It's All About Love | Charlie Mackesy

it was my birthday on Friday does anybody else have a Christmas birthday does anyone they suck it's hard competing with Jesus a while back I was doing some carol singing there were four of us except Barry wouldn't think so there were three of us really yeah we were raising money for a church on this thing and it was raining and dark and not very nice and Barry was one of us and he wore sort of he's huge and he's a Geordie and he was wearing a Santa outfit that was ten sizes too small he was a Geordie stood as from a sort of mining family and he hated Christmas he found it impossible and painful I had no home so he had no home to go to and he drank his way through it and I think for a lot of people actually they found Christmas quite difficult for various reasons he really did and our carol singing so we traipse around in the rain with Barry and there was Danny and Mary me and we're just judging around singing terrible carols and we got we were in Victoria we ended up in Chester's co-ed do you know just a square it's very posh it's one most expensive kind of parts of London and it was completely silent and dark so he decided to sing silent night and it was raining and Barry was basically pressing on every single door well as we went along in his sand traffic with a bucket give us your money I mean it's really quite aggressive sort of you know and there are people kind of looking through as curtains and not coming out you know and so we got to sort of round the corner of the square and I remember seeing that's where you are that pillar is two policemen standing outside a particular door that was black you had a big nice wreath on it they're very Christmassy it was kind of Mary Poppins kind of door and as we got nearer near it singing silent night Barry he said should we room on that buzzer Veloster Friesland he said hurry so he said can I press on your buzzer and the policeman said Gorman so we're not the stairs and he pressed on that buzzer and I we were standing below the stairs and I was waiting for the door to open and the door opened and there appeared a silhouette of a sort of you know a blue form similar to mine but bigger and it was Margaret Thatcher did I mention that Barry was a Geordie from a mining family if you don't know my grits are too is he just been Prime at X prime minister and she closed a lot of mines in the north and they were very cross very hated Maggie he spoke now and again murderously of her in a Santa epic with Margaret Thatcher time stopped and we waited and Maggie just kind of looked at him and then look around and we were trying to sing silent night still trying to keep it going you know like we are carol singing I know it sounds crap we are caroling and Maggie so looked at us and looked at Barry and said how marvelous carol singers what's your name Barry said Barry may he said Barrett you're collecting for the homeless wait right there don't move she disappeared re back to us this is it we way no Turk did this turn said Maggie we were trying to keep singing Barrett was waiting for Margaret Thatcher she reappears with a roan of notes puts him in his bucket today we are by now I want to sing but it's the truth that I want to join you and sing a Carol which one she slid the DRAM bearing came down the stairs where were you were down there where you are she joined that she said and we had her a soggy sort of floppy Carol she bit like a flannel in the ring Barry came down reluctantly stood so there was me but three of us Maggie and Barry she said do you take requests this is true honestly we said we said yes I suppose what you're a thing and she looked at the unfortunately her request was she said I want to sing a little town of Bethlehem it was number one on the seat which is fortunate I said great all right and she said how still we see thee lie above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by right thanks she recited the entire verse and then Mary said I think we see now okay little B sort of things Barry wouldn't sing but I just stood there looking even redder in the face why deride staring at Maggie staring at me think what could all his face is rage like deep rate and we sang honestly sounded absolutely awful it went on it was really slow and then the bizarre thing Denis appears took off in a dress that's her husband in a dressing gown and he came down no surreal thing I've ever seen there's Dennis Margaret seen Betty and Barry looking murderous and and often you know solidified in my memory is the memory of buzzer in his outfit and Maggie who you know the Iron Lady she just run the country for quite some time in her twin set and pearls next to Barry who was in his strange outfit and all soggy stubble faced yellow fingered from chain-smoking bags under his eyes from drinking and sleeping outside for a long time and his red nose from drinking and he hated Christmas and he didn't want a thing and he really really hated Margaret Thatcher and so there we were burying me and Maggie in people's standing in the rain Larry or cross and I have to say you know getting to know Barry that for a lot of my life and his we had the similar view on on faith particular Christianity that noise that's how he felt mr. a discordant feel towards it really hated it when I was 18 I went to in nineteen I went to I think do you ever got to midnight mass I used to go just always drunk it's just a weird tradition and and vco2 hexam a bewitching Nelson sit at the back and I remember one year particularly wasn't an eighteen or nineteen watching the choir aren't these guys good by the way anyway at the back listening to acquire and it was all bright and glistening in pure and lovely and we're at the back feeling not very bright or care at all and I what I would do is draw cartoons filthy cartoons on the back of the service year I've got one here the kind of thing else to do it says have you put all the decorations up yourself sorry that kind of thing and then a person down and people would giggle and we all giggle then my friend Marco I was at school with he leant into me and he whispered apparently Mary and Joseph had a stable relationship now I just look forward so loving it was a sign a bit of the church all that everyone giggled and when you know when you just can't stop and you're not allowed to laugh in church you know he's kind of coming out your