Surprised by Beauty

To continue the thread regarding scepticism, particularly relating to personal experiences of God, I have to say that in reading Richard Dawkins arguments, I find myself having to try very hard to not agree with him. It is likely to have a lot to do with the fact that in looking at ‘experience’ from a rational, analytical point of view, it doesn’t always make sense, but perhaps that is the very reason we call it an ‘experience’. Its meant to be felt, not understood or justified. Does that make sense? The reason I say this, is its easy to be sceptical until you have one of these ‘experiences’, and then suddenly, they are very hard to deny.

I went to visit my lovely brother in Southampton at the weekend, and on Saturday night, I attended Shirley Salvation Army’s community carol service, ‘The glory of Christmas’. It was strange taking a backseat, and being part of the audience as I am so used to being involved in it. Its good, it lets you see it from a different perspective.

To give you the context, you should probably know that I wasn’t expecting to get much out of this. In general I don’t enjoy carol services, mainly because I hate singing carols because most of them are filled with dodgy theology, and when you think about the words you realise that you are singing complete nonsense. Sorry, I will get off my soapbox! I just hate the carols. Anyway, this was going to be a positive post, so forget that!

For the most part it was your normal Christmas carol service but when it came to the nativity, it was surprisingly simple. The ‘nativity characters’ came onto the stage slowly to a piece of music. There was no story in the background, no words for people to learn, they simply just created before us the scene. Then it was time for the angels dance. This is where my eyes welled up, and God took me by complete surprise.

Let me set the scene. Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men and, most importantly, Jesus were all on the stage in their costume and the normal ‘manger scene’ set up. The three angles (three beautiful young ladies who I love dearly anyway – this probably added to the ‘welling up thing!’) were in front of the stage, and their costumes I have to say were simply stunning.

A simple but incredibly beautiful song, which I used to love as a child began and the angels started their dance. It was very, very simple. The song words will help to illustrate the scene so I have written them below:

Lord, You are more precious than silver,
Lord, You are more costly than gold,
Lord, You are more beautiful than diamonds,
And nothing I desire compares with You.

As the words ‘silver’, ‘gold’ and ‘diamonds’ were sung, each of the girls threw appropriately coloured glittery paper over the manger scene.

It will obviously not have the right effect, being written in a blog, but the effect was stunning. There is much beauty in simplicity. I truly felt like I was no longer in Shirley Salvation Army hall, watching their interpretation of the Christmas story, I was in the presence of real angels, truly worshipping their beautiful Lord. I was surrounded by beauty.

At the end of the carol service, lots of people came on stage with coloured tops and ribbons and performed a sort of ‘ribbon dance’ to the song ‘Joyful, Joyful’. This also was beautiful, but in a much more majestic, powerful way, and once again, I felt like I was truly in the presence of the angels, celebrating the great news of Jesus coming to earth.

As if that wasn’t enough, on Sunday, back at Romford, baby Masie Howell was dedicated back to God. I guess nothing more need be said, the beauty of that act speaks for itself. Then on Sunday night in the prayer time we sang two songs which also spoke of all that I had experienced this weekend:

Light of the world you stepped down into darkness
Opened my eyes, let me see
Beauty that made this heart adore you
Hope of a life spent with you,

So here I am to worship…

And

Jesus, name above all names,
Beautiful Saviour, glorious Lord…

I think I have already received my Christmas blessing – the awareness of the beauty of Jesus, and the chance to join in with the angels in their celebration of that beauty.