26th December, 2020.
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My dear friends,

I am typing these words on Boxing Day 2020. Boxing Day last year, 2019, seems a world away, because of the impact on all our lives of the Coronavirus pandemic. One of the curious aspects of the pandemic is that if it has driven us apart as a result of ‘social-distancing’ and ‘lock-downs’ (new words which we all learnt in 2020), the pandemic has also in many ways brought us closer together.
 
 Lady Westbury – who will be known to many of us in St John – remarked to me earlier this year that the Coronavirus pandemic reminded her somewhat of the Second World War, and that when we were up against it, trouble brought out the best in people. I entirely understand and share Lady Westbury’s point. The Coronavirus pandemic has brought out the best in many people. We have, in all sorts of ways, looked out for others and done what we could to support them through some very difficult and challenging days.
 
I should especially like to pay tribute to all members of St John – and indeed all who work in the NHS and our emergency services – who have lost loved ones to Covid-19 and nonetheless have carried on helping other people. Your actions have been an inspiration to us all, and we offer you our sincere thanks and admiration.
 
When the history of the Coronavirus pandemic is compiled, much will be written about the wonderful work carried out by St John Ambulance. Another chapter is shortly to unfold as St John prepares to help administer the Covid-19 vaccine around the country, which will surely be a turning point.
 
I should like to draw to a close by quoting a little of The Queen’s admirable Christmas Day message yesterday. Her Majesty said:
 
‘We continue to be inspired by the kindness of strangers and draw comfort that – even on the darkest nights – there is hope in the new dawn. Jesus touched on this with the parable of the Good Samaritan. The man who is robbed and left at the roadside is saved by someone who did not share his religion or culture. This wonderful story of kindness is still relevant today. Good Samaritans have emerged across society, showing care and respect for all, regardless of gender, race or background, reminding us that each one of us is special and equal in the eyes of God.’
 
Please know that I pray for all in St John when I celebrate Holy Communion and also remember you in my private prayers. May I take this opportunity to send you and your loved ones all possible good and warm wishes for the New Year, 2021.

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

The Rev. Dr ROBERT BEAKEN, County Chaplain
CHRISTMAS 1 – 27th DECEMBER 2020.
 
Gospel: St Luke, chapter 2, verses 15-2
My friend the Reverend James McCluskey, the Vicar of St James’s Church, East Hill, Colchester, has discovered a rare and very interesting painting in a dark corner at the back of his church. It is The Adoration of the Shepherds, painted in 1778 by George Carter.

George Carter was a local artist: he was born in Colchester in 1737 to a fairly modest family and educated at a free school in the town. He had an early inclination towards art, but finances meant he had to work for a living. Carter moved to London and worked initially as a servant and then in a shop in Covent Garden, but he was always interested in art, and in his thirties he took the plunge and devoted himself to painting full-time. He enjoyed success and managed to visit France and Italy, where he perfected his technique.

Carter painted The Adoration of the Shepherds for St James’s Church, Colchester, in 1778 when he was 41, presumably as a ‘thank you’ to God for his successful life as an artist. It was originally an altar piece, but some Victorian clergyman or other didn’t like it, so the painting was removed and nailed up in a dark corner at the back, above a doorway. Father James is exploring the possibility of removing the painting from its obscure position, having it properly restored by an expert conservator and reinstating it behind the high altar. This process will take several years. Expert conservators don’t come cheap, and so it will probably all be rather expensive, but it will be good to see The Adoration of the Shepherds back in the chancel of St James’s Church, where it was meant to be: a beautiful piece of art, painted by a local artist, who led an interesting life. If you felt able to make a small donation to the painting’s conservation, I am sure Father James would be delighted to hear from you.

The subject of Carter’s painting, The Adoration of the Shepherds, is significant for two reasons: (1) the shepherds, and (2) the sheep. In traditional Mediterranean culture, shepherds were the lowest of the low. They had an established reputation for immorality. If you lived in the first century Palestine and your daughter came in one day and said “Mum, Dad, I want to marry a shepherd,” you would pull your hair out with grief. Nice people did not become shepherds, only the most unfortunate members of society. Shepherds lived all the year round in the fields with their flocks, which meant they were not free to wash and smelt of sheep; neither were they free to leave their flocks and to worship in the local synagogue or to the Temple in Jerusalem.

Strange, it must have seemed, that the angels appeared to shepherds in the fields and told them to go and worship the Christ Child. The angels – God’s messengers – didn’t appear to the religious or political leaders, or to nice, respectable people, but instead to a lot of despised, mucky, sinful shepherds in a field.

The point is that whatever the shepherds had done, whatever sins they had committed, God still loved them – that is why He sent His only Son to be born at Bethlehem. The same is true for you and me. We are all a mixture of good and bad, but God still loves us. Whatever sins we commit, God will still forgive us and welcome us back, if we are truly sorry and turn to Him in penitence and faith.

Nor must we overlook the role of the sheep in the Christmas story. The sheep in the fields near Bethlehem were a special breed of sheep. They were not kept for their wool or to be eaten, but were bred solely to be driven the fifteen or so miles to Jerusalem, and there to be killed in sacrifice in the Temple. With the birth of Jesus, we begin to perceive that the days of these sacrificial sheep are numbered.

We sometimes refer to Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God. Under the Old Covenant, Judaism, it was necessary to offer sheep repeatedly in the Temple in Jerusalem in sacrifice for sin; for fresh sins required fresh sacrifices to atone for them.  Under the New Covenant, Christianity, Jesus Christ offered himself once for all in sacrifice on the Cross. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer – borrowing a phrase from St Thomas Aquinas – describes Christ’s death on the Cross as: A full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. After that, there would be no more need to sacrifice sheep in the Jerusalem Temple.

I don’t suppose the shepherds really understood quite what was going on that night when the angels left them. But they wandered through the streets and alleyways of Bethlehem until they found the stable, and there they entered and knelt before the manger, gazing at the Christ Child, sensing somehow that he was very special, offering him their rather confused love.

George Carter painted The Adoration of the Shepherds in 1778 as a thank-offering to God. I am sure he did not stumble upon his subject by accident, but fully grasped the meaning behind his painting. It is not too fanciful to imagine that as he painted the shepherds kneeling in adoration of the Christ Child, he may have imagined himself kneeling beside them, thanking God that he had been able to use his skills as an artist. There is a message here about God giving us all that we are as human beings, and about us finding our true identity and fulfilment when we share our lives with His Son.

There is a message, too, about the love of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a stable of Bethlehem: love that extends to the four corners of the world, and to everyone, whoever they are, whatever they have done – even to shepherds.