‘When God Comes to Visit’
I wonder whether you will be hosting this Christmas, visiting others, or perhaps both?
I’ve always been a guest at Christmastime. In pre-ministry life, once the school term was over, I would bundle boxes of unmarked books into the car, along with last-minute gifts, and make the day-long journey from one edge of the country to another – a Christmas Eve pilgrimage that often saw me arrive ‘home’ once most of the preparation was already completed. In more recent years, I’ve had the joy of being hosted by good friends from church who knew that after umpteen carol services, nativities and Midnight Mass, I would be deeply grateful not to have to cook or organise a thing.
Guesting can be a wonderful honour. But being a guest has certain vulnerabilities too. It involves a step outside normal routines, leaving decisions in the hands of others and accepting what is offered, whether it’s what we might have chosen or not.
This year, for the first time in my life, I get to play the Christmas hostess, as we welcome family from near and far to celebrate with us in Rotherham.
Hosting comes with all sorts of privileges. One of the delights of the advent season this year has been the simple pleasure of planning festive menus, gradually stashing treats away at the back of cupboards and strategising over where to put the Christmas tree.
But hosting comes with responsibilities, too. In our case, fitting everyone around a table will require a complex logistical puzzle, especially since many of the boxes from our recent house move are unopened and stacked in awkward places. To add to the pre-Christmas build-up, the past week has seen a leak in the plumbing create a hole in our kitchen ceiling! The current state of play is a little more DIY SOS than Christmas with Nigella.
Christmas on a budget is also a challenge. Many of us will feel keenly the financial and ethical tensions of the season, struggling to walk the right balance between generous, holy feasting and getting sucked into the seasonal whirlpool of overspending and glittery excess. And then there is the emotional preparation – the desire to create a haven of peace, beyond the menus and the gifts – a home where old tensions are laid aside, where last-minute guests are welcome, and where no one feels sidelined or overwhelmed.
As preparations come to a head on the night before Christmas, we may find ourselves asking, not only ‘have we got enough?’ but ‘am I enough?’ for the demands of all that lies ahead.
Reflecting on the theme of hospitality has challenged me to reframe my hosting in light of the first Christmas visitation. On Christmas Eve, our Advent preparation reaches a crescendo. We prepare to welcome the God who comes to visit his people, setting aside power and becoming a guest among us. No glitter here: that first Christmas night is a story of weary travellers, finding the most basic of refuge after a long journey, in circumstances less than ideal. In his guesting, the Christ-child is vulnerable and open to rejection. He comes humbly, moving into the neighbourhood of our ordinary, unprepared lives, whether we are ready to host him or not. As a guest, Jesus is unsurprised by our mess, after all, he has come not for what we can give him, but because we need to receive him above all else.
Whether we are guests or hosts this Christmas, we are invited to marvel at the Christ who is our guest as well as our host, and to invite him in to share with us and to change us. He is more than enough.
As preparations come to a head on the night before Christmas, we may find ourselves asking, not only ‘have we got enough?’ but ‘am I enough?’ for the demands of all that lies ahead.”