Making Memories
Christmas will be different this year; many of us will be seeing fewer people on Christmas day and there won’t be the mad dash around the country to catch up with a lot of our relatives. There won’t be the many gatherings and parties in the run-up to it, which may result in a mountain of surplus mince pie’s in the New Year!
Church will be different too; we can’t gather to sing carols in the way we normally would, we can’t do our Crib and Christingle services, and those services that we can do will need to observe the correct social distancing which will limit capacity in some of our church buildings.
For many people, this will be the first Christmas without someone they’ve loved who has died in this last year. Some people will have friends or relatives who are poorly at home or in hospital, and others, even if well, may have to self-isolate over Christmas.
2020 is a year that I am sure most of us will be glad to see the back of, but we are not out of the woods yet. The start of 2021 looks like it holds more of the same challenges as this year… but there is hope. There is hope that, as vaccines are approved and rolled out over the course of the year, we will be able to return to life in the way in the way that we used to know it.
We will not be able to spend Christmas in the way we would like this year, and I am sure that echoes the feelings of Mary and Joseph on that very first Christmas.
I’m sure that Mary did not enjoy the scandal of being an unmarried teenage mum. I’m sure Joseph hadn’t expected to become a father to a child that wasn’t his. I am certain that neither of them wanted to embark on the long journey to Bethlehem when Mary was heavily pregnant. I can only imagine how Mary must have felt when her baby came, far from home and the people that may have supported her. How desperate they must have felt when there was only a manger for his crib and how frightened a short time later when they had to flee the country when Herod sent his soldiers to find and kill their baby.
They weren’t able to spend that first Christmas in the way they wanted, but in the midst of it, there were some amazing memories. Memories that Mary ‘treasured’ and ‘pondered in her heart’ (Luke 2:19). In the midst of the challenges they faced, Jesus was born. God emptying himself of all but love and coming to live as one of us. The angels celebrated, the shepherds were in awe, the wise men worshipped, the prophets spoke, and the rulers trembled. The world has never been the same since. Although he was born in poverty, he was born to bring light and hope to the world.
This child would grow to be a man that would confound the religious teachers, speak out against oppressors, side with the poor and the marginalised, teach and lead for a few short years and then die a brutal death in a tiny outpost of the Roman empire.
And yet… the movement that he started has changed the world in which we live. So much so, that about 500 years after his death they reset the calendar to start on the year of his birth. Over the centuries, his followers founded the first orphanages, the first hospitals, the first universities and so much more. What started in poverty and seemed to end in tragedy went on to be a light in the world that continues to shine brightly in the darkness.
This Christmas may not be all that we are used to or all that we had hoped for, in the same way that it wasn’t for Mary and Joseph, but there are ways that we can still make some amazing memories. Rather than trying to do a pale reflection of what we might normally do, we are changing some of our Christmas services and events so that we can make some new and precious memories for this Christmas.
So, look out in your village, or neighbouring ones, for special services, events and activities to mark this time of year. Services, events and activities to remind us of the hope we have, not just in vaccines and better treatments, but the hope for the whole world. A light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not (and will not) overcome it (John 1:5)
Rev Barry Jackson