Advent 2024 : 20

 

‘What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.’

Ecclesiastes 3.9-13

‘Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,

‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body you have prepared for me;
in burnt-offerings and sin-offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
Then I said, “See, God, I have come to do your will, O God”
(in the scroll of the book it is written of me).’

‘When he said above, ‘You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt-offerings and sin-offerings’ (these are offered according to the law), then he added, ‘See, I have come to do your will.’ He abolishes the first in order to establish the second. And it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.’

Hebrews 10.5-10

Your body matters to the God who made it and gave it to you. And it is the will of God that we should experience bodily pleasure, in simple things.

On Tuesday, my son Noah went to the walk-in medical centre. They sent him on to A&E, who eventually told him that he needed to present himself at Day Of Surgery Admissions at 7.30 a.m. the following day, for an operation under general anaesthetic. (He is okay now; this story ends well.)

So on Wednesday I sat with him in Admissions until he was called, but then I had to go back to the church, where a full day of secondary school carol concerts awaited me. And to be honest, my mind was not on the job. I was hyper-alert to events unfolding elsewhere, events I could do nothing about. Keeping an eye on every development. By the time I was finally done with rehearsals, two concerts, and a drinks reception for staff, Noah was safely back home.

By Thursday afternoon, the events of the previous forty-eight hours had caught up with me. My body needed a break from its toil. And Noah’s body needed some gentle movement. He invited me to join him in a walk around our local fishing lakes, and I gladly accepted. Leaving ongoing business behind, we walked, slowly, pausing frequently to watch the swans, the mallards and pintails, the coots and cormorant, a herring gull in its first winter, the moorhens and jackdaws. To feel the cold on our faces.

And it was good.