A very brief reflection in the middle of our carol service
All our readings so far have been optimistic promises –
that Abraham’s descendant will bring blessings to all the nations of the earth;
that the king is coming and will usher in a reign of justice for the poor and peace for all of God’s creation;
that a king will be born to a people in darkness.
And that God is rejoicing over us with singing.
So what, I wonder, has gone wrong?
These last few years have been pretty awful. I
believe there is an ancient Chinese curse that reads “May you live
in interesting times!”
Seems that someone has invoked that
curse,
what with first of all the pandemic,
and then this
year, just as things got a bit easier,
the war in Ukraine and
its impact on the rest of Europe,
the Queen’s death,
galloping
inflation, the energy crisis, strikes….
What has happened, and
will there ever be an end?
And where, we wonder, is God in all
this?
What of those magnificent promises we have just heard?
You know, desperate as
it feels right now, we’ve been here before.
Some of you may
remember, as I do, the 1970s,
when it was very similar to now
–
an energy crisis, galloping inflation, strikes, a government
which appeared not to care…
I missed the worst of it as I was
living and working in Paris at the time,
but it was difficult
not to know about it from letters and phone calls from family and
friends.
And, of course, there
have been wars, plagues, storms, all sorts of disasters, both
man-made and natural, all down the centuries.
And people have
looked around and wondered “Where is God in this?”
One of the earliest
efforts to come to terms with it all is the Book of Job.
You
remember how Job’s life went totally pear-shaped –
God knew
all about it and had given permission for this to happen –
and
his friends tried to make it be all his fault.
Which it totally
wasn’t, and Job knew this,
so he demanded answers from
God.
God eventually answered Job, reminding him of the glories
of creation that were all around him, that Job could have done
nothing about:
‘Do
you give the horse its might?
Do you
clothe its neck with mane?
Do you make it leap like the
locust?
Its majestic snorting is
terrible.’
It’s wonderful stuff,
and goes on for several chapters.
And at the end, Job has to
acknowledge God’s greatness,
and “repents in dust and
ashes”, we are told.
It’s one of the earliest attempts to
come to terms with the fact that awful things do happen, and we can
often do nothing about them.
But then, Jesus himself
said they would.
He said there would be wars,
and
plague,
and famine,
and all sorts of disasters.
He
told his disciples that they would be killed by those who thought
they were doing God’s work.
But he also reminded them –
and
us –
that the Holy Spirit would come.
And, he said, he
has told us this so that we may have peace.
In this world we
will have trouble.
“But take courage!
I have overcome the
world!”
So as we move into the
second half of this service,
and hear once again the ancient
story of how God became a human baby in a remote corner of an
Empire,
let’s remember that, despite appearances,
God is
in charge, and we can know his peace –
shalom, which means so
much more than peace.
In the Bible, according to one
scholar,
Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be.
The way things ought to
be.
We know full well that right now, things are not right,
and
they very seldom are.
But we can know God’s peace, God’s
shalom, in our hearts, no matter what.
Emmanuel.
God with
us.
Amen.
