

    Luke describes the church in his Book of Acts. In the beginning he shows Jesus’ friends and followers all together in the room, men and women, devoting themselves to prayer, describing how the Spirit came on them inspiring them to speak in such a way that everyone was able to understand them in spite of their differences of nationality, ethnicity, gender and age. And then trhoughout Acts Luke continues to amaze his readers with the sheer diversity of the earliest church. There are men and women, strangers and foreigners, slaves, prisoners (and their guards), Jews and Gentiles, eunuchs. God loves the differences and builds his church from them.

    The stewards in today’s gospel did precisely what Jesus told them to do. They filled six huge jars with water which turned to wine, far better than the first wine, the poor wine, the wine of the poor which is never enough. This water ran out as wine, as the wine which never ran out. The jars each held 20 – 30 gallons.. Just imaging – 120-180 gallons of wine – more than enough for this poor Galilee community to drink, make merry and celebrate the wedding feast. More than enough for the disciples to see his glory. More than enough for the church down the centuries to carry on drinking in the way that he told us to – drinking the cup of salvation.

    In the midst of conflict and disagreement dare we trust ourselves to turn to Christ to love our difference? Dare we hope for as much as those wedding guests at Cana? Where there is no peace dare we hope for more than enough peace, peace beyond human understanding? Where there is no love dare we hope for so much love to make friends out of enemies and to build community with our differences as another sign of God’s glory?

    John 2:1-11
    On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

    Taking the unsweetened Christmas story into our resolutions

    David Herbert3 Comments

    This sermon was prepared for the first Sunday after Christmas when I suspect many are tired of Christmas and want to get back to normal. We have to hope we don’t – go back to normal, that is – because then the “lowly” and demeaned are left out as normal. It is to them, the likes of the shepherds and Mary and Joseph, that the glory of God takes us. The gospel text is Luke 2:15-21.

    This week, the danger is that life will get back to normal, that we will go back to our old ways, to the old gods which hold our thoughts, and that this coming year, 2024 will be just like any other year with its low expectations and vague hopes for world peace, a lottery win a nice holiday and just getting by.

    But if we go back to normal won’t Mary’s pain have been in vain? Time turns on Jesus’s birth. There was a time for us “before Christ”, and there is time after his birth, a new time, the time when we know God’s favour – the day of the Lord, the years anno domini – the time that will surely never be the same again.

    I suspect that those who will be glad to “get back to normal”, relieved it’s all over will have imbibed too much sugar or tried to do too much.

    How much sugar we take with our Christmas is a good question. The way most people know the Christmas story is through sugar-coated carols and cards. Christmas can get so sweetened that we have difficulty getting the real flavour of Christmas as presented, unsweetened, by the gospel writers, Matthew, Luke and John.

    There’s usually a “free from” aisle in our supermarkets these days. I suggest that we keep this aisle in church as a free from aisle. Free from sugar and syrup so that we can get into the meaning of Jesus’ birth. Luke, Matthew and John didn’t tell these stories lightly or sweetly. They tell them deeply, from the depths of a whole community’s memory and experience. And they tell their stories darkly – there is a dark reality to all the elements of their stories. We need to feel their weight, not their lightness. We need to feel their weight to grow in worship, resilience and love for the lowly and the stranger.

    Our gospel this morning begins after the angel left the shepherds. An angel had appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them. The angel brought good news to them that was to cause great joy for all people. A child, wrapped in cloth, lying in an improvised cot was the sign. The great company of the heavenly host join the angel and the shepherds. They praise God for the news singing at the top of their voices, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests”.

    This morning’s gospel begins with the shepherds deciding to go to Bethlehem to see for themselves what God had made known to them. They went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger. They made known what they’d been told about the child. Their hearers were amazed and Mary treasured their words and pondered them in her heart.

    With Mary we treasure their words and ponder them in the heart of the church. But, please, no sugar because if we put sugar in we miss the point that Luke is here making as he paints the picture of those on whom God’s favour rests, around whom God’s glory shines and through whom, and for whom, God chooses the way of saving the world that is lost.

    God’s glory shines around the shepherds. These were men who lived out in the fields, on the wasteland around Bethlehem on land which was no good for anything else than grazing sheep. They were there in all weathers, warding off wolves and thieves, working nights, protecting the lives of their sheep, their livelihood – doing the work which was to inspire Jesus’s own self understanding of being the good shepherd. They were an underclass, living rough. Around them the glory of God shines. The press release of the birth isn’t carefully planned for maximum impact in the corridors of power, but is focused in the isolation of these shepherds.

    The sweetened versions of the Christmas story, the sweetened Nativity, can never convey the darkness and will always shy away from the poverty. It is the unsweetened versions, given to us by the gospel writers which shows us where God’s favour rests – around the shepherds, on Joseph (a poor artisan carpenter in an obscure village) and Mary – a young girl whose song of praise Jesus will have heard growing up. In her song, the song we know as Magnificat she praises God for looking “with favour on the lowliness of his servant”.

