December 2014

From the Vicarage

In bygone days – well the last century! – the King or Queen’s Christmas message, first on the radio and then on TV, was a national institution. Of course, times change and customs fade and die. I expect the pattern of pausing to listen to the Christmas message has ceased in many homes. Perhaps we are satisfied to hear and see the highlights on the News later in the evening.

However there have been occasions when the royal Christmas message really struck a chord and lifted the nation’s spirits. There is one in particular, of which I have no conscious memory, but I am sure some will.

On Christmas Day 1939, the then king, George VI ended his call for faith and hope as the Second World War began by quoting from an obscure, unknown author. The words which echoed through the nation then gave heart and hope afresh to troubled souls. Remember that George VI had none of the eloquence and charisma of Winston Churchill, for his was a halting and even stuttering delivery, but these words of Haskins resound to this day.

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied: “Go out into the darkness and put your
hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better
than light and safer than a known way.”

Christmas 1939 was still the time of the “phoney war”. There were possibilities for compromise and thus the avoidance of bloodshed and destruction. There were plenty of folk who wished to avoid the demand for “blood, sweat and tears”. Yet the defeat of the Third Reich and Nazism was essential for the peace of the world.

This Christmas is again a time of anxiety and fear throughout the entire world. Global terrorism, fuelled by fanatics, now stands as a threat to the peace, stability and prosperity of the entire world. This Christmas like Christmas 1939 we all long for peace. We all wish the nightmare of ISIS in Syria and Iraq and the “stand-off” in the Ukraine was not happening.

We all faced with the moral dilemmas of war with that long list of innocent deaths and needless destruction. Yet to faith the turn of the year message for this year too is aptly given in those words, which some PR genius found for George VI that Christmas 1939.

How do we cope now?

Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

The Vicar