Christmas always brings a reminder that everyone should look out for those in need, not least the lonely

The coronavirus dangers of groups of people meeting together in households have been clearly explained and everyone is rightly being asked to work out the best way to observe this particular Christmas season within existing regulations.

The arrival of vaccines must not lead to any lowering of our guard.

One of the most unnerving aspects of Covid-19 is its potential for asymptomatic transmission.

We can be sitting beside a friend or relative who, unknown to anyone, actually has the virus.

Yet, despite the different circumstances this Christmas, one thing that will not change is the true meaning of it all.

The religious message of Christmas is of God coming to be one of us.

It is a very dramatic message of divine intervention and divine companionship.

Yet, ultimately, as we all know, it leads to a very stark culmination.

The one who gives up the throne of heaven, for the sake of humanity, is in the end to be rejected, scorned and brutally killed.

It has been remarked that the New Testament tells us nothing about the physical appearance of Jesus. Of course, every baby is beautiful, as he must surely have been on that first Christmas night.

Yet, I have often said in Christmas sermons that we cannot have this beautiful infant without the man he grew up to be, the trouble maker who we can be fairly certain was not concerned with his physical appearance.

An outspoken, perhaps somewhat ragged and unkempt young man, he appeared in front of no doubt finely clad religious leaders and devastatingly pierced and cut through their hypocrisy using only the power of truthful words.

A spear was to pierce his side, but he had already pierced the system.

The idea that the Messiah would be born in a stable was a concept that challenged religious convention to its core and, indeed, that very place of his birth was only to be the first of countless such challenges.

Yet, despite all the quite heavy theology to which it inevitably leads, Christmas has an undeniably wide appeal. Perhaps that is because, at a basic level, it comes as a reassurance that our human race is not somehow alone and lost in the vast cosmos and that reigning at the centre of reality itself there beats a truthful and loving heart.

The bleak mid-winter is rendered not so bleak after all because of this trust. There is no ‘chill factor’ in the Christmas message.

Nonetheless, for many life is bleak and stays bleak. It can be a battle for survival in a sometimes very cruel and merciless world. The coronavirus has served to emphasise that fact.

As quoted recently in this newspaper, Age NI chief executive Linda Robinson has said that as Christmas approaches “we are heading into what could potentially be the loneliest time ever experienced by many older people” (‘Thousands of NI’s elderly facing loneliness epidemic at Christmas,’ November 24).

As far as care homes are concerned, there have been heart-wrenching accounts across the media of the distress caused by regulations preventing residents from being able to receive visits from family members due to the dangers of Covid-19.

Moreover, there are reportedly 80,000 older people in Northern Ireland living alone and facing Christmas on their own.

Homelessness is another of the harsh realities in our world, a distress to so many people even in our community.

Mary and Joseph had their home in Nazareth, but on the first Christmas night they were, in effect, homeless.

A stable was all they could find and, no doubt, they were very grateful to the innkeeper who offered them what little space he could find. At least they would be warm among the animals.

During this Advent the Irish Inter-Church Meeting (IICM) website is running special blog articles focusing on the different aspects of housing insecurity and homelessness (www.irishchurches.org/blog).

It is the latest in a major homelessness initiative overseen by the IICM’s Damian Jackson.

Last year, the inter-church organisation published a report on homelessness and housing insecurity across the island of Ireland, recording 18,628 households in Northern Ireland presenting themselves as homeless to the Housing Executive. Sadly, that number reportedly is rising.

In that report, entitled ‘In six months a lot can change’, the experience of one man was strikingly recorded: “I ran my own business for nearly thirty years until I was undercut by a much larger retailer that I just couldn’t compete with. I was forced to sell my house to pay off business debts. It all happened so quickly; how did I go from the boardroom to that place - a place where you live in shame, loneliness and fear? The feeling I was a failure was what hit me most.”

And that was before Covid-19 struck.

Human beings are social beings and friendship, companionship and love quicken us. Christmas always brings a reminder that everyone should look out for those in need, not least the lonely.

This year that reminder comes with its own particular significance.

• Canon Ian Ellis is a former editor of The Church of Ireland Gazette

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