We find ourselves in the aftermath of Christmas and (as many Christians celebrate) a week away from the day when the Magi are remembered.  We are also obviously on the cusp of the New Year.

I want to capture these three festivals - Christmas, Magi (Epiphany) and the New Year by sharing some quotes and writings from T.S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis and the book of Hebrews.

The first piece comes from The Complete Poems and Plays of TS Eliot and captures perfectly the restlessness that Christmas brings.  Clearly we are excited and have great anticipation of the gift of the Christ Child. But the coming of Christ into our world is also to dispel the darkness.  I am part of that darkness and death, so Christ has come to shake me and my world up as well.  Here is a wonderful account of the distress, the incompleteness the Magi felt as they left Jesus behind in their distant memory.

                        All this was a long time ago, I remember,

            And I would do it again, but set down

            This set down

            This: were we led all that way for

            Birth or Death?  There was a Birth, certainly,

            We have evidence and no doubt.  I had seen birth and death,

            But had thought they were different; this Birth was

            Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

            We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

            But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

            With an alien people clutching their gods.

            I should be glad of another death. (page 104)

The second (Jan 5) reading as C.S. Lewis' (The Business of Heaven, Daily readings from C.S. Lewis) reminds us that the things of earth are essential (Emmanuel; God with us here, creating with Him a new Kingdom), but Christmas also points us forward to a new creation.

            The Road

            When we are lost in the woods the sight of a signpost is a great matter.  He who first sees it cries, "Look!" The whole party gathers round and stares.  But when we have found the road and are passing signposts every few miles, we shall not stop and stare.  They will encourage us and we shall be grateful to the authority that set them up.  But we shall not stop and stare, or not much; not on this road though their pillars are of silver and their lettering of gold.  ‘We would be at Jerusalem. (p.19)

Hebrews 11 puts how we shall live in faith, especially v 16:

            Instead, they were longing for a better country-a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

This chapter and especially this verse frame our lives and the New Year as we face it.

Hebrews 11 (New International Version)

 ¹Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. ²This is what the ancients were commended for.

 ³By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. ⁴By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.

 ⁵By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. ⁶And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

 ⁷By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

 ⁸By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. ⁹By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

 ¹¹By faith Abraham, even though he was past age-and Sarah herself was barren-was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. ¹²And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand on the seashore.

 ¹³All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. ¹⁴People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. ¹⁵If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶Instead, they were longing for a better country-a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

 ¹⁷By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, ¹⁸even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." ¹⁹Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.

 ²⁰By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future.

 ²¹By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons, and worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.

 ²²By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones.

 ²³By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king's edict.

 ²⁴By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. ²⁵He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. ²⁶He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. ²⁷By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king's anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. ²⁸By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.

 ²⁹By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.

 ³⁰By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.

 ³¹By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.

 ³²And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, ³³who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, ³⁴quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. ³⁵Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. ³⁶Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. ³⁷They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated- ³⁸the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

 ³⁹These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. ⁴⁰God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

Footnotes:

1. Hebrews 11:11 Or By faith even Sarah, who was past age, was enabled to bear children because she
2. Hebrews 11:18 Greek seed
3. Hebrews 11:18 Gen. 21:12
4. Hebrews 11:29 That is, Sea of Reeds
5. Hebrews 11:31 Or unbelieving
6. Hebrews 11:37 Some early manuscripts stoned; they were put to the test;

New International Version (NIV) Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica

Finally in wonderful and simple way, Lewis encourage us, no demands, that we recognize our need to change.  The story of the egg is funny, playful and downright brutal.

The First Job Each Morning

            The real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it.  It comes the very moment you wake up each morning.  All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals.  And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day.  Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.

            We can only do it for moments at first.  But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system:  because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us.  It is the difference between paint, which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks right through.  He never talked vague, idealistic gas.  When He said, ‘Be perfect', He meant it.  He meant that we must go in for the full treatment.  It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder - in fact, it is impossible.  It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird:  it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg.  We are like eggs at present.  And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg.  We must be hatched or go bad.  (p. 17,18)

May we learn from these seasons and be re-made in the image of the Lord Jesus Christ in this New Year.

Warmly

In Christ,

Jeremy

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I have been struck by the images of the outsider at Christmas.  Not the little match girl from Dickens, who looks from the outside but cannot come in.  Not Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Tin Man", as the rejected child who through the cold and the snow looks in at the family gathering at a Christmas that he cannot participate in.  Neither do I think of the manger at Bethlehem and how difficult it was for Mary and Joseph as outsiders to find a home.  No, I'm thinking much more of the simple story told in an interview of a Red Cross worker from Sri Lanka on CBC Vancouver.  The worker was being interviewed by Gloria Macrenko and was telling stories of the aftermath of those who had experienced the tsunami five years ago this Boxing Day.  It is the story of a Sri Lankan man whose house had been rebuilt.  And oh, such a house!  He had never lived in such a house.  Nor did he or his family ever expected to own a building that was monsoon proof and so magnificent that it would last from generation to generation.  He had one problem; he could not enjoy this gift unless he was outside it looking in, so he continue to live in the little lean-to and hovel that he had lived in since the tsunami because it was the only way he could see his house.

