‘Tis the season – the season to ‘be jolly’ (mainly because it rhymes with ‘holly’), Fa la la la la - yay, the season of good will to all men. That’s not an empty notion. It may drive us mad as we hear the same carols pursuing us round the shops, or above raucous-merry pub crowds.
But there is something in the seasonal shift of mood that is better than winter would be without it. In the northern hemisphere, even the mildest winter is pretty unremitting. I may sneer at the town Christmas lights (or I may like them), but something goes out of the world when they come down, and we are back with dark nights and cold weather, wondering, these days, just what the fuel bills are going to be like this year.
However, I did use a phrase, back there, that I do take issue with. Nowhere does it say, ‘Good will to all men’. We may think that this is the good old King James Version, and that my gripe is going to be with the easy assumption that we are all ‘men’. But that’s not it. The King James translation of the angels’ song (Luke 2:14) reads like this:
Glory to God in the highest
and on earth, peace,
good will toward men.
The misheard ‘all men’ wouldn’t matter too much, if people didn’t make so much of it. It’s taken to mean a general bonhomie, a beaming ‘good will’, which extends in a warm fuzzy feeling, until someone is a bit too demanding, or we are asked to stop using fossil fuels so that distant, or even future generations can be included. It goes very well with the idea of being ‘jolly’, and is even just that bit easier if you are a bit ‘merry’, after a glass or two of Christmas cheer.
Most recent translations are truer to the original words of Luke’s gospel. NIV has:
Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth, peace
to those on whom his favour rests.
Hang on! Where has the good will gone? In these versions, it is not our general good will towards others, but God’s good will towards us, through which we find peace. That ‘favour’ which rests on us is God’s great gift to us in Jesus. It is the same word as Luke (and other gospel writers) use at the Baptism of Jesus, when the heavens opened, and this time not angels, but a dove came down, and the voice from heaven said (Luke 3:22, NIV):
You are my Son, whom I love;
with you I am well pleased.
The Christmas message actually works in the opposite direction. When we place our faith in Jesus, that favour, good will, ‘pleasedness’, that God pours out on him, touches our lives too, with the power to transform. It is God’s love for us that (if we will let it) reaches out to the world. Not in the vague and vanishing good will of Christmas, but in practical justice and transforming love.
God in Christ, we thank you for the seasonal reminder of peace and good will, that shines, like the Christmas lights in our streets and windows, for a few weeks.
We pray that, for some, the season may lead to seeking, and they will find your favour, freely offered to all through Jesus, so that lives may be transformed, and this earth find peace. Amen
Janet Wootton