Carol Service 2024

 

“So hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing!”

That is the theme the Methodist church has suggested we consider during the festive season this year, and really, what with one war and another going on around the world, it really couldn’t be more appropriate. The words come, as you know, from the carol “It came upon the midnight clear”, which we’re going to sing in a minute or so.

There is just too much war going on in the world this year – Ukraine, Israel, Syria, Sudan…. So it goes. We know that, even while we are celebrating, people all over the world are suffering. And, closer to home, we know that there are many people who will be struggling to put a festive meal on the table on Wednesday, never mind find presents for their family. Just ask those who help out at the foodbank each week! Father Christmas won’t be calling at those homes.

And for the rest of us, Christmas can be a bit manic – all that last-minute shopping, and you know as well as I do that the supermarkets will have run out of the one thing you really went in for…. And the stress of whether you have forgotten something vital!

There’s a poem that went round social media the other day – you may have seen it. But it resonated with me on this year’s theme of “hush the noise”. It’s by someone called Meredith Anne Miller, and goes like this:

Christmas is not here to offer
a four-week escape
from the pain of the world
with a paper-thin layer of twinkle lights.

It is not here to anaesthetise us
with bows and eggnog lattes.

Christmas is not offering us the chance
to escape the ache of life
through piles of presents.

Christmas is God saying,
“Yes, this pain is too much. Yes, it is too sad.
Yes, the ache is too great. Hang on.
I’ll come carry it with you.”
© Meredithannemiller

“I’ll come carry it with you.”
“Hush the noise.”

Let’s try to spend a few minutes each day hushing the noise, relaxing, and becoming aware that God has come to carry it all with us. Amen.