Tag: Christmas

>Peace on Earth and other Tinsel

David HerbertLeave a comment

>

Christmas is not about tinsel and mistletoe or even ornaments and presents, but aabout what means we will use toward the end of a peace from heaven upon our earth. Or is “peace on earth” but a Christmas ornament taken each year from attic or basement and returned there as soon as possible?

Marcus J Borg and John Dominic Crossan in The First Christmas reviewed here. Borg and Crossan underline the subversion of the Christmas stories – subverting the political cultures of Roman imperial power. Both Jesus and Caesar share many titles – among them “Lord” and “Son of God” and both have a vision for peace on earth. The difference is that one is “peace through victory” and the other is “peace through justice” – and Borg and Crossan remark (what we all know)

“the terrible truth is that our world has never established peace trhough victory. Victory establishes not peace but lull. Thereafter, violence returns once again, and always worse than before.”

Mothers of God

David HerbertLeave a comment

We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? Then, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of God is begotten in us.

Meister Eckhart (14th century)

Mary’s YES

David HerbertLeave a comment

“According to ancient Christian writers, God waits for Mary’s yes; creation waits; Adam and Eve wait, the dead in the underworld wait; the angels wait; and so do we. With Mary’s yes, hope is enlivened and history is changed. There is an unimaginable future for all people, a future that comes from God. All nations assemble in justice, compassion and gratitude. Salvation is created among us, and the fate of history is altered by a godly presence. This salvation resides in the hearts of those who believe in the gift and who stay awake eagerly to know it is coming. With David we await it, with the nations we long for it, and with Mary we behold it.”

Dianne Bergant

Hallelujah

David HerbertLeave a comment

Everyone seems very excited about the prospect of Hallelujah being the Christmas number 1 – with X Factor winner Alexandra – or is Hallelujah going to be number 1 and 2. It is if the campaign of the facebook Jeff Buckley for Xmas No 1 (backed by Edith Bowman and Colin Murray) works.

It is indeed a beautiful song. Opinion seems to be going with John Cale’s version and Jeff Buckley’s being the best, but I like Allison Crowe’s as well. Leonard’s own version too is brilliant but has taken on a life of its own.

What is not clear is what the song means. For me, it’s definitely not a straight “praise” song inspite of all the “Hallelujahs”. That it seemed such an appropriate end to the X Factor series – and an appropriate “victory song” for Alexandra to sing back up what I see Leonard Cohen alluding to. Using Old Testament references to David, Bathsehba and Delilah, Cohen puts the praise response of Hallelujah on the lips and loin of pleasure – as well the hearts and minds of worship, and that when we come face to face with God we will have to trust that he will accept our “broken hallelujahs”.

Here are the lyrics anyway – see what you think.

Christmas Blues

David HerbertLeave a comment

Homecomings [for the Christmas holidays], whether they are to church or family households, can be filled with expectation and met with disappointment. Cynthia Jarvis touches on these painful places in the human heart, “conditions … made acute by the culture’s merriment: the relationships severed, the addictions hidden, the violence barely domesticated, the depression denied, the affair raging, the self-loathing cut deep into the flesh, the greed, the hatred, the fear.”
from Kate Huey in Weekly Seeds

Why are we waiting?

David HerbertLeave a comment

>I’m trying to keep Christmas out of Advent – but here’s the world’s first Beach Hut Advent Calendar where Christmas is very much part of Advent.
Advent is a time of waiting and hope. The trouble is that we forget that it’s the Kingdom of God we are waiting for and not Christmas. And it’s a long wait because God takes his time. The reading yesterday was one that I had never really taken in before.

Do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:8)

God’s not going to take any short cuts. If he did he would undermine his merciful nature and break his promise to his people. For the mean time he gives us his Spirit to encourage, strengthen and comfort us – to give good time in the bad times of waiting for wrongs to be righted and for kingdom come.

>A time forgiving

David HerbertLeave a comment

>Red is the colour of Christmas.

I was supposed to have assembled an advent wreath for my wife’s school last night. It comes to her going this morning – no advent wreath, and the search for candles begins. “You need red candles” says I. “Why?” says she. Because …. the holly (crown of thorns) bears a berry as red as any blood thinks I as I hastily assemble the case for RED. And then there’s the robin’s red breast of the Christmas card, the poinsettias – and the awareness that Chrismas marks a time – let’s run the two words together – forgiving.

Miroslav Volf tells the story of his parents’ forgiveness for the soldier and the childminder who caused the death of Miroslav’s five year old brother, Daniel. He had slipped out under the nanny’s guard to go and play with the real soldiers of the nearby barracks. The bored soldiers welcoomed the diversion of their playmate. One of them put Daniel on a horse drawn bread wagon. As they went through a gate on a bumpy cobblestone road, Daniel leaned sideways and his head got stuck between the gatepost and the wagon. Daniel died on the way to hospital. Both parents forgave the child minder and the soldier. Why? “Because the Word of God tells us to forgive as God in Christ has forgiven us, and so we decided to forgive” said his parents. Human history is adorned by heroes like these people who say that enough is enough, and who, inspired by Jesus’s forgiveness, find themselves able to forgive. Miroslav’s father said: “why should one more mother be plunged into grief, this time because of the loss of her son, a good boy, but careless in a crucial moment …?”

Red is the colour of a time forgiving.

>Now this is beginning to look like Christmas

David HerbertLeave a comment

>It will be difficult for the media to find room in their schedules for the “true meaning of Christmas”, but stuck in a media backwater – the media backwater equivalent of downtown Bethlehem – is a prizewinning film by Macclesfield Vicar and cartoonist, Taffy Davies. It’s worth a look at what he has managed to convey in a 60 second film, though I have to confess a preference for the first draft.

I was at a preaching workshop with taffy a few weeks ago. We heard Bishop Keith Sinclair telling us how he writes Sunday’s readings out in longhand as part of his sermon preparation – after that he often gets his moment of inspiration. Taking the story into a new medium (writing it rather than reading it) helps us to see new meaning.

Advent and the adult Christ

David HerbertLeave a comment

It is an adult Christ that the community encounters during the Advent and Christmas cycles of Sunday and feasts: a Risen Lord who invites sinful people to become the church. Christmas does not ask us to pretend we were back in Bethlehem, kneeling before a crib; it asks us to recognize that the wood of the crib became the wood of the cross.

—Nathan Mitchel, quoted in, LITURGY WITH STYLE AND GRACE by Gabe Huck and Gerald T. Chinchar. (Archdiocese of Chicago, Liturgy Training Publications, 1998, page 97. Paper, ISBN 1-56854-186-4 in Preachers’ Exchange

>Asda Christmas Protest

David Herbert4 Comments

>That bloody Asda advert! It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. (Health warning – please only open this link to the advert if you are happy to go nuts!)
Actually it looks like they are trying to sell a Christmas survival kit. You’ll get through it with smiles, stuffing and silly hats. The Christmas adverts for Iceland, Tesco, M&S are all like a bushwacker trial – fingers down throat – is that Christmas? “I’m a Vicar get me out of here”.
I have started a petition to protest – where are the dark clouds, where’s the light shining in the darkness, where’s the young pregnant girl, where are the crowded streets, where’s the baby?
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Oh no it’s not!