Upstairs/downstairs

The before/after contrast is a great sermon device, fitting many Scripture narratives and key salvation theology - from darkness to light! Unfortunately, it can work the other way round. Carol's aim when eventually discharged from hospital was to climb the stairs and sink into her own bed. Buoyed by liberation, we entered the front door and on the first step she fell heavily.  A neighbour helped me right her. In that single moment it dawned on me how everything had changed. When the promised carer arrived he said we should make a second attempt upwards. Same disastrous result. And so began the 'after' saga. 

Downstairs is one through-room stretching from the hallway to garden doors. Everywhere bears Carols' design style.  A bed is not in that design! Now four sets of carers in pairs visit every day to wash, dress and care for  her. I have been cast into a full-time carer's career of watchfulness and service, made all the more heroic by the return of her UTI.  Because Carol can easily fall, and did a couple of nights ago leading to 3 and a half hours on the floor before the ambulance came, her restless nights are filled with too many awful possibilities. Each of the many times loo stops are required she is supposed to cry out to me upstairs. She should never attempt to get out of bed without support.  

Within the downstairs strains, the love and prayers of friends have been sustaining. And imaginative. My church Life Group clubbed together to purchase an upmarket baby alarm. Its night vision allows me to view a screen by my bed so that I can picture impending disaster downstairs in time to prevent another fall.  Two church friends brought down Carol's own bed from upstairs and then one of them connected the baby monitor. That's Christian concern in full flow action.  I am so grateful for the upstairs/downstairs connection.

A plaintiff cry

'I want to go home!'  How often in my ministry I heard this cry when visiting friends in hospital or care home. In the last few days it's become painfully personal and rather loud. Unfortunately, the consultant on the ward round way back on January 19th announced to Carol that she could go home.  I missed that ward round and was greeted excitedly - 'They say I can go home!'  It was mightily unfortunate because the consultant was only speaking from the medical perspective. The strong antibiotic appears to have greatly reduced the infection so, understandably, the doctor saw Carol's bed was close to liberation for the next patient. Job done.

However, the discharge team has had other ideas. Their testing of Carol's physical condition has revealed worrying weaknesses and led them to place her in need of 'complex care' (that's their term). And setting up complex care means she is still waiting 15 days and counting.  All the time the plaintiff cry continues.

Early on, knowing  how much returning home would help settle her spirits, I campaigned to take her home and continue my homespun care.  However, I was told I would forfeit any chance of 'complex care' and, as time goes on, I now realize she does need more help than I can give. So each day we await good discharge news!

I am grateful for friends' comments and prayers supporting us on the way. Our situation is not uncommon but prayers are very welcome. 

10 hour slabs

Actually, it's sometimes 11 hours, once 9 hours. Slabs of life spent in the hospital ward this past week with Carol suffering from a serious, mystery colorectal infection.  It's an acute ward and she has a private room but everything is complicated by her dementia. As I reflect on this demanding experience - for her and me! - several things pop into my mind.

• Compassion - the nursing staff is in constant motion in the large ward but some of the care Carol has received is so cheerfully and gently given. I am keeping the names of some outstanding nurses who have gone far beyond in their kindness.  What a difference compassion makes!
• Misinformation - of course some of this comes from dear Carol herself who smiles at meaningful questions and answers with optimism.  'Do you have any pain?' ' No,' she says with confidence when earlier grimacing with spasms in her stomach or her punctured arms (courtesy of several failed cannulas),. But, there has also been confusion when I have tried to pin down the doctors. They admit it's an infection they cannot identify and (I think) they recognize that dementia doesn't help recovery. But I have heard three different scenarios which contradict each other. I pray something clearer will emerge.
• Church dynamism - ever since church friends heard about Carol's hospitalization they have whirred into action with meals for me when I return in the evening, offers of help on any level, caring emails and calls.  Our pastor came this morning to pray with us and he brought in a steaming large cup of coffee (remembering how I take it!) and a bottle of Diet Coke for Carol.  It brought me up short - in all my hospital visiting I never did anything so practical.  It really helps the 10 hours pass.
• Tiredness - this hardly needs to be added. Carol has slept very little as well as eating minimal amounts and the effort to keep things ticking over my end inevitably puts on a tad of strain. Just a little understatement there.

