A Dull Morecambe Beach

After Christmas service yesterday, I drove through Bowland to Heysham on the Lancashire coast. Relatives had prepared good food and lodging, and before dinner we went a walk on the beach at Morecambe. The day was mild, but accordingly damp and grey. Even the famous Midland Hotel, through whose windows wealthy diners could be seen enjoying the pleasures of a dinner they did not need to cook or wash-up, appeared somewhat drab and dreary. Although the tide was out, the dull water could still be seen beneath a gloomy sky. Yesterday was the most colourful feast-days of the Christian calendar (and one of the few on which actual feasting still occurs), but no-one had apparently alerted the elements.

Those shepherds who called at the Christ-child’s nativity, having been directed by the glorious angelic host, must have returned to their dreary, humdrum lives of cold nights and hard beds. The magi, of whom I reckon there might have been several hundred, went back to Persia, the piles of manuscripts and charts still demanding their attention. Eventually, Joseph went back to making tables and chairs, and Mary got on with the business of motherhood. Life carried on, the old routines were restored and the dull rhythms of everyday life continued apace. Although parents, shepherds and magi each had their lives wonderfully changed by the One before whom they fell in worship, the relative monotony of their previous lives was inevitably resumed.

Another Christmas, another year. On our return leg from the Morecambrian beach, the sunshine attempted to break through the dark clouds. The brief incursion of light and warmth was rendered the more welcome on account of the overwhelming greyness of the afternoon. God certainly changed our lives when first He drew us to Himself, when first we believed His fabulous gospel of grace. Yet the dull routines continue: employer’s expectations, utility bills, car repairs, children’s needs, parents’ demands. I invite you to look beyond the grey, the ordinary, the monotony, the repetition and the tedium. Behold the sunshine through the cloud, the promises of heaven, the assurances of the Father’s mansion, the rooms of which are being prepared for you even as you read this. Was Christmas a disappointment this year? Never mind. Look again to Christ, of whose beauty and majesty one may never tire or grow accustomed.