Whamageddon for the Vicar

Sermon for Christmas Night – 24 December 2025 – All Saints, Kesgrave

Christmas Day – 25 December 2025 – St Mary, Playford

Text: But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid.’  (Luke 2v10a)

God give you peace my sisters and brothers

Whamageddon – The Rules:

1. The objective is to go as long as possible without hearing Wham’s Christmas classic; ‘Last Christmas’.
2. The game starts on 1 December and finishes at the end of 24 December – so there is just an hour or so left in the game
3. Only the original version applies.  Enjoy the remixes and covers.
4. You’re out as soon as you recognise the song.
5. Post on social media with the #whamageddon hashtag when you get hit.

So just in case any of you have manged to stay in the game this long… 

[Play song…]   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8gmARGvPlI

…and when you post on Social Media to say you’ve met your ‘Whamageddon’ please feel free to blame the vicar.

There is also an ecclesiastical version of this game called ‘Harkmageddon’ but the rules are far too complex for a poor old country parson such as me. 

This is my ‘Last Christmas’.  Not my ‘Final Christmas’ (DV) but the last Christmas when I expect to have pastoral charge of a parish or a group of churches.  

Next Christmas I will not have to juggle the demands of assorted school visits with the timing of the Mothers’ Union carol service.  I will not need to worry about there being sufficient oranges to be ritually slaughtered at a variety of Christingle services nor anxiously check that all nine readers have arrived for the Festival of Lessons and Carols.  Nor will I have to worry about service sheets and candles, duty rotas and rearranging church furniture.  So there are some wins for me.

But…

Next Christmas I will not be the person making space for tears and tissues at our Blue Christmas service (please do try to make that a regular tradition in our churches friends).  I will not stand with the congregation at the lectern and read; ‘In him was life; and the life was the light of all.’  I will not be the one who brings that same light from the Advent Wreath to the candles of worshippers.  I will not gently lay the baby in the manger and proclaim that ‘Christ is born in Bethlehem’.

To some, in the light of personal grief and world-wide tragedies these may seem to be small concerns, petty even.  For others this will be their final Christmas not just their ‘Last Christmas’.  Others may look to welcome other Christmases but the hope born in the manger seems distant and the Star of Bethlehem does not shine as brightly as it used to.

How do we hold the light of eternity in a world shrouded by the darkness of sin and selfishness?  

How can we sing the angels’ song when we hear chants of hatred and anger in our streets?

Surely no amount of baubles and tinsel can cover a world which seems hell-bent on destruction?

But that is why there was the First Christmas.  War and hatred, death and prejudice, disease and disaster abounded then as now.  People did the best they could living lives shaping wood, shepherding flocks, studying the stars yet none of their efforts seemed to influence the world around them.  Until a young girl said ‘yes’.  Until a brave fiancé taught us the true meaning of faithfulness.  Until a babe was wrapped in swaddling bands and laid in a manger.

Let me tell you a secret.  The First Christmas is also the Last Christmas.  No matter where we stand in its light or from where we gaze upon the stable of Bethlehem, there has only ever been, and only will be, one Christmas.

The One who is ‘Alpha and Omega’ arrives at the beginning and brings the ending with Him also.  Yes, we will still war and rage and fall and fail but the end was accomplished at the very beginning when the angel said, Do not be afraid, and a child was born.

Since that moment, as the Pevensie children discovered in Narnia^[1], it is no longer a case of ‘Always winter and never Christmas’.  From that moment the world was turned upside down and we live, regardless of what we see around us in the time when it is ‘Always Christmas and never winter’!

For this Christmas, for our Last Christmas, and especially for that final Christmas when we will sing in tune with heaven^[2].

Archbishop Rowan Williams’ poem ‘Advent Calendar’ says it all:

He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to the bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

(Rowan Williams – Advent Calendar)

From that First Christmas and for eternity there is no Whamageddon or even Harkmageddon but only a new-born baby who holds us in his arms tonight/today, every night/every day.

May you and all those who you love and for whom you have a care know that embrace tonight/today, every night/every day.

[This blog ‘Whamageddon for the Vicar’ is copyright © Andrew Dotchin 2025 and may be reproduced without charge on condition that the source is acknowledged] 

oooOOOooo

The Birth of Jesus

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. ² (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) ³ And everyone went to their own town to register.

⁴ So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. ⁵ He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, ⁷ and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

⁸ And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. ⁹ An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. ¹¹ Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’

¹³ Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

¹⁴ ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.’

¹⁵ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.’

¹⁶ So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

(Luke 2v1-20 – NIV)

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^[1] For an overview of the Chronicles of Narnia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia

^[2] A partial quote from John Milton’s poem ‘Blest Pair of Sirens’ famously set to music by Hubert Parry.  This version was sung at the wedding of The Prince and Princess of Wales in Westminster Abbey