'To hear the angels sing'

In the annual pre-Christmas meeting in heaven God sat at the head of the table, with the angels gathered round. It was, as you might expect, quite a big table.

‘There’s only one item on the agenda today,’ said Gabriel, Chief Angel and secretary to the meeting, ‘and that’s what is happening to Christmas on earth these days.’

‘Well,’ God remarked after a moment’s reflection, ‘we have to agree it has changed somewhat since the events in Bethlehem all those years ago. Then it was Mary, Joseph, and the lad himself, some shepherds - representing the poor and outcasts of the world, three wise men – showing we don’t mind the wealthy being involved, as long as they are generous, and several animals – to show the whole created world matters. What was happening was a quiet celebration of a birthday.’

One of the angels raised a hand. ‘Excuse me God, but isn’t that birthday what we see being celebrated in churches at this time of year?’

‘It is, and I have to say it is a very pleasant surprise to see them still, some two thousand years since the first. But they are now very much a minority.’

‘What do the majority do then?’ It should be said she was a very new angel and this would be only her second Christmas.

‘Some, on the days before, celebrate with pub lunches with people from work, others, on the night before Christmas have rather a lot to drink, and many wake up on the day after Boxing Day unable to remember much about the previous two or three days. Oh, and many folk, of course, don’t celebrate Christmas at all as it is not part of their religion.’

‘Is there anything we could do to change things?’

God smiled rather sadly. ‘There is one thing I wondered about, given how awful things are in parts of the world at the moment. There is a hymn written almost two hundred years ago by a chap called E. H. Sears, an American Unitarian parish minister, and known as, “It came upon the midnight clear.” There are two lines from the third verse I’d like to write across earth’s sky, near to where the star shone all those years ago;

          O hush the noise, you men of strife,
          To hear the angels sing.”

'These seem to me to be words the world needs to hear.’

The meeting ended and the angels quietly went to rehearse their singing.

David Parkin

Image by Liz Waddell, artist

You can see more of her artwork at www.lizwaddell.com