christmas day 2025
The Very Reverend Dr Paul Shackerley
Dean of Brecon
A tangible record will always be more special than an online stream on Spotify
‘if you can’t find the words, find the gift’
Storytelling has to be incredibly powerful to be remembered. It must connect with traditions and the moments that make up the build-up to Christmas. Now, the Church builds up to Christmas with a very different message, the lesson of light not being overcome by darkness. This Christmas morning in Brecon Cathedral we are recreating the environment of wonderful memories and re-enacting the wonderful story of Jesus through music, hymns, readings, and worship. And if none of these symbols connect with you in the next hour, I hope ‘if you can’t find the words, find the gift’.
‘Where love lives’. Does anyone know what I’m talking about, if you can’t find the words, find the gift’? Yes, the John Lewis Christmas advert. A father dancing in a 90s club, reimagining his youth. I remember those days very well myself. Yes, the 1990s club life. Back to the 1990s evokes a less complicated time to be a young man, before Spotify, selfies and social media, the crowded dancefloor contrasting with the isolation of time spent alone on screens, the joyful abandon of an earlier generation with the fearfulness of today’s. We don’t need an ad to tell us that we should reach out to young teenage boys and men in the darkness of today’s world. Then, the words on our screens ‘if you can’t find the words, find the gift’. A father, remembers holding his son in his arms; his son running to his father for a hug. Then, across the room, all grown up, they embrace without a word, because they don’t need words, because they have found the gift, and it’s ‘where love lives’, as the lyrics of Alison Limerick’s 1990s dance anthem plays out, ‘where love lives.’
The message of this year’s John Lewis has struck a genuine chord among men and their identity. There is something nostalgic for the dad to reminisce, to go back in time and remember those good times. Memories. Christmas and coming to Church does that as well as John Lewis. The lyrics of Alison Limerick’s 1990s dance anthem ‘where love lives’ transports the dad back in time, and then we see the pace and chasm between father and son closing with a hug, ‘where love lives’.
John Lewis created an environment where memories can happen. This morning the Church has an eternal and lasting story to tell about ‘where love lives’. It lives in the God who became a vulnerable child called Jesus. The story of the birth of Jesus, who has come afresh in these uncertain and anxious times, into the mess of life, where the light that shines in the mess and cracks of our lives and offers us an everlasting hope and love. If God is not in the darkness, he’s nowhere.
The commercial and marketing culture has done a great job of sanitising Christmas, on our Christmas cards, advertisements, and mobile screens. Much of the imagery on our Christmas cards shows an unsoiled stable with a mother cradling a perfect baby that doesn’t cry. There is no detail of the length of Mary’s labour, no midwife clearing the placenta. No blood, poo or tears. That sanitized fairy tale has robbed us of the enchantment of the de-sanitized reality of birth pushing from the darkness of a womb into the light of this world. Some of us here this morning may have traipsed reluctantly to the Cathedral on Christmas Day, with busy lives, perhaps complicated or uncertain lives; you may have lost a loved one this year. I suggest we come because we desire a deeper and more lasting hope. Because, today’s story of light coming in the mess and darkness of life, reminds us that no matter how bleak our lives has been, or vulnerable it can become, the story reminds us of new starts. So, if you can’t find the words, find the gift. His name is Emmanuel, God with us.
The clever advert is that fathers and sons will each take something different from it. As each of you will take something different away from this morning’s service. The fact that the son bought such a thoughtful present is a sign that he realises his dad was once an actual person with his own desires and interests who didn’t just exist to be in service of his family. It’s a profound moment for a child, and one that cannot help but change the nature of their relationship. The advert perfectly captures a very common moment of fatherhood. I’m talking, of course, about the time you decide to go clubbing, only to realise that since having a child you’ve become horrifically old and decrepit and that, to all the young people around you, you now basically represent the creeping spectre of old age and death, and you’re suddenly hit by the realisation of how ancient you are, and you go home depressed and never attempt anything fun or exciting again until you die. But there’s still a romance to clinging on to traditions and mere memories that make us happy. I wonder if the Church has been complicit with the commercial world in eradicating the unsightly miraculous story to deliver a story that is palatable, sanitised and uncontaminated by the mess of birth and the world environment in which God was born into. Because Christmas is always showing us that God is getting His hands dirty in the mess, and not leaving us alone.
A tangible record will always be more special than an online stream on Spotify. Visiting a shop will always be more special than clicking an object on Amazon. There’s something reassuring in the way that we’re still discussing Christmas, amazed by its traditions and story via the medium of the most obsolescent ways of communication, a sermon, hymns, prayers, and readings from Holy Scripture written 2,000 years ago. Merry Christmas everyone!
