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Viewpoint from Revd Albert Cadmore 07/01/2022

Revd Albert Cadmore
formerly Parish Priest at West Somerton and Horsey

We are just one week into the New Year and the pantomime season is still with us.  At the Gorleston Pavilion we had the rags to riches tale of Mother Goose, and now in January we have other rags to riches tale with Aladdin, and elsewhere, other pantomimes have portrayed good triumphing over evil and happy endings galore
 
For many in our world today, the Christmas story (with the angels, shepherds and stable of Luke’s account, and the Wise Men from Matthew’s have the same feel to them.  ‘Feel good’ stories that give opportunities for escapism, but for so many people, the Christmas story is no more real or deeply significant for them, than the stories from the pantomimes
 
But let’s look at how God chose to enter this world as the Word made flesh!  Hardly any more believable than those pantomime stories!
 
In the Creation story from the Book of Genesis, we can read how “the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”
 
From John’s Gospel, Jesus, the Word of God (the Logos, the Mind, the Wisdom, the Power, the Spirit of God), was there before time began – the Son (the Word) united with the Father (the Creator), united in and with the Spirit, that was “moving upon the face of the waters’.  John tells us of Jesus, that ‘In Him was life; and the life was the light of men”
 
Jesus’ birth then, in a troubled Palestine, brought light in the darkness.  He brought hope and light to a troubled, dark world, but many did not respond, and it’s the same today
 
The Christmas Gospel is Good News; no pantomime happy ending but the reality of a promise that can change our lives and transform the world.  The promise is that He brings peace and hope to us and to our troubled world today
 
That peace begins with us, and with those who gathered in His name around the world, just three weeks ago, at Christmas.  The peace that He brings is peace in our hearts, the peace of being forgiven, the peace of being accepted as we are, the peace of receiving His life – His light, into our lives by His Spirit
 
God does not force His solutions on His people, we need to respond to Him, to accept Him, to rejoice in the fact that by the power of His Spirit, he can enlighten our lives
Not the fictional ‘feel good factor’ of a Pantomime, but a wonderful story with a wonderful message, indeed a wonderful promise, to take with us as we face the challenges of whatever 2022 may bring
 
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
 

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