New life to earth

Linda Bongiorno
Tuesday 15 December 2020

Preacher: Revd Dr Donald MacEwan, University Chaplain

Readings: Isaiah 64:1-4, 8-11; Luke 1:46-55; poetry

The coronavirus has been the story of this year, but climate is the story of the century.  Approaching Advent this year, I wanted to reflect a little more on Christmas and creation.  This year’s Advent Calendar, both emails and blogposts, is exploring the theme.  The Chaplaincy Prize this year is for a contribution with an environmental focus – closing date next month.  And I thought the final morning service of the semester could give us a chance to hear and see how some artists have interwoven these themes.

The reality of the present situation is not easy to hear.  Gillian Clarke’s poem lays it out with a stark simplicity:

Listen! They are whispering
now while the world talks,
and the ice melts,
and the seas rise.

It’s a dispiriting start to things, but this is a time of facing reality, the facts, the nature of things.

And so is Advent – a time of promise – out of joint with this reality?  This poem hopes not.  For

Every leaf-scar is a bud

expecting a future.

There are of course plenty of secular prophets who offer promises, promises – of technological solutions from carbon capture to pouring chemicals into the atmosphere.  But I’m not convinced that more technology, more exploitation, more mastery is the solution.  Instead, I think we need to find hope from beyond ourselves, which can then inspire us to work towards that vision.  Perhaps hope in God is only way forward:

Isaiah was a prophet and poet of hope: vv.1-4

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;…
to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning.

Rather more simply, as we heard in the Psalm:

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

Scripture knows that the year has its midnight, but that it also has its dawn.

Hope for Christians is found at root in the promise of the Messiah, and the trust that that hope has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Many nativity plays begin with the promise of the angel Gabriel to Mary that she will give birth to God’s Son, but not quite with the pungency of Kathleen Raine’s re-telling.

Perhaps being called Raine, she can’t help but see the annunciation in terms of weather, as well as all sorts of pain, fire, the dead and all life entering her womb.  And after all this tempest, storm and wind,

Let in your child tonight.

This is an eco-Annunciation if ever there were one.  But it accords with the song of Mary we heard earlier, usually called the Magnificat.  In powerful words this Mary expresses a deep concern for the vulnerable, and calls out those who foster the suffering of many – the proud, the powerful and the rich.

With the birth of Jesus, things somehow become gentler.  The waiting over, worry resolved into joy, the angst of Advent becomes the calm of Christmas.  There are shepherds and angels, peace and goodwill.  And a few touches from Luke give poets freedom.

Jesus was laid in a manger, a trough for the animals to feed – so were animals there?

Why not? Our carols believe that Ox and ass before him bow.  And in that lovely poem, Thomas Hardy imagines oxen kneeling that first Christmas, so why not now?  Indeed the Bible envisages many creatures praising God, from the trees of the field clapping their hands, to sun, moon and stars.  We believe that God became human, but in far from a human-centred story.

Leslie Norris goes a stage further: he imagines mice in the hay – and also the baby Jesus stretching out his hand to them.  Is that sentimental touch a touch sentimental?  Perhaps.  But there is something profound about the infant Son of God recognising in mice his fellow creatures, fellow members of the community of creation, small and vulnerable, yet whispering worshipping.

Later we’ll hear Laurie Lee imagining the earth flourishing in the birth of Jesus.  But it’s not only poets who have such a vision.  The image on the cover of the order, either printed or online, is a tapestry by Burne-Jones called The Adoration of the Magi.  Mary and her infant Jesus are seated in a bower in a lush garden of flowering plants, as if the whole world blossomed at his coming.

Is it right to hope? someone asked me this week.  They didn’t mean the climate emergency, but it would have been a good question if they had.  And I think the only answer this Christmas is, Yes, it is right to hope.  This is God’s beautiful world, and the diversity of our fellow-creatures has emerged in freedom from divine love.  Given such a creator, we can hope.  Given such a gift of a child, we can hope.  Given our community with our fellow-creatures we can hope.

We heard sung today People look East:

Angels, announce with shouts of mirth

Christ who brings new life to earth.

New life to earth is sorely needed this century, this year:

we long with the writer Eleanor Farjeon for a sense of renewal to this world: furrows and earth, seed and flower; frost and stars, moon and sun; mountains and valleys, houses and hearths.  Love is on the way, we heard – a Guest, a Rose, a Star, the Lord.  Let’s join in with that love.  It is right to hope, and there is much we can do.

 

END

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