Let me know when you get your freedom back!

 

In the United Kingdom, we are reportedly living through one of the greatest mental health crises we have ever seen: “Behind closed bedroom doors, a teenage mental health crisis is brewing', wrote Gaby Hinsliff. (The Guardian 29.1.21): “In the dark depths of January, the fear is more for kids with all the stuffing knocked out of them; teenagers spending the whole day huddled miserably under duvets, refusing to complete online lessons, or mentally checking out.”

 

Against the backdrop of the continuing lockdown measures, Dr Adrian Jones, the president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists has stated, “As many as 10 million people, including 1.5 million children, are thought to need new or additional mental health support as a direct result of the crisis.” This puts the scale of the crisis into some perspective. Prof Russell Viner, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said that there were now more children being admitted to hospital for mental health than medical reasons. He said, “This is a phenomenon that paediatricians have seen across the UK since the start of the pandemic.”  (The Telegraph 19.1.21). At the same time, the NSPCC have reported increase rates of child abuse since the lockdown as high as 58%. In any humane society the welfare and the future of children should come first.

 

Instead, we are all having to endure a government and the BBC continuing to rack up the fear: “As it happened: Coronavirus: 37,475 in UK hospitals' with Covid-19” (16.1.21).  Apparently, this was “the third-highest daily total since the pandemic began.”  What we were not told was that these figures included all those in hospital who had tested positive for the virus but were there for other health reasons. An NHS registered nurse explains: “I have seen first-hand, patients admitted to hospital for completely unrelated conditions – nil covid symptoms, but have a positive PCR test on admission. These go down as 'covid admissions', but they are actually admitted for conditions completely unrelated to the respiratory system, such as heart failure or kidney disease.” (Lockdown Sceptics: An NHS Nurse writes: 29.1.21)

 

Further to this, we were presented with the sad figure of 100,000 deaths since the inception of the covid crisis, last March, 2020. The prime minister, Boris Johnson, described it as a 'grim statistic; indeed, it is. However, the vast majority of these deaths have been amongst older people. According to The Times, 90% of deaths were aged 65 or more and 75% were aged at least 75. The median age of covid deaths reported the Financial Times (20.11.20) is 82. The point being that COVID-19 affects a certain demographic and is more lethal where certain comorbidities or pre-existing conditions exist. This fact should have been the foremost consideration determining the government's strategy in terms of containment. But instead of a policy of focussed protection, the nation has been subject to lockdowns leading to massive economic, social and psychological damage.

 

And it's all too apparent that for the past twelve months, in an attempt to 'control the narrative' that the public has been made exposed to an unprecedented and unceasing barrage of government inspired propaganda. Under these unprecedented conditions, no other scientific opinion in regard to alternative coping strategies have been allowed to challenge the government's narrative. This was indeed the fate of the Great Barrington Declaration which was and remains an alternative to the devastating policy of lockdown. The Declaration signed by thousands of medical practitioners, researchers, and public health scientists essentially recommended that restrictions should be lifted on the low-risk groups whilst providing focussed protection for those most at risk.

 

As a way forward, in October 2020 the basis of the proposals of the Great Barrington Declaration were rejected by the British Government as 'an unproven assumption'. A quick trawl of the internet and one will discover how much time and effort has gone into rubbishing and side-lining The Great Barrington Declaration. A year or so ago, to most people, the idea of focussed protection for the vulnerable against a particularly nasty virus would have been deemed common sense, but under the carpet-bombing impact of the Government's mass propaganda campaign, common sense seems to have gone out of the window. We seem to have very short memories, but it was only just over ten months ago The Guardian was slavishly sowing the seeds of panic for the weeks to come: “UK coronavirus crisis to last until spring 2021 and could see 7.9m hospitalised”, this according to a 'secret briefing for NHS officials’ (15.3.20). A week earlier, the same newspaper reported: “Emergency planners have drawn up proposals to deal with “excess deaths” of between 210,000 and 315,000 over a 15-week period as part of long standing measures to ensure the UK can cope with a deadly pandemic.”  

