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Recently, I went to one of our large retail outlets to purchase a Christmas tree in readiness for the festive season. Much of the floor space was inevitably given over to the festive period and the lighting area was a cave of wonders for any child.
As well as every coloured Christmas light in the spectrum, there was an epic display of internally lit, almost life size Christmas figurines, featuring sleighs and snowmen, Santas and soldiers, reindeer and penguins (where have they come from all of a sudden?), all ready to light up your front garden at the flick of a switch and impress the neighbours and passers-by.
We then came upon a series of displays of miniaturised model villages depicting the romantic Christmases of yesteryear, with snow covered olde-worlde houses with warm winter firelight, rocking horses and happy children, with Father Christmas delivering his parcels on skis on a crisp Christmas Eve. It was all very heart warming and nostalgic, cosy and comforting... a moment of escapism.
Now don't get me wrong. I love all that stuff, but it does rather miss the point.
As a well-known Christian writer, Tom Wright, once said: "Christmas is not a reminder that the world is really quite a nice old place. It reminds us that the world is a shockingly bad place, where wickedness flourishes unchecked and where children are murdered."
He is right, of course.
The first Christmas was not romantic or cosy. It took place in a world filled with darkness, in a country that was occupied by a brutal foreign army and where the puppet king abused his power and suppressed all dissension. A new King's been born? Simple! Kill all the children in the village where he's living. It was a world where the poor, the hungry and the desperate were regularly marginalised and forgotten There are no carousels or carol singers in that scenario – just human suffering and despair.
It is into that abject darkness, that God sends a light. St John says at the beginning of his gospel: "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it". The greatest illumination is to be found where the darkness is most profound. That is what God did sending Jesus. Christmas is God lighting a candle in the dark and you don't light a candle in a room that is already full of sunlight. You light a candle where it is gloomy, to dispel the darkness, and to show the way, which is what Jesus did. Christmas then, is not a moment of nostalgic escapism. Christmas is Christian hope blazing in the face of human evil in every generation.
In June of this year, I was privileged to return to Africa, the continent where I used to live. As part of my visit, I climbed Mount Mulanje in Malawi, sitting at around 3000 metres. However, the best part was camping out overnight on the mountain, which lies in a remote area with no major settlements nearby and with no light pollution at all.
What followed that night was the most spectacular display of meteorites I have ever seen in my life, with one of them lighting up the whole mountainside as it fell to earth. The stars were striking as we looked straight into the milky way and I barely slept at all for the wonder of it all... that and the fact that the person next to me was snoring like a rhino!
When we returned to Blantyre the next day, a city of a million people and I looked up, it was hard to believe it was the same sky. Light pollution had removed the clarity with which we had seen the wonder of the light in the darkness. It was diminished and distracting.
To my mind, Christmas, as we know it today, can actually get in the way of itself. It can be the light pollution that diminishes the clarity of its true meaning. We can be distracted by the many lesser lights and yet miss the true "Light shining in the darkness", urging us back to God and to be light ourselves in a dark world.
For many, Christmas will be bleak this year. Our thoughts are particularly with those who have lost their homes, possessions, livelihoods and family members in the various conflicts around the world, especially in the Middle East and in Ukraine. For some, climate change has meant that life has become increasingly precarious; for others still, the darkness has come through personal struggle with mental health issues or domestic violence.
Just as Jesus came to bring light into a dark world, he invited others to follow his example. Don't settle for just a lit up snowman or Santa on the lawn. Welcome the light of Jesus Christ coming into your own darkness and light a candle in the darkness of others' lives by a simple act of kindness, invitation or generosity.
May I wish you all a light-filled Christmas.
The Very Reverend Mike Keirle.
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