    Lowly is the collective noun for those who have been demeaned. The word lowliness is used throughout the Bible to denote misery, pain, persecution and oppression. In our unsweetened version of Jesus’ birth story, Mary embodies the experience of her people, the Jews – their whole history threaded with misery, pain, persecution and oppression. She knew God’s favour rests there, with her people – and those who have joined Mary have come to realise he favours all like her, all those in misery, pain, persecution and oppression. The glory of God is all about them – Mary, Joseph, the shepherds – and all the lowly who make up the extended holy family, and those who want to relate to them as relatives. The love of God is for them – to turn life round in their favour.

    Poet W H Auden puts these words into the mouths of the shepherds in his Christmas Oratario For the Time Being:

    We never left the place where we were born,
    Have only lived one day, but every day

    Have walked a thousand miles yet only worn
    The grass between our work and home away.

    Lonely we were though never left alone.
    The solitude familiar to the poor
    Is feeling that the family next door,
    The way it talks, eats, dresses, loves, and hates,
    Is indistinguishable from one’s own.

    Tonight for the first time the prison gates
    Have opened.
    Music and sudden light
    Have interrupted our routine tonight,
    And swept the filth of habits from our hearts.
    O here and now our endless journey starts.

    We’ve come to the end of the year, the end of the Christmas holidays is in sight. We may be relieved it’s all over – we have, after all, consumed far too much sugar. 

    But, let’s not go back to normal. 

    Let’s join the shepherds just as their endless journey starts when they find a baby wrapped in cloths, lying in a manger – the sure sign that starts us off. 

    Let’s join Mary treasuring the words of the angels and pondering their words in our hearts. 

    Let’s join those who are demeaned, those who are lowly. 

    Let’s make our resolutions for the new year, for new time, a resolution everyday undergirded with daily prayer to join with them; those who suffer misery, pain, persecution and oppression.

    Renowned black preacher and theologian Howard Thurman has this to say:

    When the song of the angels is stilled,
    When the star in the sky is gone,
    When the kings and princes are home,
    When the shepherds are back with their flock,
    The work of Christmas begins:
    To find the lost,
    To heal the broken,
    To feed the hungry,
    To release the prisoner,
    To rebuild the nations,
    To bring peace among people,
    To make music in the heart.

    How about that for our new year’s resolution? How about that as resolution for the rest of our lives? That is coming alive in the unsweetened story of Jesus’s birth and being part of God’s favour and glory.

    The gospel of the day – Luke 2:15-21

    When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’

    So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

    After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

    Darkness needs light: a reflection on the coming of holy night

    David Herbert3 Comments

    I assume that everyone’s feeling tired by midnight on Christmas Eve. Midnight is not the time to be preaching long and hard. Here’s my offering for a group of churches in rural Warwickshire.

    Wherever we look in the story of Jesus’ birth there is darkness. 

    Matthew’s gospel begins with Mary’s disgrace and how Joseph saved her from being cast out by marrying her. Then we’re told that the Magi’s search triggers the slaughter of the innocents by Herod – he killed all the children in Bethlehem and around who were under two years old! Then Mary and Joseph become refugees to escape Herod’s slaughter.

    Luke’s gospel begins with the darkness of Joseph and Mary being forced to make the long journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem by order of the Roman emperor -just to be counted – just to become numbers in the machine of a foreign empire. 

    John’s gospel begins with the life which was to be the light of all people, the light that shines in darkness.

    Darkness is never far from us. It’s within us – all those dark thoughts, and it’s all around us. On this night of darkness we celebrate how the light comes to us, how the light comes to us as love (all vulnerable), how the night becomes holy – thanks be to God.

    I wrote this for tonight.

    One light,
    so much darkness. If truth be told
    what Christmas needs
    is the longest of nights, 
    the shortest of days,
    and the time when people
    are at their coldest
    and meanest.

    For truth to be told
    darkness needs light
    for the night to find its way to day,
    for those who walk
    through the dark night of the soul
    lost in a cloud of unknowing
    frightened in the valley
    of the shadows of death.

    If truth be told
    darkness lies
    in the distance between us,
    what  we do to one another in war,
    rape, rubble, ruin in Gaza and Kyiv.
    It rides the nightmares
    of suffering, anxiety, despair.
    It’s the cost of living.

    The data of darkness
    is hidden in official secrets
    and personal shame,
    in the blindness of prejudices
    in the lies of truth twisters
    in the scheming of profiteers
    in the denial of freedoms
    in the erections of borders

    that divide darkness
    from darkness, hiding the terror
    from which so many flee.
    It’s in their denial. Yes,
    there is no room.
    It’s in their small boats
    not built for the darkness
    of the deep and stormy sea.

    If truth be told, it’s told in numbers:
    in the homeless numbers,
    the foodbank users,
    the choosers choosing 
    heating or eating,
    the children killed in war.
    It‘s in the numbers of those
    who are just numbers.

    It’s the middle of the night,
    when even the clocks
    put their hands together
    in time to pray.
    They pray for first light
    to end the night, a baby flame
    in the frame of shame,
    and then they pray us awake

    and in the darkness, see,
    shimmering and flickering
    in the world which,
    if truth be told,
    has no room for Light,
    where the only place
    to rest his head lay
    in the love of a mother

    and the kindness of a stranger 
    in the inn the light came in,
    casting shadows with halos,
    our light never dying.
    With the angel band backing,
    all hallelujah singing,
    watching shepherds 
    dance the night away.

    Joy to the world. Happy Christmas.

    © David Herbert 2023