Later in the year, on Saturday 31^st October, Halloween, appropriately enough, we were taken into the second lock down on the basis of more false information, as the Daily Mail revealed two days later: “Apocalyptic forecast of 4,000 coronavirus deaths a day could be FIVE TIMES too high and had already been proved wrong when government revealed it at weekend”. “Sir Patrick Vallance presented worst-case scenario in Saturday's briefing when lockdown was confirmed.” “But it has emerged it was based on forecasts made weeks ago and since updated to give lower estimates.” Sir Patrick Vallance is of course, the government's chief scientific advisor, the same man who reportedly had a £600,000 shareholding in the firm contracted to develop vaccines. The government denied that there was any potential conflict of interest, maintaining he was not involved in commercial decisions on coronavirus vaccines.

By such standards, in any court of justice real or imagined, could we accept such government men as reliable witnesses? Could we in all seriousness take any of them at their word when for example they can dismiss The Great Barrington Declaration as an 'unproven assumption' and yet themselves be the perpetrators of such self-evident falsehoods? But of course, the BBC continues to assist the government in the ongoing campaign of fear with headlines like, “Covid: 2020 saw most excess deaths since World War Two” (12.1.21) when in fact after some tortuous statistical gymnastics, the same article concluded that the age standardised mortality rate was only at its highest since 2008. This is not to deny that covid-19 exists, it clearly does and it is a particularly nasty virus, on this at least, we can all agree, but surely a line must be drawn between objective truth telling and such hyperbole as comparing the covid crisis with the scale of horror, death and destruction of the Second World War; this is very wrong on so many levels.

 

Nobody has the monopoly on truth, opinions expressed against the backdrop of events may be changed or modified in the fullness of time according to the availability of new information and the different conditions that may allow for a more objective assessment. What is not acceptable now, is the closing down of the covid strategy debate as has so clearly taken place, where reasoned argument is blatantly censored or basely rebutted under the abusive blanket terms of 'covidiots', 'anti-vaxxers', and 'conspiracy theorists.’ There are two sides to this debate. It’s a debate that has become polarised beyond reason as a result of fear. Indeed, there are many out there who would support the imprisonment (and worse) of others, for simply exercising their right not to be vaccinated!

 

In my January message, on this same theme, I received implied criticism for my use of the internet; I assume for using it to help inform my opinions. The fact is that the internet is the favoured go-to, these days, for anyone, whether it be to peruse the mainstream media or anything else for that matter. Whilst some may be content to simply watch the news on TV and allow the BBC to inform their world view, there are others who with a healthy cynicism may wish to check out some of the BBC stories for themselves. Again, there is always an alternative point of view. The main point and the value and principle of free speech in a free society, is that one is allowed to express an opinion and the reader or the hearer has the right to make his or her own mind up.

 

What I do find curious is that those who have become known as the 'globalist elites' really are signalling their intentions to change our world and by definition our very way of life as we have lived to know it and it is very clear that their agenda for doing this already exists. It is known as The Great Reset and is the project of the World Economic Forum. Yet even now, as the language of the language of The Great Reset, 'build back better', enters political mainstream discourse, when the click of a mouse will reveal this project to be undisputedly true, when its objectives are writ large in the press, when we can see this change in progress all around us, even then, there are still those who will say that The Great Reset is 'conspiracy theory'. I am reminded of Jesus' words:

 

Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky but you don't know how to interpret the present time.

(Luke 12:56)

 

Perhaps such denial simply arises from a sincere hope that we may return to the normality of life as was lived prior to March 2020 and that this may be achieved through the roll out of a mass vaccination programme. At this time of writing, I remain unconvinced that this is going to happen any time soon; witness the Daily Express headline (1.2.21): “Lockdown extended again: Now No10 indicates restrictions to remain until SUMMER.” In the end, it really matters not from which newspaper the proclamations come from, if we can preserve the capacity for independent, critical thought, we can certainly 'interpret the present time' even if we cannot know entirely what the future may hold. To those in denial, without acrimony, I would say, 'Let me know when you get your freedom back!'

