‘He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him.’
John 1:10
Audrey Clarke very nicely gave me a coin that commemorates her late Majesty’s golden jubilee, a few weeks ago and it got me thinking. You see that same week, a place I used to live called Doncaster was upgraded from a town to a city and King Charles himself came to visit to make the town a city. Well, all I’d seen for weeks on Facebook were Churches getting ready, people putting up flags and pubs getting their windows cleaned. In fact there was an older Lady in one of my Churches called Mrs Tordoff who put on Facebook that she’d hoovered her living room ‘just in case’, as though his Majesty may need to stop by for a cup of tea. The town of Doncaster was in chaos trying to get everything ready.
So I looked at this coin, which honours her late Majesty in a local way, and I thought to myself, “On Christmas, it’s a bit like God has come to town, not to visit, but to stay; not to make us a city, but to forgive us of all our sins.” Yet throughout Advent, we sometimes don’t put half as much effort getting ready for God as Mrs Tordoff did her living room and, on Christmas, we don’t act in the way that we would if we really thought that the King had come to visit. Yet, when we think about it, I think so should we. When we go home today and we celebrate and we eat and we have a great big party, let’s have that party because the King has come. Let’s prepare our hearts, clear it all up, hoover, scrub it all down and make the space available for the mighty King.We can laugh at Mrs Tordoff, but what would we do if King Charles walked into this room right now? Or knocked on the door during our Christmas dinner? We’d probably all bow as low as we could and offer him gifts and hospitality, so why can’t we do the same when we come to meet Jesus?
If we were being honest with ourselves, I think we would all admit that we are bad at welcoming the King. When we meet here, every week, Jesus is present, both in the Sacrament and in our hearts, yet we often act as though he’s not. I wonder how our attitude toward church would change if we really got our head around the idea we were coming into a place where God was present, every time we enter? Yet beyond this building, even, what would it do to the way we lived our lives if we saw the King of Kings, living in the hearts of all the people we meet? The elderly, the poor, the beggars, the hungry. If we saw Jesus in each of them, would that not change the way we lived? If we truly believed we could Jesus in the poor and weak, we would have to have greater compassion than we ever have before, wouldn’t we?
So today we do many things, we welcome, not just any King into our town, but the King of Kings, as we remember his birth, but also we can recognise that same King is alive today and that he can be found with all who call upon him. As such, let us live every day in the presence of the King as we remember the birth of Jesus, of God coming down to earth in a dirty, lowly manger, to save every single one of us no matter what we’ve done wrong. That is the best news that any of us have ever heard. So, this Christmas time let us rejoice and give our hearts over to God again as we receive our King. Amen (from Fr Jordan).
All Saints Church Chorley 