For those who know our situation, thank you so much for your prayers and concern. I'll let you know the outcome.

Odd and difficult

The second part of this extraordinary public announcement about the meaning of Christmas is much more difficult. The beautiful cadence of the AV reads: 'Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, and saying Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace and goodwill.' You know what's difficult don't you? It's the words peace and goodwill. The cynic says 'Where?' Actually, you don't have to be a cynic to say that. Where in our world today can we speak of peace and goodwill?. It sounds too wonderful - that. this baby is born to bring peace and goodwill everywhere. It sounds blanket wishful thinking, magic wand thinking. And God doesn't do wishful thing, magic wand thinking. He deals personally in relationship. 

We really need to look at other translations. The NIV says: ' on earth peace for those on whom his favour rests.' The Message is even more personal: 'Peace to all men and women on earth who please God'. Profoundly and ultimately, Jesus as Prince of Peace will reign in the consummation of his mission on earth. All will bend the knee. Yet we must understand that God works in relationship with ordinary people in ordinary places now. His  peace works in two directions.  First, Jesus makes peace with God. Peace is about wholeness, belonging together, at-one-ness. We call Jesus work on the cross the AT-ONE-MENT for this is the place where, in ways far beyond our full understanding, Jesus dies in order to bring us back to God as forgiven, whole people. The first thing Jesus does as he greets his friends after he has risen from the dead is to greet them 'Peace be with you' and he says it a second time.(John 20:19,21) Because now his disciples belong with him in a peace relationship that nothing can break. Personal peace with God is the most precious transforming gift we can know.

Yet peace with God flows in another direction. When we call Jesus, Christ the Lord, acknowledging his Lordship, we belong to his new people - a kingdom of different relationships because we are Easter people. Ordinary people in ordinary places, belonging in peace and goodwill.  The baby born in a manger fulfils his destiny on the cross to create a new people. As someone put it: You will not reach your destiny unless you see this baby go to his. We are a new people knowing the risen Jesus empowered by the Spirit with love, joy, peace, patience, long-suffering, self-control. I know kindness is not on the list but these qualities add up to kindness.

When cynics say; 'Where is there peace and goodwill' they should see these groups of people like HBC where we seek to share love. Do we always succeed. Oh no! I know how churches, tragically, can fail. But I have also experienced the love and kindness of a church. Peace and goodwill. Indeed, in my own recent problems with Carol's illness that's exactly how it has been.  I am so grateful. Where else on earth is this extraordinary possibility of a group of people, so different in personality, gifting, esperiences, behaving differently together, kindly and caring because of Jesus?

I finished the sermon with the recent event in my house when Carol cried out 'Where's Jesus? when she found the empty stable (Post Dec 25th).  That really is the vital question for 2026. Where is the living Lord now in our lives.  As a busy minister, off duty one Sunday, I was in worship in my local church in London. When the service was over, the old West Indian gentleman sitting next to me, who I didn't know, said to me: How's your walk with Jesus?   That's the question for me. And it's about peace and goodwill!

Odd but very good

 The first part of the public announcement on the hillside is odd ( you wouldn't expect a God-intervention to be straightforward) but so good.  The angel with God's glory (and glory is God's own word about his presence, power, and sheer splendour which did not accompany the earlier Christmas visitations) overwhelms these ordinary men with terror. Who wouldn't be when faced with God's messenger?  Something utterly beyond material experience. Such ordinary men in an ordinary place. They really need to hear DO NOT BE AFRAID swiftly followed by: I BRING YOU GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY THAT WILL BE FOR ALL PEOPLE. TODAY IN THE CITY OF DAVID A SAVIOUR HAS BEEN BORN TO YOU. HE IS CHRIST THE LORD.  This is the birth announcement TODAY, and its personal.

I was in the gym recently (too rare I confess) and a young man was pumping iron effortlessly near me. An older man came up to him and spoke. With a loud excited voice the young man responded (that's how I came to hear the conversation you understand) ' Yes, two weeks to go now. We're so excited after all this time but really looking forward to it.' And the older man said how glad he was and how he hoped all would go well, 'You know this is going to change your lives forever!' I smiled. I thought of conversations like this all over the world - of expectation, excitement and maybe a little worry.  And of the utter joy in the safe birth. Some of us have been privileged to share first-hand in the TODAYNESS of such good news.  