 

The future prospects for the freedoms and the normality we once knew do not look good and if that were not bad enough the sheer spinelessness of the churches is obvious. Even in the present situation, where corporate, gathered worship is legally permissible, a large number of churches are keeping their doors closed on Sundays. Tim Dieppe wrote, 'As we look back at Christian responses to plagues in the past we should be inspired by their courage and conviction. The risks to us from coronavirus pale in comparison with what previous generations of Christians have faced. How will our generation of Christians go down in history? (Lessons from Church history and past plagues – ChristianConcern.Com),

 

In a passionate letter to The Spectator (21.1.21) Peter Laverick wrote: “Why are our priests so frightened? They are supposed to be our leaders and consolers in times of crisis. The very people who believe death holds no fear for them are afraid to open their own doors, let alone the doors of their empty churches. If this had been Jesus' attitude there would have been no Christian culture for the past two millennia. There may soon be no CofE after this exhibition. What a tragedy, what a disgrace!” Mr Laverick is clearly an Anglican, but the same criticism may be levelled at most denominations in England including the Unitarians where many of their congregations and ministers sadly gave up any allegiance to the Christian faith a long time ago. Behind their closed doors, clergy of every hue look on despondently as this impending ecclesiastical disaster unfolds. The Sunday Times (31.1.21) reported: “Church to cut paid clergy as fifth of flock wanders off.” The report stated that, “20 percent of its regular worshippers may never return and that paid clergy could be reduced by ten to twenty percent.

 

The truth is that covid-19 is not really the cause of this parlous state of affairs, but rather the government's policies. What is also true is that increasingly, Christians more than ever, find themselves living in tension with the norms and values of an ever more emerging atheistic society, a society that rejects the Judaeo-Christian values of a society we once knew. In this emerging society we will continue to find that the principles of free speech and individual rights are eschewed in favour of diktat and an ever more totalitarian agenda antithetical to religious belief and practice. To quote Tom Paine: “These are the times that try men's souls.” Such sentiment speaks to us today and as we look over the past few months at the liberties and the religious freedoms, we have so easily surrendered in the 'war on covid'. We should pay heed also to these other words of Paine who said, “Tyranny like hell, is not easily conquered.” 

 

 

God Comes First!

 

We all begin our lives as babies in our mother's arms but as we grow, we begin with a few faltering steps along that road to independence and adulthood. Along that self-same road we all face, in one way or another, all those difficulties that somehow have to be overcome. We will often find that many of these difficulties may be surmounted through the help and advice of others, generally from those, who have acquired, experience, knowledge and the wisdom of age. Furthermore, in this age of books and information technology, we may discover that there is no shortage of instruction and opinion that may help as we travel the road of life. And If we want to achieve a certain sort of success there exists what I would call the 'self-help industry' that comes in all its forms, especially online or perhaps more traditionally in the form of self-help books.

More often than not, but not always, these books purport to offer us the secrets of success, which usually means how we can get rich, how we may obtain untold riches or how we can get anything we want. There must be literally thousands of books, like this in existence. One such book, first published in 1937, entitled, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill is based on the idea that we create our own reality through our thoughts. If we know what we want and actively pursue our objectives, single mindedly and with faith, we can turn our dreams into a reality. So runs the usual blurb. The Victorian writer, James Allen produced his famous booklet: As a Man Thinketh, it was an exposition on the Biblical proverb (27.3): 'For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.' Both these writers, Napoleon Hill and James Allen, are essentially saying that we ultimately become the product of our own thoughts. In the Gospel of Matthew (6:21), Jesus said, 'for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.' I think that we can rest assured that Jesus, in this context, is saying as he does elsewhere in the same Gospel, that 'it is impossible to serve both God and mammon.' We cannot serve God with a divided heart.

At the same time, I don't think that simply wanting to have something or to own something is a sin. If we say that our God is a God of love he is also a God of common sense. Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount tells us not to worry about the things of this world, what we want or need. He said, 'your heavenly Father knows that you need them.' We just need to get our priorities right, firstly to seek God, and to acknowledge him first and if we can do that then all the other things will be added. It's just that all the other things that may be added cannot compensate for spiritual poverty, we cannot live 'by bread alone' and yet so many people act as if they can, the grasshopper mind, the restless, acquisitive soul always jumping from one thing to the next, the compulsive buying, the next new novelty, always having to have something new and having thoughts that go no further than this.

Before all this lockdown business began, ten months ago, it appeared to me that on Sundays the roads were just as busy as any other day of the week and that Sundays far from being the sabbath day of rest as I remembered them from years gone by, when all the shops were closed, people actually attending church and the town centres empty; were replaced by streams of traffic driving to huge shopping centres, super stores and retail parks. Welcome to the new Godless society.

