19th December
Written by Phil Wadsworth
Wake, awake, for night is flying
‘Wake, awake, for night is flying, The watchmen on the heights are crying.’
The alarm clock going off can bring mixed emotions. Perhaps a day to anticipate; perhaps everything necessary has been prepared, or acknowledging it’s going to be a frantic scramble. I should get up right now – but the ‘snooze’ button is a wonderful invention.
Many Christmas hymns and carols carry a sense of urgency – be wakeful, be watchful, late in time behold Him come. They note it shouldn’t be a surprise – “come, Thou long-expected Jesus”. Yet everyone – apart from the Three Magi – were taken by surprise, from the shepherds to Herod’s advisers combing Scripture for an explanation. Jesus’ Ministry was one surprise after another to almost everyone even though, as Jesus pointed out, His life and works were long foretold by the Prophets.
Today Christmas as an occasion isn’t a surprise – it, rather than its meaning, are worshipped in temples of materialism earlier each year. For some, though, the real meaning of Christmas does come as a surprise, if they consider it at all. They hear the usual stuff about being nice to people, irritating adverts about ‘Crisis at Christmas’, the day with the extended family however much you dislike some of them, the uncomfortable accounts of old people for whom it’s just another day of loneliness and want; the satirists have a field-day, pointing out it’s only for one day and then normal life can resume.
For Christians the real message and meaning of Christmas isn’t a surprise – we prepare each Advent, consider it afresh each year. However, in Advent we think of Jesus’ First and Second Coming; we’re told we can’t know when the latter will be, so it can comfortably be assigned to “things we don’t need to think about now” and the urgency is lost.
We need to recover that urgency. We need to wake up. Christ is coming now. The difference from that first Christmas is it’s now us. St Teresa of Avila wrote that Christ has no body now on earth but ours. We’re those who, bringing the Light of Christ, ensure night is flying. The multitudinous problems in the world are happening now. We know Christ comes to the world at Christmas and all the days after it; our call to action is to do the same, in His name.