Christmas Day
'If I want to send a message ...'
Isaiah 52.7-10; John 1.1-14
Unwanted news
Weary and worn out after crossing the English Channel three times during a severe storm (don’t ask!), they decided to use the hotel room they’d booked. After all it was just after 6 am so they had a few hours before the 12 noon deadline for vacating rooms. A little ‘shut-eye’ to recover after a horrific night – that was the plan.
As they drew to a halt in the car park, the hotel night porter came storming (!) towards them; running. ‘You can’t park here,’ he shouted. This was no messenger of peace. Far from it; he blazed his insistent order at these impertinent intruders. The driver replied, ‘We’ve a room, booked and paid for.’ ‘Can’t have, we’re full,’ he shouted. ‘We’ve just come off a ferry and we want our room.’ ‘Can’t have,’ he shouted again, ‘storms too bad, no ferries running.’ The driver resisted the urge to punch him – just. I know the effort it took, I was the driver!
The porter’s message was not good news. There was no room at the inn. They had sold our room to someone else.
Messenger of hope
The messenger envisaged in the passage from Isaiah is of a rather different order. Here the messenger is one that runs to every part of the kingdom to announce that a new king reigns. The oppression and exile that had been the people’s bitter experience is over. A new order begins – marked by singing and celebration. The fleet foot of this messenger is a delight: ‘How beautiful upon the mountains ...’
Personal delivery
And yet both officious porter and royal herald have this in common – both delivered a message in person. No automated response this; no ‘do not reply to this email as this account is not monitored’ or ‘press button 3’ to hear a recorded message. No, welcome news or not, the message is delivered in the flesh.
In the 1890s William Preece was chief engineer of the General Post Office. He was no enthusiast for the telephone and when he was asked by a parliamentary committee about this new gadget he said, ‘There are conditions in America which necessitate the use of such instruments more than here. Here we have a super-abundance of messengers, errand boys and things of that kind. The absence of servants has compelled America to adopt communications systems for domestic purposes. Few have worked at the telephone much more than I have, I have one in my office but more for show. If I want to send a message - I employ a boy to take it.’ [History of Office Life by Lucy Kellaway, BBC Radio 4 July 2013]
The carrier’s burden
‘I employ a boy to take it,’ and the image that immediately comes to mind in this centenary of the beginning of World War One are telegram boys delivery those tiny brown envelopes. Vera Brittain writes in her book Testament of Youth:
‘There came a sudden loud clattering at the front door knocker that always meant a telegram.
For a moment I thought that my legs would not carry me, but they behaved quite normally as I got up and went to the door. I knew what was in the telegram – I had known for a week – but because the persistent hopefulness of the human heart refuses to allow intuitive certainty to persuade the reason of that which it knows, I opened and read it in a tearing anguish of suspense.
"Regret to inform you Captain E.H. Brittain, MC, killed in action Italy June 15th"
"No answer," I told the boy mechanically, and handed the telegram to my father, who had followed me into the hall. As we went back into the dining-room I saw, as though I had never seen them before, the bowl of blue delphiniums on the table; their intense colour, vivid, ethereal, seemed too radiant for earthly flowers.’
No beauty to this messenger’s feet. Such was the distress involved that eventually the envelopes were marked on the outside so that the messenger boy knew not to hang around for a reply. The message simply handed to the receivers to bear. It was all too much for the boys employed.
So often in recent weeks and months we have heard messages too hard to bear – 132 children shot down in Peshawar; the stabbings in Cairns, Queensland; Ebola stalking so many communities in West Africa; hostages killed; the café siege in Sydney – and that’s just the last few days. We reel at the thought of what people suffer.
I saw a picture of six or so little Pakistani girls praying in front of a row of candles. Their eyes closed and their hands together, fervent and concerned – it was picture of beautiful children, clear complexions and disarming simplicity; little children who should not need to pray in such dreadful circumstances. The picture giving a message personal and powerful – a message so hard to receive.
Personal not personalized
The personally delivered message, even if it only originates with a person’s effort, is always costly – one way or another. I have taken time to send this present; she sat down and considered carefully what she should write in the note; they went to the hospital to show their concern; we went to the party despite the effort and time involved; we tweeted or emailed support and encouragement; she baked a cake and took it to her friend – in these and countless other ways we deliver messages. In every instance there is something of a person’s very self given in the message. Even the telegram boy with the brown envelopes discharging the responsibilities of his job knew that.
That’s why the so-called personalized messages of our digital age don’t convince. Being selected via a clever computer programme and sent a slick message full of personal references comes across as devious. In an actual conversation provoked by such a message recently – and it was no easy tasks to find a living person to talk to – the person dealing with my enquiry said, ‘I know this is creepy, but is your second name Paul and did you used to live at …?’ Creepy indeed, because I have never given that information to the organisation for which he worked. The sophistication of personalization can be about the analysis of massive quantities of data far beyond any person’s capability.
A messenger in the flesh
Today we celebrate the personal. Not algorithms beyond our ken; nor messages of dread and hurt; nor ill-tempered words we don’t want to hear. Rather we focus on the king’s messenger – that fleet-of-foot-one sent deliberately and directly; that herald who is greeted with joy and leaves songs of celebration in his wake; that comforter who comes amongst his people to console and restore.
‘If I want to send a message – I employ a boy to take it,’ said Preece. And that is exactly what the God of the cosmos has done. ‘The Word became flesh’ – there is no more personal message than that.
In the darkest days of World War 2 W.H. Auden wrote his Christmas Oratorio, a prayer within it says:
And because of His visitation, we may no
longer desire God as if He were lacking: our
redemption is no longer a question of pursuit
but of surrender to Him who is always and
everywhere present. Therefore at every moment
we pray that, following Him, we may depart from
our anxiety into His peace.