Years ago, I remember how as a student minister I was advised to be 'more inclusive' which meant not using the 'God word' in my ministry. A friend of mine was wont to say in the face of all this opposition to Christian ministry, 'If you don't like religious language, instead of complaining, and spoiling it for everyone else, why don't you just stay away from church on Sunday and just go for a walk round Tesco instead?' That same friend once commented in the local press that on Sunday mornings that there were more cars queuing up to dump stuff at the civic amenities site than there were cars making their way to the local churches.

These civic amenity sites, recycling centres or tips as they are generally known, seem to be part of an endless cycle of car queueing. Queuing to get into the tip to dump all your unwanted stuff and then queueing again at the retail parks in order to buy more stuff that will eventually end up at the tip. The queueing at the tip must in some way be proportional to the frequency of visits to the retail outlets. It has to be. I think there's a manic restlessness driving this cycle of buying and dumping. Only this week another friend spoke of a house not very far from where she lives where the occupants regularly hire a skip to remove their unwanted household waste. I'm told that their neighbours regularly go to this house when the skip is full and help themselves to nearly new or even brand-new items that have simply been thrown out, some stuff can be found unopened; in its original packaging even.

When I think of those skips, filled with unwanted goods, purchased probably just on a whim, just lying there in the skip under the rain swept skies of Oldham, I can't help feeling that there's a sadness to the whole thing. There is of course, the waste of it all and the negative impact to the environment, but there's something else here too - a deep sense of some spiritual malaise. Today, it's fashionable to talk about one's mental health problems which we are assured may be resolved through recourse to counselling, therapies or medicine or any combination of these strategies. Whilst I may acknowledge this, I do reserve the right to say that many of our problems are often of a spiritual nature. So, I return to that skip full of unwanted products and I think of the people, the individuals who have sought some solace, some comfort, some momentary happiness through what we have jokingly come to describe as ‘retail therapy.’

Indeed, there does seem to be a sadness here, a sort of unconscious, human suffering; a seeking of consolation in a world that simply defines itself through owning and buying stuff. But the skip stands as a silent witness against this notion, basically showing us that we cannot buy happiness, inviting us to believe that there exists a profound unmet need bringing to mind those words of Jesus, that, 'Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions' and Thomas A Kempis wrote:

(But) if you hanker inordinately after the good things in life, you will lose those of heaven and eternity. Therefore, make right use of this world's goods, but long only after those that are eternal. This world's good things can never satisfy you for you are not created for the enjoyment of these alone. Could you enjoy every good thing in existence, this could not of itself bring you blessing and happiness, for all the joy and blessedness rests in God alone, the creator of all things.

Our 'right use of this world's goods' as Thomas A Kempis says, is important but our wise judgement is also required at that interface between the spiritual and the temporal.  'What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet lose his own soul?' (Mark 8:36).

In the Acts of the Apostles (6: 2) we read:

But as the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. The Greek-speaking believers complained about the Hebrew-speaking believers, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food.

So the Twelve called a meeting of all the believers. They said, “We apostles should spend our time teaching the word of God, not running a food program. And so, brothers, select seven men who are well respected and are full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will give them this responsibility. Then we apostles can spend our time in prayer and teaching the word.”

These few verses reflect a new situation in the early church, not only of growth but of division. There was division between those Jews of the diaspora who no longer spoke Aramaic, but Greek, the international language of the time. We can see from the text that not only had a divisive problem emerged in the church but the apostles were also facing increasing difficulties by being sucked into the administration of feeding the needy. In other translations we hear the apostles saying:

It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables.

Now, you might think that this is harsh indeed, but the reality was that seven men were appointed, in fact ordained as deacons in order to carry out this very necessary function of food distribution. But and this is an important 'but', the fact is as in each person’s life as in the life of the Church, there has to be an order of priority summed up in those words that 'man cannot live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'  'In the beginning was the Word', as it says in the Gospel of John. Through the drawing board, the plans and design must come before the workshop, so the word of God comes before creation and so must the preaching and teaching come before the serving tables at tables. How could it be otherwise? Our own chapel exists primarily for the worship of God, from our worship and acknowledgement of God, but it is from this small congregation that God's love has been made manifest in its service to the community. Again, we have Jesus' interpretation of the law as being to love God and to love our neighbour as we love ourselves. We have to see that the love of God is the first part of the law and that love of neighbour must follow, that is the order of priority. God comes first.

