24

Like a Stranger              

Julian Barker

 Read: Yet if his Majesty our Sovereign Lord, attributed to Thomas Ford

Looking back at the level of Christian observance in England in the seventeenth century, at first glance you might find this poem surprising.  But whatever you make of that, it has a lot to say to us now.  It is not that we don’t make an effort preparing for the festival.  We buy trees, decorate our houses, send Christmas cards and plan all sorts of food and drink.  But for many of us, even among practising churchgoing Christians, the message that the Word has been made flesh, that the creator of the universe has expressed himself in our simple human terms in order that we may be able to understand and respond to his love; this can all too easily be sidelined by all the other busyness.  

We entertain him always like a stranger, and as at first, still lodge him in the manger.