Opening Reflection by the Revd Geoffrey Clarke, Moderator of the East Midlands Synod
The familiar but viewed from a different angle …
If you’re anything like me there is a danger of some things in our lives becoming so familiar that they risk no longer being noticed for their significance and worth. My route from St Pancras Station to Church House (Tavistock Place) takes me past Holy Cross Church, King’s Cross – along its north side and west end. On a couple of occasions when I had time to spare I tried the door but found it locked. For the majority of the times I pass it I barely notice it – regarding it more as a landmark roughly midway between the station and Church House. In November I paused and took some photographs. I would love to view the church inside but on previous occasions when I have tried the door it has been locked so didn’t bother. Stopping for long enough to take my photographs, however, enabled me to appreciate it afresh (and even to say a prayer for the priest and people associated with this church before continuing my walk to Church House).
On my most recent walk past Holy Cross I took a different path and ended up walking past its east end. I was stopped in my tracks and inspired to take more photographs of the sight that greeted me. In contrast to the entrance steps, crucifix and locked doors of the west end four lovely mosaics, depicting in vivid colour birds and nature, together with garden space and benches grace the east end of the church. To the eye of the beholder the sight of the east end is a welcome reminder, in a built-up and noisy part of London, of nature’s openness and tranquillity. With no disrespect intended I would add that the east end also does not feel particularly ‘churchy’ and thereby probably more accessible. Seeing this church from a different angle – standing in a different place – enabled me to appreciate something fresh and beautiful in the familiar.
As we prepare to celebrate Christmas there is a danger that its familiarity might prevent us from fully appreciating its worth and value. As St John affirms: He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. (John 1: 10) At the heart of Christmas is the good news of God among us – present and made manifest – God viewed from a different angle to that which hitherto God had been viewed. No longer blocked from sight (in the way that the interior of Holy Cross is hidden behind the locked doors of its west end) but on display, albeit in an unexpected place, where those treading a previously-unknown path stumble across it. And just as the sight that rewards the visitor to Holy Cross’s east end is outside the walls of church so, too, the Christ Child was found in the unexpected place because there was no room in the inn and no place within the royal palace. So, too, alongside a new appreciation of all the familiarity of Christmas it is my prayer that each of us might see God from a different angle – from the perspective of a world so badly in need of peace and hope; from the perspective of the One who comes as the weak and vulnerable baby in the manger.
May the love of God, made manifest in north and south, east and west, surprise and delight you anew this Christmas. As the wonderful Advent carol urges us:
Shout, as you journey on; songs be in every mouth!
Lo, from the north they come, from east and west and south:
in Jesus all shall find their rest, in him the universe be blest.
(Charles Ernest Oakley (1832-1865) and editors of English Praise)
With my prayers for the churches and communities of East Midlands Synod,
