Скачать или смотреть 24 12 25 Christmas Day 2024 The Rev'd Dr James Lawson St Mary Magdalene Enfield

There’s a wonderful poem that Chris Royal reads at the Latymer School concert every year. It’s by John Betjeman and its called “Christmas”. The last verses are:

And is it true? And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

This is one of Betjeman’s best-loved poems. The poems pivots on this question, “Is it true?” “And is it true? For if it is…” The affectionate picture that Betjeman paints of the ordinary sentimentalities of Christmas is framed by a great challenge. Is it true? If it is true, “that God was man in Palestine” then what this means is beyond comparison more beautiful and more life giving than any suburban cosiness or childhood memory.

For we are not redeemed by human cosiness – the John Lewis Christmas advert vision of Christmas, we might say. This vision of Christmas is just a heart-warming moment before we have to return to the cold and darkness of the real world.

But what if the Gospel is true? What then?