The early Church knew that priority could not and should not be subverted, even though the feeding, clothing, and housing of the needy was a function of the church long before the secular state in the form of its social services took over those responsibilities. The apostles of the early Church made it very clear what their priorities were and we have to be alert to the subversion of those priorities. Such subversion may present itself in very reasonable ways: 'I'm not interested in religion and theology, why don't you just campaign against injustices and why don't you just feed the poor? And so, it goes on, the constant undermining, we see it in the story of Jesus' anointment with the spikenard. 'What a waste!’ cried Judas. ‘The money from the sale of this valuable ointment could have gone to the poor! And within a few hours, Jesus was betrayed and handed over for trial and execution.

We see the same thing in that slogan from the charity: Christian Aid, 'We believe in life before death' and nobody can disagree with that, can they? Except that it is a subversion. It’s a sop to those who would much rather see an end to faith altogether. They're the ones who may have already read the self-help book that Satan has written for them, 'All this shall be yours if you bow down and worship me'. Perhaps that's what hell is really like, wandering forever round a shopping centre and being able to buy everything that you see and wish for. When Satan offered Jesus the kingdoms of the world and all its glory, Jesus didn't deny that it was Satan's to offer him - he knew it was! And he refused. 

St Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians (2:8-10) wrote:

But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord. That is what the Scriptures mean when they say,

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard,
and no mind has imagined
what God has prepared
for those who love him.”

But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets.

Photograph: By Rainer Zenz - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=597239

 

New Year Thoughts

 

Back in 1992, the Queen in a speech at the Guildhall, to mark her Ruby Jubilee on the throne, referred to that year as an 'annus horribilis' She did so with some justification. As we mark the passing of this year and look forward to the new, we know that each year will always bring its joys and sorrows. But how often we may underestimate the depths of human sorrow and how often when we are given the happiest of circumstances, we heedlessly allow that time to pass us by! The present moment is all we have.

I have noticed even as we have approached the threshold of this New Year, how many have expressed their wishes that 2021 will be better than 2020. For those who read beyond the popular headlines and all the government propaganda, it is writ large that life is not going to return to the normal as we understood it, prior to March 2020. Little by little, it is beginning to sink in that there really does exist an agenda for massive societal change, at home and abroad, and furthermore that this agenda is already in process. More and more people are waking up to the aims of The Great Reset. To find out more, simply Google up 'he Great Reset'. Read and you will learn how the coronavirus is being hyped up to lever in unconsulted change that will change your world, forever.

You might ask what the response should be to such misgivings as we move forward into 2021. There is the story of Jesus who in Roman occupied Palestine, was asked, 'Should we pay taxes to Caesar?' A dangerous question, but Jesus said, 'Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.' Each year, we as dutiful citizens may fill in our tax return forms and also make arrangements to pay our local council taxes. Thus, we too, figuratively speaking, do our duty and 'render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's'. We will note however, that Jesus' words did not prevent his execution on the cross, because it was not deemed expedient to let him live.

Perhaps we too are beginning to see that even for us it may not be enough to 'render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.' In a totalitarian state, mind and soul are required for sacrifice too, and so there exists in China 'thought transformation camps' where faith and cultural identity must be replaced by 'love for the Chinese Communist Party.' A BBC documentary recorded a Chinese official denying that these thought transformation camps were prisons. Where in prison can you paint? He objected.

Similarly, in recent lockdowns at home, otherwise known as house arrest, Facebook memes suggested that all that was required of the obedient citizen was to 'sit at home, watch Netflix and eat Pringles.' Later as Christmas came upon us, further memes were posted on Facebook comparing our comfortable loss of liberty with the very real hardships of the soldiers of the First World War. Notwithstanding the destruction of the economy and the very fabric of people' lives, such blandishments were and remain an obfuscation of the loss of our civil liberties and democratic rights. All of it is as duplicitous as the Chinese Communist Party' official line that the thought transformation camps are not prisons.

