Christmas: Time
Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 61:10-62:3, Galatians 4:4-7, Luke 2:15-21
The poem that summarises how I feel in this strange interlude between Christmas Day and Epiphany is by John Riley. Riley was from Leeds, served in the RAF, went to Cambridge, became a teacher, and then at the age of only 41 was attacked and murdered near his home in 1978. It’s impossible not to already read that tragedy into his poetry, but this is my favourite poem of his, ‘Fragment of an Argument about the Feast’:
How shall we behave the day after the feast?
If there is no elation to recall at least
There's little enough disappointment : so act
As if things were usual, which they are in fact.
A little flat perhaps a little lacking
In fire in dramatic cadences we sing
'Our streets are not paved with gold and never were'
As best we can as consolation for a threadbare
Everything it seems at times is our complaint
Complaining it seems falls everywhere like rain
And great's the tension to be merely quaint
To recreate a golden age and to refrain
From further effort - and there I would have loved
And there I did – superbly conscious not unmoved
No moved but reconciled to some sort of end :
'The historical drama is over and
Only the epilogue remains though it may
As with Ibsen be drawn out into five acts.'
How shall we behave the day after the feast?
If there's no elation to recall at least
There's little enough disappointment : so act
As if things were usual, which they are in fact.
It’s not exactly an upbeat poem; There’s a heavy slice of realism. But in a year that has been, on reflection, quite disappointing, it strikes a chord. And always Christmas seems to rush headlong from one thing to another in preparation, and then immediately be gone. It’s different as a child; the excitement of new toys makes it last longer; were you to have guests or be guests that can help sustain festivities. But even as a child I remember a flat feeling. Not that Christmas had disappointed, but simply the build-up and anticipation had promised some sort of end or new beginning, but now we were simply back on the wheel with nothing really changed. 363 days to Christmas.
And perhaps it’s that as a culture we’re more materialistic – which lends itself to an instant but short-lived gratification; and less social – which would provide some stimulus for longer celebrations – But Christmas lasting 12 days seems too much. Too decadent; too much time spent staring at the same people you’ve been locked in your house with all year. How shall we behave the day after the feast? act/ As if things were usual, which they are in fact.
Our faith asks us to see time in a peculiar way. The way the world sees time is like a road. 1AD, 2AD, 3AD, 4AD – 4 miles out. The world sees time as progress so the higher the number the further along we are;
the more advanced we are. Yes – it’s the easiest form of smugness, which anyone can enjoy, to look back on people a century ago and think how much more sophisticated, how much more cultured, thoughtful and educated we are. Would that it were true.
As an aside, I once had a conversation with someone who remarked what a coincidence it was that Jesus just happened to born in the year 0. I think they had misunderstood our dating system. As it happens, the system was based on Jesus being born on the year 1. There is no year zero. And as strange as it may sound, the system was only invented in the sixth century. The Venerable Bede is the first person recorded to date events BC, before Christ, and the whole thing was adopted widely with Charlemagne only in the 9th Century. It is a pleasing thought, though, to think of people counting backwards, getting excited about reaching year zero.
However, and again how extraordinary, our faith has divided the dating of almost all the world with the historical person of Jesus. And as a crucial turning point, rather than a beginning. So, rather than counting progress, It would seem that the higher the number the further we are from the centre. 2020AD has its parallel in 2020BC. It’s hard to be sure exactly of things occurring in the 21st century BC. Possibly Abraham was around then, the beginning of the Assyrian empire. Seahenge may have been constructed in Norfolk. There are probably not many parallels with our own time, except for the prevalence of disease. And possibly arguments with the French over fishing rights.
But it’s not just that Christianity placed Christ at the centre of history. Even in our secular age, the year turns on the life of Christ. So between Christmas and Pentecost we race through the events of his life and resurrection, half the year following his story, half the year in ‘ordinary time’. And while the world has worked steadily to flatten the seasonal changes of life – the church insists that the rhythm of the year is helpful – that we need seasons of penitence, seasons of celebration. And the church keeps inventing more: Creation Season in September, Kingdom Season in November. But seasons are helpful, and actually, perhaps the Christmas champagne does taste better for only drinking prosecco in Advent.
But is this way of looking at time so odd? Most people I know are surprised at their age as they get older; it’s not uncommon for grand ladies in their 80s to still feel like little girls; and that’s before our minds retreat into childhood. We are not linear creatures; we are not creatures of progress. As Roald Dahl tells us: ‘You are still yourself in everything except your appearance. You've still got your own mind and your own brain and your own voice, and thank goodness for that’. We change with time, but there are repeats, there are fortes, there are pianissimos; there are themes and variations. Our lives are more like music than journeys. So how are we to behave the day after the feast?
It would have been easy to cancel Christmas this year. Perhaps given everything, we could have said morning prayer, and continued through Winter without it. At least we’d have kept the White Witch and some COVID martials happy. But even if our celebrations are small. As with so many life-events in the past year, the gathered celebration is deferred; there have been moments I hope, when something of the hope and joy have been rekindled; where even if it is just in the yearning of our hearts for something remembered, we have known that spirit of Christ’s birth; which is at this time of year, only as yet a promise of something wonderful to be revealed, a promise hidden in the world that is not yet realised.
Austin Farrer once remarked upon coming across an odd phrase in a medieval text: ‘ad septem horas de clocca’, obviously referring to what we would say as ‘at seven o’clock’. A ‘clocca’, though, is a bell, So the phrase could be translated ‘at seven hours by the bell’. That time is measured by bells should remind us that time is as much circular as it is linear; but also that time has long been foremost measured by churches. As well as keeping the order of the day, they have also called us to worship, and through the joy and sadness of life’s own timetable. So in churches the bell used to always be rung at the consecration to say Christ is here, so even those out working in the fields would know; just as at Christmas and Easter, and every Sunday, the bell is rung to call people to worship wherever they are. To mark ‘the fullness of time.’
Time stands in constant need of redemption, but bells remind us of God’s eternity in time. So when we measure these days between feasts, and when we hear the bell of St Margaret calling out the hour, we know that God is still with us. So act/ As if things were usual, which they are in fact.
Amen.