At dawn, especially this time of year, I hum the line from Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s “I Believe in Father Christmas”
I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn
and I saw him and through his disguise
I’ve often thought, especially around the other lyrics, that it meant a time of disillusionment – being coerced into believing about Father Christmas, virgin birth, etc but this morning, whilst pottering round the park with the dog and watching the amazing colours pushing through the clouds I felt differently.
We put so much whitewash around the Christmas story, we dumb it down and make it “user friendly”. What if we could look clearly at the new light of dawn and truly see the magic of Jesus birth, of God coming down to walk amongst us? What would happen to each one of us if we saw through the disguise? What difference would it make if we truly woke up and really looked with open eyes and really saw through the glitter and tinsel, the children’s nativity, the presents, food and drink, and truly saw what it was really all about? And that revealing would be so very different to each one of us. God is not a one size fits all, thankfully.
My thoughts and prayers for each person who reads this, and for those who don’t but that I know, is that they can see through the disguise, the illusion, that gets placed around Christmas and that God placed around Christmas. See through the disguise and come to meet the real God, real to each one of us, but each one of us only sees a facet of that diamond, and too often we have been trying to get others to see the side we see instead of hearing about the side they see.
So as we all do something different this Christmas to what we would normal do, and for us who’ve had to have plans changed suddenly because of these new rules, my prayer is we don’t miss seeing through the disguise and seeing the real meaning of God coming down to earth to walk amongst us. So …
I wish you a hopeful christmas
I wish you a brave new year
All anguish pain and sadness
Leave your heart and let your road be clear
“Emerson, Lake & Palmer – I Believe In Father Christmas lyrics | LyricsFreak” [Found 24th Dec 2020]
Aspirational Adventures 