'I just glories to hear it again’

Press, 24 December 1986, Page 26

'I just glories to hear it again’

By

Canon R. A. LOWE

Some years ago, a travel agent in New York’s smart sth Avenue arranged a window display of The Pieta. An old Negro lady stood transfixed by the dead Christ in the arms of His mother. She finally entered the elegant office and asked the suave attendant: “That Jesus dead in your window?” “Yes.” “He done been killed by the bad mans?” “Yes.” “Done dead and gone for ever, that poor Jesus done gone and dead for ever, huh?”

“No, He rose again on Easter morning.” “Rose again? You mean He live again? He rise from the dead? He really truly rise from the dead?” “Yes — you must have heard the story of the resurrection before.” And with a broad smile, her face bubbling with joy, the old lady said, “Oh, I done heard it before. I guess I done heard it a million times before. But I just glories to hear it again.” It is because of what happened to Jesus in His death and resurrection that the gospel writers felt the need to describe His birth as something

stupendous, something momentous. If we don’t take the death and resurrection of Jesus as our starting point, as the gospel writers did, these pages of theirs will read like fairy tales — these stories of angels, and miraculous births, and skies opening, and messages from heaven. But the Bible is not about remarkable things happening in the sky. It is about us, and the love God has for us, and the way that love was proved in the life of Jesus. The discovery of it is the only Christmas present which matters.

After the last war, a young man from New Zealand was present in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, England, for the traditional service of The Nine Lessons and Carols. He had no interest in the strange and esoteric claims of Christian advocates — he was there because it was something tourists did. In the medieval splendour of that magnificent building the lights were extinguished and the choir entered in procession. A treble voice began "Once in Royal David’s City.” The great hymn of the nativity continued and lights went on. He was surprised by

the number of moist eyes — including his own. That was nearly 40 years ago. I was that young man, stumbling upon a strange awareness: In the celebration of the Love of God which we call worship, it becomes something personal. It is what the Wise Men and the simple Shepherds did at Bethlehem — and it is what we shall be doing again in a thousand churches — including St Barnabas, Fendalton. We have done it before, many times; “but I just glories to hear it again.”