ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

Good morning,

Probably for the first time in my adult life, I managed to avoid singing Christmas Carols until Christmas Day. This is not a case of Dickensian humbug. It's just that there are twelve days of Christmas in which to sing carols, so why get tired of them before the season begins?

To avoid singing carols before their time, I amuse myself by making up or remembering alternative texts. So I bring to mind from somewhere in my childhood:

Hark the herald angels sing
'Beecham's pills are just the thing.
They are gentle, meek and mild -
two for an adult and one for a child.
If you want to go to heaven,
you must take a dose of seven....and so on

Or Once in Judah's least know city,
stood a boarding house with backyard shed
where an almost single-parent mother
tried to find her new born child a bed.
Mary's mum and dad went wild
when they heard their daughter had a child.

Or my favourite:

The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes
and puke's over Mary's fresh scones and traybakes.

I'm sure John Wilson would have loved these. He was a music lecturer, Britain's leading expert in hymn tunes. The uncle of this delightful man was the composer Henry Walford Davies who was responsible in the early days of ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ radio for introducing the listening public to classical music. The second time I met John , it was nearing Christmas and, apropos carols he said – I don't like many of them. On Christmas day, I'd rather stay in bed and think about the incarnation.

What he – in his own way – was rebelling against was the displacement of the mystery of the season by overdosing on songs which encourage more sentimentality than devotion.

Whether we go to the sales today or just spend time at home, an unavoidable image conveyed by cards and carols is that of a newborn baby being cradled in his mother's arms. It exudes affection and security, but it avoids risk.

The incarnation of which John spoke is not a word just for Christmas. It is for every day. It indicates how the One who is above and beyond time and space decided to become human with all the concomitants of vulnerability from disease, disaster, rejection and persecution...and to do this out of sheer love for the world and its people.

If this season encourages us to celebrate the joy of love, let it also remind us of the risk which true love sometimes requires and which is at the heart of love's mystery.

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