These ordinary shepherds are suddenly plunged into living this possibility. The baby has arrived and they can be witnesses to the arrival of the long awaited Messiah. It's intensely personal. Good news of great joy.  I love to picture what happens next as the shepherds are given a sign and the senior among them says ' Let's go' having presumably organized someone to remain guarding the sheep!  Meanwhile the birth has happened with Mary going through a Call the Midwife experience, except there are no midwives though perhaps a kindly maternal woman helped. Notice that in the birth, with the pain, the cries, the ultimate joy there is no mention of an angel or glory. It's ordinary - the baby laid in a manger.  So ordinary. When suddenly there's a noise outside and a bunch of shepherds appear grinning from ear to ear. The senior one asks if they can come closer. They are so excited its almost as though this baby belongs to them! The extroverts are hugging others and jumping up and down with joy. Imagine Mary's face. Just who are these people?  Why are they so joyful - it's as though they share the moment? Crowding in from nowhere.

But when they explain they had witnessed an angel in glory who told them this is the birth to change the world and they were somehow chosen to see him for themselves, Mary realizes a deep confirmation is happening.  No wonder 'Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart (verse 19). God works in ordinary places with ordinary people.  And she knows this is going to change her life and the world's destiny forever.

Let's not forget the shepherds as the first evangelists, unstoppably spreading the word to everyone's astonishment, and returning to the fields with good news of great joy for all people. They have seen! Do you think Luke later found one of them as eyewitness?  

A field

 On Sunday I asked the congregation to pause and come with me to a field. The days after Christmas are apparently being termed 'Twixmas' and because of all the demands of Christmas it's downtime before the New Year. But I pleaded for a little more time in this field before bouncing into the next thing.

This doesn't look much. A scruffy, scrubby looking hillside that happens to outside Bethlehem. We cannot be sure this is the exact field though just behind are shepherd's caves still in use. But what strikes you when you stand looking over this field is that it is so ORDINARY. Just a bit of nothing countryside. An everyday hillside. Really ordinary. And that's so important. It is precisely the point. Because here we see how the real God works - in ordinary places with ordinary people so that no one may miss out.

We must never miss the ordinariness of Christmas. I know there's so much razzle, dazzle as we celebrate but so much is just plain ordinary. Mary and Joseph are nobodies who do not register on any scale of human significance. That's true of so many in the story. And, as for the shepherds on this  hillside, they are at the bottom of the social scale, outliers, ceremonially unclean. Night-shift workers out in the dark. Yet, precisely to these shepherds comes the first public proclamation about the meaning of Christmas. Yes, there have been private visitations to Mary, Zechariah in preparation but this is where, for the first time, the real God tells the world what's happening.  This is how the real |God works: in ordinary places with ordinary people so that no one may miss out.

I love the way that Luke, as historian, tells us at the beginning of the gospel how carefully he has authenticated this.  He assures us that he has used eye-witness evidence and carefully investigated everything from the beginning. He knows it matters. People are going to live and die by this story.

And the public pronouncement, we have heard many times before, needs our attention again......

Merry Christmas

Let me greet you on this day of miracle birth, divine intervention and new beginnings. A very Merry Christmas to you.

With memory-loss patients there can be genuine laughter.  Pressure this year meant my attempts at decorating the house were limited. No Christmas tree (first time in 57 years) and no Nativity scene. Since coming to Cambridge we have placed all the nativity figures on straw in front of a stable backdrop in our hall. I had found the stable in a storage box but realized energy was too low to unpack the key nativity figures. So I put the stable on its side in a corner.

Yesterday Carol came into the room asking me loudly: 'Where's Jesus? Where's Mary?  She had found the stable and placed it empty where it has normally stood. But where were the key figures?  Smiling, I explained I had run out of energy but said what a good question that is in all the Christmas festivities. Where's Jesus? She laughed in agreement.

I left the empty stable there.  As someone said

The manger is empty - He outgrew it

The cross is empty - He endured it

The tomb is empty - He overcame it

The throne is never empty - now He reigns for ever and ever.

Christmas blessings to all my readers.