Many of us think about Christmas and the gift of the Christ child and the welcome to the brand new beginning, a new home in Christ as it were.  We think about it.  We talk about it.  We think about others experiencing this welcome and warm place.  But we have much in common with the man in the lean-to in Sri Lanka. For some of us, Christmas and the coming of the Christ Child, is something we would rather talk about than experience.  For some of us, we prefer the old ways to the new ways.  For some of us, we can never imagine that something so wonderful could, in fact, be created for us.  This Christmas, I trust that whether we are searchers looking for the Christ at Bethlehem or whether we are those on a journey which never has seems to have a destination, or whether we are believers that are sitting outside, despite the welcome of the Christ Child at Christmas; whether we are any of these people, may this Christmas be particularly new and transformative. May the birth of the Christ, this year, be a new beginning for us.  Our birth into relationship with Him for the very first time or our rebirth again as we pick up the journey of life with the Son of God.

Grace and Peace be with you.

Jeremy Bell

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From Gathering For Worship, The Baptist Union of Great Britain, published by the Canterbury Press Norwich, 2005, p. 354-355

Christmas: Incarnation

The birth of Jesus as Immanuel, God with us. The wonder of the divine

word made human flesh. Praise and thanksgiving for God alongside us in

Christ and for the opportunities for proclamation which the season brings.

Prayers for peace.

Isaiah 9.6f.; Luke 2.6f.; 2.10f.; John 1.10-14; 2 Corinthians 4.5f.;

Hebrews 1.1f.; 1 John 1.1f.

For a carol service

Loving God,

we come to hear again the familiar story

and to sing the familiar songs.

Break through our cosy celebration,

that we might recognize your voice

and heed your call.

Christmas Eve

God of light and hope,

of stars and surprises:

open our eyes to your glory

and our hearts to your presence,

that we may respond with joy to the angel song;

through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Invocation

Immanuel, God with us,

show us where you may be found today:

in each human birth,

in family joy,

in relentless tragedy,

in treasured babes

and homeless families.

Immanuel,

we rejoice that you are with us

in everything,

through everything.

Lord Christ, be born in us today.

Word of God become flesh in us

that we might live your gospel.

Light of the world, shine

in us and through us

for the sake of your world.

Loving God,

help us to see your grace,

hear your voice,

and follow in your way;

through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Christmas Prayer

Living God,

may the worship we have shared this Christmas

lead to acts of service which transform people's lives;

may the carols we have sung this Christmas

help others to sing, even in their sadness;

may the gifts we have exchanged this Christmas

deepen our spirit of giving throughout the year;

may the candles we have lit this Christmas

remind us that you intend no one to live in darkness;

may the new people we have met this Christmas

remind us that we meet you in our neighbours;

may the gathering together of family and friends this Christmas

make us appreciate anew the gift of loved ones;

may the stories we have told again this Christmas

be good news of great joy to us and all people

on our lips and in our lives;

may the ways you have come close to us this Christmas

not be forgotten

but, hidden in our memories,

be a rich resource

to lift us when times are painful

and humble us when things go well,

for you are our life, our light and our salvation

this season and always,

because of Jesus Christ our Lord.

An encircling prayer

For those for whom Christmas is a difficult time of year.

God of the past, present and future

encircle in your love and care

those for whom we pray:

For the housebound:

keep warmth in heart and home

and cold and loneliness at bay.

For the homeless:

give shelter and hope,

and save from despair and addiction.

For those facing violence in the home:

affirm their worth and dignity,

protect from blows and shield from scorn.

For those missing a loved one:

may memories be precious,

not morbid nor morose.

God of the past, present and future

encircle in your love and care

those for whom we pray.

From The Lion Book of Christian Poetry, compiled by Mary Batchelor, 2005, p. 198.

Psalm for Christmas Day

Fairest of morning lights appear,

            Thou blest and gaudy day,

On which was born our Saviour dear,

            Arise and come away!

This day prevents his day of doom;

            His mercy now is night;

The mighty God of love is come,

            This dayspring from on high!

Behold the great Creator makes

            Himself a house of clay,

A robe of virgin-flesh he takes

            Which he will wear for aye.

Hark, Hark, the wise eternal Word

            Like a weak infant cries:

In form of servant is the Lord,

            And God in cradle lies.

This wonder struck the world amazed,

            It shook the starry frame;

Squadrons of spirits stood and gazed,

            Then down in troops they came.

Glad shepherds ran to view this sight;

            A quire of angels sings;

And eastern sages with delight

            Adore this King of kings.

Join them all hearts that are not stone,

            And all our voices prove,

To celebrate this holy one,

            The God of peace and love.

                        Thomas Pestel, 1584?-1659?