A Poetic Gift This Christmas

Ed Shaw 1 month ago
Blog 2 mins

It’s a long time since I queued nervously to meet Father Christmas at some shop or Christmas party. Somewhere there’s a family photo of me clutching my mum as Father Christmas bends down to talk to me – anyone (but me at the time) would recognise my dad’s nose poking out above the fake white beard.

In the short film below, the Father Christmas lookalike who is the poet Malcolm Guite invites us into his study for a reading of his beautiful Christmas poem ‘A Tale of Two Gardens’. We had it read at our traditional carol service this year, and the reader only just made it through to the end as Guite’s words so powerfully connect us to the good news of Emmanuel, God with us.

At its heart are two verses that communicate the good news of a God who, in Christ, knows us in all our frailties so well: 

The strongest comes in weakness now
A stranger to our door
The king forsakes his palaces
And dwells amongst the poor.
And where we hurt he hurts with us
And when we weep he cries
He knows the heart of all our hurts
The inside of our sighs.

I love that final phrase in particular – ‘The inside of our sighs’. Jesus knows whatever is causing you and me grief this Christmas – from the inside, because he is God with us.

To read the whole poem for yourself head here. To have it read to you by Malcolm Guite himself, watch the below (he starts reading the poem at 3:27 but the opening minutes give you some atmosphere and context).

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