“What’s your favourite Christmas carol?” is a question I find difficult to answer.  It’s a bit like asking me “What’s your favourite Doctor Who episode?”  I love them all, even the naff ones.  On my mind at the moment, however, is “It came upon the midnight clear.”  This is one that I used to overlook, because I don’t find the tune particularly interesting.  As I’ve got older, however, the words of Edmund Sears’ poem have really grown on me.  They seem to me to reveal the truth of Christmas and of our world today.  A world that often seems to turn a deaf ear to the simple loving Christmas message of peace and goodwill.  A world where, as a result, we do not always love ourselves and our neighbours, where we do not always listen to each other, where we can get enslaved by suspicion, hatred and revenge.  A world where we see the ultimate fruits of this path: man at war with man.  A world where we see today the devastation of such war in Yemen and Syria, just as Wilfred Kibble saw it with his own eyes 100 years ago in France.  But back to Edmund Sears: sometimes other people’s words say what you want to say better than your own words ever can.

It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
“Peace on the earth, goodwill to men,
From heaven’s all-gracious King.”
The world in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heavenly music floats
O’er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains,
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o’er its babel sounds
The blessèd angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!

For lo!, the days are hastening on,
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years
Comes round the age of gold
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendours fling,
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.

This Christmas I wish that I could bottle the incredible peace and joy that I have discovered through my faith this year, tastefully wrap it and leave it under all of your Christmas trees.  However, faith doesn’t work like that.  It is not my gift to give.  It is a gift that has already been freely given, but it is one that each person has to discover and accept for themselves.  Fortunately, this isn’t a journey that anyone has to take alone.  I have been helped along the way by many people over the course of my life.  I will continue to need the  help of others when I lose sight of the Christmas message amidst the bustle and confusion of life.  As I, therefore, keep searching and learning I hope that I can offer a helping hand to other people.

With lots of love this Christmas.