The noise and quiet of Christmas

Are you ready for the noise of Christmas? The first proper Christmas in three years! Noisy and busy Christmas jumpers at the ready? The bustle is beginning. Last Sunday we were full at both Busbridge and Hambledon churches for the morning family carols. We’ve just hit the 300 mark for the second Christmas Eve candlelit family carols and the first service is already completely booked up –even with us taking the service on tour to the much bigger venue of StP&Ps in the town centre.

What noise does Christmas make for you? I’d like to invite you to a noise that ripples through time – it is the noise of Christmas quiet.

‘quiet hurtled

through the store

barging noise… away’

Some years ago I was in a shop when a mother had lost her child. It wasn’t the scream that stopped everyone. It was the deep hush – the quiet – that descended afterwards as everyone froze and looked around. The quiet hurtled through the store barging noise and activity away.

We’ve all lost something this year. How do we cope? We fill it with activity – with noise. Noise of football or rugby terraces, noise of anger or aggression, noise of more work, more work more work, noise of family, friends and feasting.

Noise is familiar and safe, but it drowns something that the courageous listen for. Noise drowns quiet out and, like in the supermarket, quiet stillness is alien to us and it discomforts us until we realise that the quiet is the best place to be.  

‘Courageous people are willing

to reach into Christmas

beyond the noise and

look into the quiet of the soul’

Quiet is when we run out of noise. When I speak to people who have entered quiet, they find that quiet changes them. Why? It allows our souls to speak and for us to seek our souls. It is people of courage who are willing to remain in quiet rather than revert to the noise that is distracting. Courageous people are willing to reach into Christmas, beyond the noise, and look into the quiet of the soul. We fill our lives with noise to avoid the quiet in the soul because our souls are restless for the quiet of God’s peace.

“After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire.

And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face

and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave”.

2 Kings 19

In recent weeks I’ve experienced two situations of the deepest quiet. It is as if time has stopped. In both situations, those I was with were courageous and allowed the quiet to dwell. They had both suffered incalculable loss, both had distance to contend with and both were entering a profoundly changing experience. Noise ceased. Quiet descended.

The sound of Christmas is to bring the quiet of peace to our souls. It is the quiet whisper of God that says into our lives “what are you doing?” because God has plans for who we are, what we are to do and how we are to be. People of quietened souls reconnected to God by Christ are people who do things differently. We are purveyors of quiet into noise and bringers of peace into aggression.

The quiet of Christmas is the cry of a new-born baby. Have you ever been in a situation where you have heard a new-born baby cry? Somehow, it evokes a response – an awareness. It silences our noise and we become acutely aware for a moment – we check for danger for the infant. This Christmas, Jesus cries out to us not as an infant but as the Mighty God everlasting, the author and perfector of the quiet peace of our souls and our souls quietly soar in response.

‘The quiet of Christmas is the cry of a new-born baby’

Isaiah 9: 5For every trampling boot of battle and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. 6For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end.

Merry noisy and soul-quietened Christmas to you all. Here’s to 2023 as we courageously step out in quiet faith.

 Simon Taylor (Rev)
Christmas 2022