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PEACE ON EARTH

Canon Mark Bonney, Treasurer (Tuesday 23rd November 2004)

Since this is my first editorial I must begin by saying thank you to everyone for the very warm welcome that the Bonney family have received since moving to Salisbury; it’s an enormous privilege and joy to be here.

The next few weeks are very exciting ones for me as a newcomer, experiencing and sharing in celebrations of Advent and Christmas that are widely acclaimed as examples of a fine liturgical tradition. It’s a time of year when literally thousands of people come to services who may well come at no other time of the year, and we have a delicate balancing act to perform to avoid saccharine sentimentality.

Many will want to sing and hear the carols and hymns with which they are familiar, so no doubt we will sing (several times probably!) “O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.” Nothing of course could be further from the truth in our world at the moment. The town in which the Prince of Peace was born knows little peace, the city of Jerusalem outside which he was killed is a place of enormous tension. The situation between Israel and Palestine is incredibly complicated, as we all know and beyond the unravelling of most of us. There’s a real danger that faced with the anguish of our world we’ll use the sentimentality of Victorian Christmas carols to anaesthetize ourselves, and not least the pains and agonies of the places where Jesus was born, lived, preached, was killed and was raised from the dead. The danger of sentimentality is always real and we need to proceed with caution.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” is a deep mystery and truth; it’s earthy, materialistic, rooted in reality, deeply human and deeply divine and far from sentimental. We sentimentalise Christmas and the Incarnation if we simply see it as a past event, and 25 December as yet another birthday party. Christmas and the Incarnation is not just past event, more importantly it’s present reality. The Word is enfleshed in every person who follows Christ today. May we all be channels of Christ’s peace as we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, for the peace of Bethlehem and for the peace of the world.

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