We are living through times of great change and it is difficult to understand what is really going on. As I have previously stated, the information is out there, and one only needs to do a little internet research to see how far reaching these changes are and are going to be. I think it is helpful also, to see that from the globalist-capitalist perspective, the methods of China, a capitalist economy under the control of the totalitarian one party surveillance state, has become for the elites, an attractive alternative to Western democracy. The recent utterances of Professor Neil Ferguson, the Government’s top scientific advisor, as reported in The Times, clearly shows that same direction of thought and where we are heading:

'I think people's sense of what is possible in terms of control changed quite dramatically between January and March,’ Professor Ferguson says. When SAGE observed the 'innovative intervention' out of China, of locking entire communities down, and not permitting them to leave their homes, they initially presumed it would not be an available option in a liberal Western democracy: 'It's a communist one party state, we said. We couldn't get away with it in Europe, we thought...and then Italy did it. And we realised we could.'’

In the same interview Ferguson said: ‘If China had not done it, the year would have been very different’

Ferguson is currently advocating the continuation of lockdown until Easter 2021 and possibly beyond, this from a lockdown that was originally sold to the British public as a solution designed to last for only three weeks! This continuing level of totalitarian control has been deliberately achieved through months of fear inducing propaganda and government misinformation.

The Guardian recently published the concerns of the country's leading psychiatrist, Dr Adrian Jones with a headline that read: Covid poses greatest threat to mental health since second world war'. The telling paragraph reveals that up to 10 million people including 1.5 million children, 'are thought to need new or additional mental health support because of the crisis.' When one considers the fact that from the inception of this 'pandemic', in England, only 377 healthy people under the age of 60 have died of covid, then perhaps we may get a real sense of perspective and an inkling of the power of the government's fear induced tyranny. I read somewhere that, 'Where the government fears the people there is freedom, and where the people fear the government there is tyranny.'

The opposite of love is not hate but fear. God is love and the churches exist for the worship of God (love). Love casts out fear. The continuation of the 2020 'annus horribulus' is set to continue. Unless the churches really do wish to be consigned to oblivion, they need to take a stand now. The retreat to online worship is no substitute for the fellowship of public worship. This is not the time to step back but a time to step forward into 2021, to reject the lies, false promises and predictions of fallible men and to place our trust in God. 

 Picture: By Peter Paul Rubens - Artnet.com, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14823625

The Blessing of Christmas

 

I once received a Christmas card, many years ago now, with a picture of Father Christmas on the front. But a closer examination showed this image to be a likeness of Karl Marx. There he was, complete with a bright red coat and hood, trimmed with the usual white fur. The caption on the card read, “Even Marxists are nice at Christmas” I suppose you could say that it doesn’t say very much for Marxists if they can only be nice at Christmas. And in any case, niceness doesn’t quite do it when you are looking for a revolution of the heart and the world. There is only a Christ-like love that is capable of that.

Nevertheless, it seems that as Christmas approaches nearly everybody does become a bit nicer. In spite of all the cynicism and disillusionment, now and again, we can glimpse if only fleetingly, amidst the festive preparations, a yearning for that love expressed in the desire for peace on earth and goodwill.

The jingles in the shops, the media and the shopping malls resound (mostly and not very tastefully) with the same message. And what do we do? We bemoan the secular tide of commercialism that seems to have overcome this Christian festivity. But if we think about it another way, we can see, in spite of the cash register queues, the credit card transactions, the online purchases and the apparent superficial exuberance of it all, at the heart of this, in that swarming mass of humanity in the supermarkets and the shopping centres, at the heart of it all, are real people with an earnest and sincere desire to celebrate Christmas with the people that they love. They really do want to bring the magic of Christmas into the lives of their children, not only to give them gifts and sweets but also something more valuable; the gift of Christmas itself, a happy event that can be stored in the treasure chest of memory. Indeed, for those of us who are just a little older, Christmas gives us the opportunity to cast our minds back to Christmases past; spent in the company of loved ones no longer with us today.

Great memories as we know, can become great history. For the past one hundred and six years a Christmas has not gone by in which the events of December 1914 were forgotten. In the words of a BBC Special Report (1998) “It is perhaps the best and most heartening story of modern times”

This true story was of a time during the First World War when the British, French and German Armies faced each other across a frozen landscape of shell craters, of mud, shattered trees, wrecked buildings and corpses. Millions of men faced each other in the trenches. Millions died in this war and those who survived suffered terrible hardships and horrific experiences.

