Often, it is just one note that signals the start of the season. We recognise, in an instant, the opening chord of the 80’s Christmas hit or the first bar from the soundtrack of our favourite festive film and our Christmas present connects with Christmases past.
I love the music and the looking back. I love the traditions; signing carols, enjoying food and family times together, and experiencing the Christmas story, told again through children’s nativity plays. I love that it’s a season when past and present overlap, our own history lived again in the now. I love that it is the time when we look back to the birth of a baby born in poverty and obscurity, and consider how something so small could change the course of history.
But, for many people, looking back can be painful, and the present is no less problematic. Maybe you left the baby in the manger along with Santa and the stockings, and put the gifts and goodwill behind you when you grew up and discovered what the world was like. Maybe, you have settled on the idea that Christmas is okay for children, but you are no longer a child!
Our awareness of this world comes through all of our five faculties. But usually it is our sense of sight that we prioritise. When we see the world around us, we look for things of beauty, for patterns we recognise, and for warning signs of danger coming. Even our memories take picture form. Christmas, coloured red, and white, and illuminated with a myriad of flashing colours. We look back, and we see.
But to focus on seeing and looking back, can be to miss out on what our other senses will tell us about what lies ahead. What we can look forward to. The story of the birth of Jesus, played out in our children’s nativity plays with its images of stables, shepherds and angels, is only a prelude to the life Jesus lived, and the promises he left when he disappeared from his friends’ sight on the hillside outside Jerusalem, to be hidden by the clouds of heaven. He promised, then, to always be present with us, and that he would return.
In this interim time, many struggle because they do not, or cannot see. They do not see the relevance of Jesus or cannot perceive that his impact in this world is always positive. Yet, to trust our eyes alone, may mean we miss out. To look back and focus solely on the manger scene, may not help us much if what we should be doing instead is to listen out for what is coming next.
It is good to enjoy hearing the songs of the season. But let us not allow them to drown out the sounds of what we could be listening for. The Bible’s final book, The Revelation of Jesus to John, opens with the lines, ” Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near” (Revelation 1:3). Listening is important.
In the next two chapters of this book, a single phrase is repeated seven times, “Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying!” The repetition alone a reminder of the importance of trying to hear what God says. And alongside this phrase is the verse immortalised in the iconic picture by the painter William Holman Hunt, of Jesus in a glistening white robe, holding a lantern in one hand and knocking on a door with the other. The image is worth seeing, but the verse tells us, and the people of Laodicea, to listen for the sound of the knock and the voice of Jesus. “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.” (Revelation 3:20)
As the book continues to tell, through horrifying scenes of turmoil and destruction, and images of peace and hope, how things will be when God finally restores creation and brings the story of his world and humankind to conclusion, we are repeatedly reminded to listen. To hear the voice “like a loud trumpet”, to listen to the sound of many angels singing, to attend to the voices of thunder calling “come!”, and to hear the trumpets announcing God’s judgement.
As disturbing as much of what is written in Revelation is, it is a place I return to regularly. I am troubled by much of what I read, and what exactly it may mean. But I am drawn back to it, again and again, because of the blessings promised when I do, and the hope-filled future it depicts. These are the words of Jesus. His voice can be heard in its pages, alongside voices from heaven proclaiming salvation and God’s coming kingdom, the voice “like the sound of many waters”, and the music of the great multitude declaring that salvation, glory and power belong to God.
Christmas may be a time to look back and to listen to those old tunes again, but I am straining my ears to hear the quiet knock and the loud voice from the throne of God, that concludes the book and will finally say, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21:3-4).
And then, I am also looking forward to hear that other voice saying, “See, I am making all things new.” “It is I, Jesus. Surely I am coming soon!” (Revelation 22:12, 16)
I wonder, what are you listening out for, and how will you respond?
“Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”
Be blessed and encouraged!