Advent IV - 23 December 2011

... I feel
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
“Come, see the oxen kneel
In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.

Thomas Hardy’s wistful words. And I wonder how much of the adult enjoyment of Christmas is actually vicariously through the children. We enjoy their enjoyment, and their wonder and excitement can remind us of our own childhood Christmasses. Hardy mentions what our childhood used to know. But he himself is in gloom -- I should go with him in the gloom. He wrote this in 1915, in the middle of the First World War’s deepening abyss of grief. Hardy himself had been bruised and wounded by life and by the pain of his own relationships.

I don’t think he wants to recapture childhood simplicities and credulities. That could never happen. Becoming as little children doesn’t mean that. But he has a longing for something real, a word from God perhaps, some meeting of his bruised life with the truth and the light. Generally, as we know, what happens in practice is that the truth of Christmas gets submerged under much food and drink, almost compulsory sentimentalism, perhaps spending money we can’t afford, polishing up or renegotiating our family or tribal myths and legends... I was happy not to have to buy, on easy terms, a $2000 state of the art barbecue that put me in mind of the main flight console of the Starship Enterprise.

I should go with him in the gloom, hoping it might be so. This appeals to me far more than all the proclamations and certainties, or the silly ploys trendy clerics get up to. It is the opportunity to be still and silent, receptive and undistracted, open to wonder, to mystery and of course to the ever-present host of unanswered questions. God’s word is received in the heart, once we have ceased the noise and clamour. And this is God’s word. Nothing trumps the fact of a new baby surrounded by the total love of simple folk. God’s word is not placarded, however cleverly, loudly or provocatively. The Word made flesh, St John writes, full of grace and truth. Let’s hope it might be so. For plenty of mature people of faith and prayer, honest and humble hope is all that they can manage. I suspect that it is quite sufficient.