God of the stable

The Christmas tree is up earlier this year.

I guess we’re looking for something to brighten things up a little. Looking for a source of light, of warmth.

I always find winter hard. The darkness creeps in and it weighs heavy on my soul. The magical colours of Autumn fade and fall. But often the darkness can be subsided at least a little by the light of people. The Christmas parties, the mulled wine and mince pies, the laughter. The warm coffee shops luring you in with Christmas specials and Christmas music, a homely country pub with a log fire. A romantic skate in the shadow of the Tower of London, lit up remembering festivals of joy from centuries gone by.

But not this year. There is less to nullify the darkness, but of course the darkness this year is more than seasonal. It’s more than the clocks changing. This darkness has lingered since last winter, this darkness lingered through spring and summer. We need more light.

And in these times of waiting my daydreams have taken me to Christmas Day. To the hope of being away with my family. To sitting by that open log fire in the old farmhouse, as the children go to bed earlier than ever in anticipation of a delivery from Santa. Hopefully he has sanitised his hands. To rest in the care of my parents, to not have to be a grown up for a while. Even to hope for a stocking found at the end of my bed in the morning too. For the whole family to be together. Including the dog. To laugh, to rest, to experience the freedom of the wild country hills, and the peace of a hidden valley.

I know I should be thankful. The freedoms we are allowed this Christmas are better than I feared, but they are not as good as I dreamed. There must be compromise. Sacrifice. There will likely be pain. Longing.

Oh how I have put my hopes in Christmas. How I have looked to this season for healing, a time for the tears to dry. But could it not be in more than simply light and warmth and family, wonderful though those things are?

It is wondrous that in this country which has long turned its back on Christendom our leaders bend over backwards to give us a Christian festival. We are looking to it for hope… but what if there is more to it than we dreamed? What if the Christmas we experience now is nothing like the first Christmas?

As my unborn child moves within me I think of what that first season must have been like. No travelling in a comfortable heated vehicle. No, a perilous journey for a heavily pregnant woman on a donkey. No warm house with family to welcome them in. No one at all to welcome them in. The first Christmas not spent singing the twelve days of Christmas, but lying on the floor of a stable. A romantic scene? No. A stinking scene. A filthy animal shed. Not only an unpleasant night’s sleep but what kind of place to give birth to a child? No midwives, no birthing pools, no epidurals. Oh the fear, the danger, the urgency! And the child is born…would he be cold? Would he be safe? Would they all make it through the night? And the next night?

A night of uncertainty. Perhaps that is something we can relate to this year more than usual. A night of darkness. But do we not know, do we not remember, that this is when the Light of the world broke in? In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Angels lit up the starlit night to speak of the Light. A star rose in the sky to guide the gift-bearing travellers to the Light. Oh Light, shine in this darkness! Shine longer than the Christmas lights!

Oh Light, this year has felt so dark. This year I have questioned more than ever. Oh Light, this year you have felt so far from me. This year I have felt so lost. Oh Light, I thought the darkness would not lift. I could see no light. Oh Light, will you shine!

Amidst my doubts and fears somehow this Light shines. Something about the Christmas story warms and captures my heart. It wins my heart, somehow. What a wondrous story…they say that Child is the Son of God! The Son of God born in a stable! They say that Child is the Saviour of the world. They say that Child is God come to be one of us, the Light of the world stepping down into darkness! They say that Child is God sharing our pain and our weakness, coming near to us. Emmanuel! They say that Child is the Prince of Peace. They say that Child is the hope of the world, the answer to all of our watching and waiting and hoping and longing.

John Stott said that “the only God I believe in is the One Nietzsche ridiculed as ‘God on the cross’… that is the God for me!” I wholeheartedly agree. But today I want to say that I believe in the God of the stable. That is the God for me!