If you want to hear the message – see the boy who brings it.
Weary and worn out after crossing the English Channel three times during a severe storm (don’t ask!), they decided to use the hotel room they’d booked. After all it was just after 6 am so they had a few hours before the 12 noon deadline for vacating rooms. A little ‘shut-eye’ to recover after a horrific night – that was the plan.
As they drew to a halt in the car park, the hotel night porter came storming (!) towards them; running. ‘You can’t park here,’ he shouted. This was no messenger of peace. Far from it; he blazed his insistent order at these impertinent intruders. The driver replied, ‘We’ve a room, booked and paid for.’ ‘Can’t have, we’re full,’ he shouted. ‘We’ve just come off a ferry and we want our room.’ ‘Can’t have,’ he shouted again, ‘storms too bad, no ferries running.’ The driver resisted the urge to punch him – just. I know the effort it took, I was the driver!
The porter’s message was not good news. There was no room at the inn. They had sold our room to someone else.
Messenger of hope
The messenger envisaged in the passage from Isaiah is of a rather different order. Here the messenger is one that runs to every part of the kingdom to announce that a new king reigns. The oppression and exile that had been the people’s bitter experience is over. A new order begins – marked by singing and celebration. The fleet foot of this messenger is a delight: ‘How beautiful upon the mountains ...’
Personal delivery
And yet both officious porter and royal herald have this in common – both delivered a message in person. No automated response this; no ‘do not reply to this email as this account is not monitored’ or ‘press button 3’ to hear a recorded message. No, welcome news or not, the message is delivered in the flesh.
In the 1890s William Preece was chief engineer of the General Post Office. He was no enthusiast for the telephone and when he was asked by a parliamentary committee about this new gadget he said, ‘There are conditions in America which necessitate the use of such instruments more than here. Here we have a super-abundance of messengers, errand boys and things of that kind. The absence of servants has compelled America to adopt communications systems for domestic purposes. Few have worked at the telephone much more than I have, I have one in my office but more for show. If I want to send a message - I employ a boy to take it.’ [History of Office Life by Lucy Kellaway, BBC Radio 4 July 2013]
The carrier’s burden
‘I employ a boy to take it,’ and the image that immediately comes to mind in this centenary of the beginning of World War One are telegram boys delivery those tiny brown envelopes. Vera Brittain writes in her book Testament of Youth:
‘There came a sudden loud clattering at the front door knocker that always meant a telegram.
For a moment I thought that my legs would not carry me, but they behaved quite normally as I got up and went to the door. I knew what was in the telegram – I had known for a week – but because the persistent hopefulness of the human heart refuses to allow intuitive certainty to persuade the reason of that which it knows, I opened and read it in a tearing anguish of suspense.
"Regret to inform you Captain E.H. Brittain, MC, killed in action Italy June 15th"
"No answer," I told the boy mechanically, and handed the telegram to my father, who had followed me into the hall. As we went back into the dining-room I saw, as though I had never seen them before, the bowl of blue delphiniums on the table; their intense colour, vivid, ethereal, seemed too radiant for earthly flowers.’
No beauty to this messenger’s feet. Such was the distress involved that eventually the envelopes were marked on the outside so that the messenger boy knew not to hang around for a reply. The message simply handed to the receivers to bear. It was all too much for the boys employed.
So often in recent weeks and months we have heard messages too hard to bear – 132 children shot down in Peshawar; the stabbings in Cairns, Queensland; Ebola stalking so many communities in West Africa; hostages killed; the café siege in Sydney – and that’s just the last few days. We reel at the thought of what people suffer.
I saw a picture of six or so little Pakistani girls praying in front of a row of candles. Their eyes closed and their hands together, fervent and concerned – it was picture of beautiful children, clear complexions and disarming simplicity; little children who should not need to pray in such dreadful circumstances. The picture giving a message personal and powerful – a message so hard to receive.
Personal not personalized
The personally delivered message, even if it only originates with a person’s effort, is always costly – one way or another. I have taken time to send this present; she sat down and considered carefully what she should write in the note; they went to the hospital to show their concern; we went to the party despite the effort and time involved; we tweeted or emailed support and encouragement; she baked a cake and took it to her friend – in these and countless other ways we deliver messages. In every instance there is something of a person’s very self given in the message. Even the telegram boy with the brown envelopes discharging the responsibilities of his job knew that.
That’s why the so-called personalized messages of our digital age don’t convince. Being selected via a clever computer programme and sent a slick message full of personal references comes across as devious. In an actual conversation provoked by such a message recently – and it was no easy tasks to find a living person to talk to – the person dealing with my enquiry said, ‘I know this is creepy, but is your second name Paul and did you used to live at …?’ Creepy indeed, because I have never given that information to the organisation for which he worked. The sophistication of personalization can be about the analysis of massive quantities of data far beyond any person’s capability.
A messenger in the flesh
Today we celebrate the personal. Not algorithms beyond our ken; nor messages of dread and hurt; nor ill-tempered words we don’t want to hear. Rather we focus on the king’s messenger – that fleet-of-foot-one sent deliberately and directly; that herald who is greeted with joy and leaves songs of celebration in his wake; that comforter who comes amongst his people to console and restore.
‘If I want to send a message – I employ a boy to take it,’ said Preece. And that is exactly what the God of the cosmos has done. ‘The Word became flesh’ – there is no more personal message than that.
In the darkest days of World War 2 W.H. Auden wrote his Christmas Oratorio, a prayer within it says:
And because of His visitation, we may no
longer desire God as if He were lacking: our
redemption is no longer a question of pursuit
but of surrender to Him who is always and
everywhere present. Therefore at every moment
we pray that, following Him, we may depart from
our anxiety into His peace.
If you want to hear the message – see the boy who brings it.