Yesterday I attended the most amazing Carol Service! Was it amazing because it was in a cathedral with incredible acoustics & a fabulous choir? Nope!
It was in a dirty barn with pigeons flying about. The music was provided by a Salvation Army band - wonderful, but that wasn't the most wonderful part.
The people taking the bulk of the parts in the service were adults with Special Needs, and before you jump to conclusions about feeling sorry for them or any other patronising judgement, that wasn't why it was so marvellous. It was marvellous because they took so much joy in their singing, their whole personalities shone through their clear enjoyment of singing & worshipping God through their singing. It wasn't the most tuneful rendition of the songs, but I think it would have been hard to beat in terms of grit, determination & sheer joy & enthusiasm.
As I sat in that dirty barn getting colder & colder, my heart grew warmer & warmer still as that indefinable magical thing happened and part of heaven touched earth, just as it had in a mega way so long ago in a very different stable. Yet, just as Jesus' birth then caused the marginalised within society to come & worship, so yesterday those who may in many ways be written off by our society as being of little use & only to be pitied - 'There but for the grace of God' we might say. Yet, heaven touched earth in that stable with the Olympic torch as a star & the two wise men (because one was ill), arrived on mountain bikes & we joined with those who struggled with their own difficulties to read, sing & act out the wonderful truth of the birth of Jesus. There was no fake baby, but the presence of Jesus touched every single person there!
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