Sunday 18th December 2011

This week around 20 of us went carol singing in the community. It was great!

It always starts off the same. We sing at a local nursing home while the residents eat their dinner. There’s a mixed response; some sing along, others ignore us. We always make a mistake or two as we get used to singing along to tracks that we’ve forgotten over the year, but we settle in.

Next we go to the hospital and sing in the ward corridors. Again, to a mixed response. By now we’ve remembered all the songs and we’re doing quite well!

Lastly we go to the women’s refuge where they join us in singing carols. There’s around 40 of us, including mums,  all crammed together in one medium sized room. There’s Kids everywhere, all excited because they’ve heard that Santa’s coming. They’re under your feet, all over the place.  Some clinging to their mums, some in groups, some are still baby’s in their mother’s arms. Nobody seems to mind, in fact the chaos and confusion seems to be part of the fun.

Then Santa arrives. There’s a jolly ‘Ho, Ho, Ho’ and the room fills with a presence larger than life. Some of the kids are in awe. Some are so excited they simply can’t keep still. One or two are at the age where they’re starting to doubt that Santa actually exists – but one tug on the beard makes a believer out of even the most doubting Thomas!

By the end of the evening all is well.  Every child has received gifts and every mum has received a hug. There’s been more than a few tears from mums, visitors, and even Santa himself.

The evening is a complete mess beginning to end. Nobody’s every quite sure how the songs should be led. We’re never quite sure who’s in charge - (even though I think it’s supposed to be me! Lol!). Some of us are bold singers, some of us whisper out the words. This year I even forgot where the first nursing home was, and I was in the lead car!

Kind of reminds me of the mess we find in the nativity story itself. A long journey in the last trimester of a pregnancy. No room at the inn so Mary gives birth in a stable. Jesus is born, not in a palace befitting a king, but amongst farm animals on a bed of straw. There’s no crib so Jesus is wrapped up and laid in an animal’s feeding trough. No family to help out, but some shepherds working nearby, complete strangers, are visited by angels who tell of a miraculous birth in Bethlehem. They come to town, probably with sheep in tow, to visit Mary, Joseph, and the newborn, just after the birth.  Imagine receiving guests when you’ve just given birth and living in a stable. What a mess! The whole story is a mess from beginning to end.

But it’s in the midst of our mess that God shows up. God doesn’t wait for us to sort the mess out first. God doesn’t wait until Mary and Joseph are better situated. God doesn’t even wait until they’re married. God shows up when God’s timing is right, regardless of the mess.

I’ve been Carol singing in the community a few years now and I’m amazed how, each and every time, God shows up. God is in the voices of those who sing – however loudly or however well. God is in the children waiting for us to arrive – excited and nervous. God is in the mums, struggling in the mess. God is in Santa, a saint given form, modeling unconditional love even if you happen to fall on the ‘naughty’ list. It is the nativity story alive today, proof bold that The Greatest Story Ever Told isn’t just a story to be remembered but a reality to be experienced.

In the midst of everything going on in your life Jesus is waiting to be born. I guarantee that this year the world will be just as much of a mess as it was 2,000 years ago. Life will be just as challenging, families just as complicated, and everything just as messy. But look carefully, right in the middle, and you will find God waiting to be born in us again. Merry Christmas.      

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