Pastoral Letter for the Month

Dear friends, 

Christmas is a high point in the church calendar – a time of celebration and festivity. We used to do more of this stuff – there were feast days through the year, times to celebrate not just important ‘holy’ days but also the changing of the seasons, the turning of the wheel of the year.

Lots of people will tell you that Christmas is only ‘where it is’ because it replaced earlier ‘pagan’ festivals. Certainly there were other festivals at this time of year and over time as the Christian influence spread some of these became Christianised and turned into a celebration of the birth of Jesus – the light of the world.

The original date of Jesus’ birth, however, is not really the point: it’s not about throwing a birthday party. Christmas is, in fact, our festival of lights.

Many religious traditions have a festival of lights, and broadly speaking they are for the same purpose – they help us collectively celebrate the light that shines in the darkness. It’s a recognition that even when things seem dire and desperate there is always hope.

In Judaism, the religion from which Christianity sprang about 2000 years ago, the light festival is Hannukah – a time when lamps are lit and an old story is told about the victory of a group of Jewish rebels called the Maccabees.

If you have a Bible that contains the Apocrypha then you can read the story for yourself – you’ll read about how the temple, which had been desecrated, was recaptured by Judas Maccabeus and his brothers, and how the lamp was relit – and how although there was only enough oil for a day the lamp miraculously stayed lit for eight days. Light shone in the darkness.

Judas Maccabeus, also known as Judah Maccabee, is a hero figure in the Jewish tradition and although you might not have noticed it his influence bleeds into our tradition too. The tune we use for ‘Thine be the glory’ is Handel’s ‘Maccabeus’ originally called ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’.

The world at the moment seems somewhat short of conquering heroes, although there are more than a few who fancy themselves in that role. For many there is little by way of good news and plenty, instead, to worry about. It seems as though it is “always winter and never Christmas,” as the fawn Mr. Tumnus says in CS Lewis’ ‘The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.’

But that’s why we have our festival of lights – to remind us that even in the deepest winter a light can cut through the darkness. Ours is a way of small lights in the night, of little pieces of yeast in the dough, of teeny tiny mustard seeds in a field, of a baby born to a peasant family in an out of the way place. Ours is a way of narrow paths and small doorways, of slaves scratching secret signs on catacomb walls and of mothers who refuse to give up.

As another year rolls around let’s continue to celebrate the small things, and continue to shine a light in the darkness – for the darkness hasn’t overcome it yet, and it never will.

Simon