I've always felt sad at the passing of Christmas Day: at how quickly the world moves on to Boxing-Day sales, extinguished fairy lights, discarded fir trees and raucous New-Year revelries. Perhaps it's partly nostalgia, but I yearn for those past times when the twelve days of Christmas were celebrated in full. For me, Christmas is worth lingering on, because it's a sign of the world to come.
Story
RealityBites is a ministry that is part of ThinkingFaithNetwork.
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My good friend Mark Yeadon and I reach out to students by telling stories and sharing the good news of Jesus. We are inspired by the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20). We follow Jesus by telling fascinating stories and asking provocative questions. We make ourselves vulnerable by serving hot drinks to students and homeless people outside the Library pub on Woodhouse Lane in Leeds.
One of my favourite pieces of Christmas music is ‘For unto us a Child is born’ from Georg Friderich Händel’s Messiah. I have loved it since I was a child, touched by its bouncing joy and the intricacy of its polyphonic choral writing, with lines appearing and disappearing like needles through the musical fabric, aligning with each other for a few ‘stitches in time’ before one vanishes to reappear a moment later in a different hue. As a music historian, I am enchanted by the majesty of Händel’s choral setting, but its glorious lyrics are what I love most.