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Aside from the beauty of Southwark Cathedral and an Anglican-raised actor known for Band of Brothers and NBC’s canceled Life, Damien Lewis, sitting on the second row, I was amazed at how well the service involved what must have been nearly 100 children. The cathedral almost sounded like a zoo at moments, with frequent sounds of little ones chattering and crying throughout the cathedral, although never so loud that the noise disrupted the service. The little ones in attendance were summoned, in groups, to the front at various times during the service, orchestrated by a roving lady with a microphone. Meanwhile, the minister at the front succeeded in bringing everyone to relative quiet when it was time for little lecturers to read passages from the Bible.
A children’s choir led the music. The hymns we sung acknowledged human sin, the need for a savior, and the divinity of Jesus, including these polished lines:
Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love’s pure light
radiance beams from thy holy face
with the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord at thy birth.
As wonderful as the service was, I’m thinking about something that happened before it started. Sitting in my chair, close to a pillar at the end of a row, I noticed an icon of Jesus, barely larger than a sheet from a pad of legal paper, mounted above a rack of little candles set against the next pillar ahead. The icon was wrought so that the face of Jesus, in simple form, expressed sorrowful, knowing, welcoming eyes. After a few moments’ focus, the face evoked in me the words of Matthew 11:28 — “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Rest — from guilt, shame, and the competitions of this world — is the blessing we gain from the Incarnation, is the comfort of God-with-us, who experienced human life and understands it. Merry Christmas.
