13th December, 2020.
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My dear friends,

 Those of us who enjoy trains would have been very interested to see the Royal train last week – we don’t see so much of it these days – used to convey Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on a whistle-stop tour covering many hundreds of miles around England, Wales and Scotland, to thank key-workers, volunteers and carers who have done so much to keep us going during the Coronavirus pandemic.

There were a few rather dampening remarks from Welsh and Scottish politicians, which I thought were a little uncalled for, because the Royal Household had carefully prepared for the trip, liaised with local authorities and ensured that local Covid-19 regulations were observed. The most important thing, I thought, were the expressions on the faces of the key-workers carers, volunteers, school children and housebound elderly folk when they saw the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge: their faces quite literally lit up. They realised that they had not been forgotten, and perhaps glimpsed that their hard work and self-sacrifice have been an inspiration to the rest of us.

            Several of my parishioners have already told me they are set to have the Covid-19 vaccination during the coming week. We don’t know how long it will take to vaccinate everyone and bring the pandemic to an end, but I am sure 2021 will bring us better news. There will doubtless be a public inquiry and official report into Covid-19 and the handling of the pandemic, and I expect parts of it will make rather sad and chastening reading. But that is not the whole story.

Hard work, self-sacrifice and plain kindness tend not to make their way into official government reports; but when historians write the history of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic, there will be entire chapters about the hard work, self-sacrifice and plain kindness that have been so very greatly in evidence. Much will be written about the important and inspirational work of so many people in St John Ambulance during the present crisis.

As I have said before, I am immensely proud of St John, and I am also very proud to serve as your chaplain.

​​With my prayers and all good and warm wishes,

The Rev. Dr ROBERT BEAKEN, County Chaplain
ADVENT 3 – 13th DECEMBER 2020.
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Gospel: St John chapter 1, verses 6-8, 19-28
We were introduced in last Sunday’s readings to the figure of St John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets and fore-runner of the Lord. St John the Evangelist wrote:

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.
He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.
 
John the Baptist, we are told elsewhere, dressed in camel skins and ate honey and wild locusts. He began preaching, calling his hearers to repentance of their sins in preparation for the coming of the Messiah; and as a sign of their repentance, he baptised them in the river Jordan.

This, understandably, created quite a stir. The religious authorities down in Jerusalem wanted to know what was going on, so they sent priests and lawyers up to the Jordan to find out. When they arrived, they asked John three questions: (1) Was he the Messiah? (2) Was he Elijah, returning as people expected, to herald the coming of the Messiah?  (3) Was he the Prophet promised long ago by Moses?

John, with increasing abruptness, denied that he was any of these. The investigators then asked him who he was. ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord”’ replied John. Not a very helpful answer for a bunch of religious civil servants to take back to their bosses in Jerusalem. Next, they asked him why he was baptising people. John answered them:
 
I baptise you with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know,
the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.
 
It must have been a rather uncomfortable reply. John’s answer told them that the Messiah already lived. He was already living amongst them, unknown and unrecognised by them.

We, of course, have the benefit of knowing what happened next in the story. Jesus came to be baptized by John. John recognized him as the Messiah; and this baptism in the Jordan began Jesus’ three years of public ministry, which we read about in the Gospels.

But all that was in the future. As yet, not even John the Baptist knew who the Messiah was. He only knew that the Messiah was out there somewhere, observing, preparing, waiting. This must have been unsettling: hence John’s insistence on repentance. What would happen if the Messiah came, and they Jews did not recognize him, because they were so enmeshed in their sins? What if the Messiah, seeing their sinful society and way of life, came, looked, and decided to go away again? We, of course, know that this was precisely why Christ came into the world – to put right sin and the consequences of the Fall – but they didn’t quite understand it, and they tended to think of the Messiah as a sort-of warrior-prince, who would boot out the hated Romans and restore the glory and prestige of the Hebrew kingdom.

I want us to think for a minute this morning about John’s words about the Messiah being amongst the people, unseen, unrecognized, observing, preparing, waiting. St Matthew records Jesus himself saying something very similar:
 
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ And the King will answer them, ‘truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’
     The he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not minister to thee?’ And he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as ye did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’      
 
We all know people whom we like, whom it is a pleasure to help. But what about people we don’t like? What about people we find irritating; the people who are awkward, clumsy, unreasonable, noisy, smelly; those with whom we have very little in common, or who loudly espouse very different sets of values and world views to ourselves. We can’t ignore them – that’s the meaning of the parable of the Good Samaritan – for they, too, are human beings. Jesus died on the Cross for them, too. If they are in trouble, we are still called upon by our Christian faith to help them generously, for Jesus Christ is to be found and served in them.

We read that in pre-revolutionary Russia, ordinary Orthodox Christians – workers on the land, in factories, and so forth – had a great respect for beggars, the destitute, and the mentally afflicted; and, poor though they might be themselves, they would always give them something, be it a little piece of bread or a tiny coin, for they realised that despite their appearance, beggars and the afflicted had something of Christ in them.

​So, as we think of the Christmas story and of the promised Second Coming of the Lord, perhaps we might reflect that the Messiah is amongst us now, hidden and unrecognised, for he is to be found in the people around us, especially in the awkward, the difficult, the challenging. And in Heaven, God takes a keen interest in how we express our faith, how we behave, and how we deal with other people, who are also made in His image and redeemed by the blood of His only Son.