As the Christmas songs begin to resound through the walls of the hall, there is much that is familiar. In fact the majority of the songs I think I know every word to and possibly every mistake that has ever happened during the practice of them as well! Familiarity with the Christmas story can be a comfort, but also it can dull our thoughts, emotions and senses to the enormity of what we are really celebrating.
The answer though is not to reinvent the story, or to make up a completely different one, but instead we need to be reminded of the impact that the first telling of this story would have had.
My daily reading for Advent brought this to my attention with these challenging words
‘What you and I need is not usually a brand-new teaching. Brand new truths are probably not truths. What we need are reminders about the greatness of the old truths. We need someone to say an old truth in a fresh way, or even just to speak truth.’
Sometimes to rediscover the greatness of these truths we need,as Peter states in 2 Peter 1:13, to have our sincere minds stirred up by way of reminder.
As we approach our nativity and Christmas plays next week and the week after, may they seek to ‘stir’ us up to ensure that the great truth of the familiar songs and story may not be forgotten this Advent.
