Today is the first Sunday of Advent and World Aids Day. What a perfect juxtaposition. Jesus was born into a world that was broken, fallen, bloody, violent and tragic.
You could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Christmas has been hijacked. Oh we can blame Santa and consumerism, decorations and stuffing BUT the Church has been complicit. Those nativity plays with 8 year old boys wearing tea towels on their heads! Like the old Steve Turner poem Christmas is for children!
I couldn't disagree more.
A reading of Matthew chapter 2 is anything but child friendly. It should carry a paternal warning. A king is feeling the security of his power shudder. Death squads are hitting the streets of Bethlehem. Two year olds are being murdered. God is a vulnerable baby fleeing as a refugee. Keep it from the children!
Christmas needs to be stolen back from the children's nativity and given back its realism.
Seamlessly sown creedal conclusions
Safe and sanitised solutions
Out of context texts for every question
All lamenting Psalms put beyond use
In suits and ties and hats and Sunday smiles
FOR GOD’S SAKE GIVE US SOME REALITY.
Murderous mayhem on London Bridge
Refugees risking their lives to leave war, injustice and famine
Homeless people felling no value on the streets around us
People living with the stigma or dying of HIV/AIDS
Tensions rising between North Korea and Japan
Landslides washing away villages in Kenya
The UK in turmoil over Brexit, back stops, inertia at Stormont and tensions in East Belfast
FOR GOD’S SAKE GIVE US SOME REALITY.
A seasonally well decorated stable
Freshly showered cattle and perfumed straw
A carpenter with extra mural skills in midwifery
Westminster Confession signing stargazing mystics
A perfect little baby “no crying he makes”
FOR GOD’S SAKE GIVE US SOME REALITY.
A teenage girl's screams pierce a silent night
A baby laid in an infested animal stall
God, vulnerable and homeless
Death squads descending in the dawn’s first light
From where refugees risk their lives escaping hell
FOR GOD’S SAKE,
JESUS WAS BORN INTO THE MIDST OF REALITY.
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