A French infantry lieutenant, Alfred Jobbaire, wrote in his diary shortly before he was killed: “Humanity is mad! It must be mad to do what it is doing. What a massacre! What scenes of horror and carnage! I cannot find words to translate my impression. Hell cannot be so terrible. Men are mad!

The battlefields of Belgium and France were indeed a living hell but on 24 December 1914, it seemed as though a miracle had taken place. As the artillery bombardment ended, the guns became silent and the killing stopped. From their positions the British troops in Ypres Belgium, could see that the German troops had begun to decorate the area around their trenches with Christmas trees and candles and through the clear bitter cold night of Christmas Eve the British soldiers heard the Germans singing Christmas carols and in particular they could hear them softly singing Stille Nacht or Silent Night. It wasn’t long before the British joined in because in some areas the opposing trenches were less than thirty yards apart.

Soon they were shouting to each other across the trenches. Then, little dots of red, the burning cigarettes they were smoking became visible to each other as unarmed German and British soldiers courageously climbed out of their trenches to meet each other, to share Christmas greetings and to exchange gifts of whisky, jam, cigars, and chocolate.

All sorts of souvenirs were exchanged including names and addresses, family photographs were shown and a desire to go home and to end the war was a sentiment that was widely shared and expressed by both sides.

The next day, Christmas Day, unarmed German and British soldiers joined together to search for their dead comrades. And in at least one burial service the German and British dead were buried alongside each other.

Along the twenty-seven-mile British line there was a time of peace, celebration, and joy as enemies became friends and understood each other through the bond of their own humanity. Football matches as well as more casual kick-arounds took place. And it must be emphasised that this was not a small-scale event, thousands of soldiers took part, ordinary privates, NCOs and officers, much to the frustration of some the German and British high command.

The Christmas truce ended on Boxing Day, but in some areas, it continued well into the New Year. The First World War continued until 11 November 1918. But the powers that be ensured that the spirit of Christmas and the possibility of peace on Earth would be snuffed out until then. For the remainder of the war artillery bombardments remained constant over the Christmas period, and soldiers were constantly transferred from one area to another ensuring that solidarity and familiarity would not be able to flourish and allow the joy and peace of Christmas to shine in the darkness of war.

Without Christmas or any similar great religious festival at this time of the year we would miss a tremendous opportunity to connect with the loving depths of our own humanity. And there would have certainly been no Christmas 1914 to shine like a beacon over the passing years and generations. A beacon to remind us of our manifest destiny, to bring us home and to remind us of who we really are. 

We who have been brought up and educated in a culture so heavily influenced by Christianity know that Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus, the arrival of the Christ child into the world. If we let go a little and let our imaginations leap into one cold dark starlit night in December, can we not believe just for a moment, that not too far away, this special child, this wonderful gift from God lies cradled in a mother’s arms? Is this not a scene of such joy and tranquillity? as we gaze upon mother and child enveloped in that radiant light of pure love. A light that illuminates the whole scene as the rich and powerful, the poor and mean kneel together and worship in such humility.

The Christ child is born and is born in our hearts, the hope of the world, the light of our lives. From the darkness, we come face to face with the Christ Child, into the light of a Holy presence where all our strivings, our greed and anger our hatreds, our small mindedness, prejudice, jealousies and fears have been supplanted by an apparition of such purity that our very hearts are smitten as we resonate with a divine love with the wonder and beauty of it all. In this moment we know who we really are and we know that this child is every child the universal child, the child in every person we meet. As we meet his gaze through the radiance of his presence, we feel his vulnerability and a powerful sense of innocent, trusting love and we are deeply touched. We are deeply touched because we are not observers, but have become one with him, deeply touched, we are lifted on the wings of angels.

When we are far away from home in the cold solitude of despair of pain and self-pity, we have only to remember the light that shines in the darkness a light transcendent and immanent, a light deep within ourselves, the power of love to transform ourselves and the world.

 

May the humility of the shepherds,

the faith of the wise men,

the joy of the angels

and the peace of the Christ Child

be God’s gift to all people this,

Christmas and always