eyes is its mouth is squeaking your phasic it's awful the row in front kept turning around scout and it went on and on every time I looked at mark he laughs and we say each other off anyway at the end of the service the people who are in the front row so look round us and one one the particular kind of said you know I think it's just disrespectful of religion and Christianity and I think you're ungodly and I staggered out and I remember then thinking actually quietly that I would choose then with a red line underneath Christianity and it's like that that was my line of okay that's enough now and I became an atheist and I enjoyed it but one of the things I discovered in atheism was I kept praying just inadvertently things by accident and you know when I was worried and I kept meanwhile my dinner any better a kind of traced my little way along the line to a faith and I would sort of realize quietly that Christianity the core of it was good and full of love it's not always evident but it is and I wasn't good or full of love and I think I screw up on a daily basis and face or no face I just I'm like that look at my cartoon but I discovered this one thing and I am obsessed with it and I will bash this drum forever which is the shepherds in the nativity round the manger maybe you know this already but if you don't know they had a terrible reputation really if you don't know this we don't tell it it disempowers the situation completely I think they were seen as immoral and godless disrespectful outside us they never went to the temple they were seen as unclean and the testimony would never be accepted in the court and I think if we make them more cute and nice we miss the rawness of this because it excludes people who feel on the outside if you feel on the outside like I always did you're really not so when you see a nativity remember this they were bad boys I think it's crucial and I told Barry this in the pub I said buzzer you may not know this you know you know it's full on the outside like me but listen to this just let me read you this he said you're gonna read me in the pub from my Bible I said yes I said you're a freak but I read it and I said listen there were Shepherds living out like you buzzer in the fields at night keeping what of your flocks not that you have them for your outside and an angel appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone round them and they were terrified he said I'm not surprised and he said I bring you they said I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people today in the town of David a savior has been born to you bury shepherds he is Christ the Lord Savior not someone to make you feel guilty or ungodly but our Savior this will be assigned to you you will find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger otherwise known as a trot bury these people who are poor these people were humble they won't judge you even if you've been by judge by religion they won't Shepherds were continually rejected they never went anywhere socially we're never invited but buzzer you'll feel relaxed in that situation you won't be judged the unclean basically were the first people actually invited to the first Christmas ever to see the central figure in history book how do you feel about that he was grinning Barry I guess felt important maybe because he is for your life and then they clearly enjoyed it by said no one was that skipping judgmental looks and what are you doing here and have you print praying recently and huh blah blah blah they were just they had a good time clearly because when they left they were rejoicing and I think this is Grace it's indiscriminate compassion it's the antidote the perfectionism right here ragamuffins accepted as loved knowing they didn't they couldn't earn a thing it was a gift that's what Christmas is a gift you're given gifts this is a gift nothing can be earned the shepherds couldn't earn a phone they were just invited if you're on the outside you're invited it's the greatest thing and basil was all over the show he is really excited and I can't try to explain to him that Jesus actually is the true north for the human spirit we all have these kind of compasses spinning round looking and looking seeking deep down always dissatisfied bang true north he didn't come to judge the world buzzer but to save it and Basile was kind of elated I think quality but there we were standing in the ring with Margaret Dennis was there as I said the three of us and Dennis did this he wasn't resyncing like Barry and he just laid his head on Maggie shoulder now you liked it she looked at him and kept singing but I look around at the situation he looked at me raises eyebrows didn't sing and so I went on and the next thing was really truly odd is that might Maggie do two things she shut her eyes because she knew all the words and her arm was here around Dennis's she linked it she just said that and she was singing and Dennis is like this so there was Margaret and then Barry was here and staring at me all rigid and Margaret just slowly stuck her arms through his own honestly and he just looked down at her hands and then look for me and she kept singing and I tried to keep singing and then this is this is kind of a festival of oddness because he then started singing I had never I know I'm very a long time he never sang in church he came because the homeless project he never sang start sing and I found myself staring in this you got situation she didn't shut her eyes and then and then bizarrely Barry on about the third verse is so slow so his eyes so there was Barry Mattie and Dennis sort of singing and they got to that hole that beautiful Asbury sand of the line Oh Holy Child of Bethlehem descend to us we pray cast out us in and enter and be born in us today he sang her it's like extraordin and you know is truly an odd sight I've seen some odd sights in my life this is surely one of the greatest and to see Maggie singing in the rain in the dark with Dennis half asleep on her shoulder is quite an odd sight to see Maggie and Dennis and Barry arms linked linked with the guy who hated he hated her smoked murderously Am I and he had his head back slightly singing in the rain with Maggie Armin on honestly and I remember being sort of kind of really emotional about to thinking this is really really what Christmas is because the tensions went to peace he just went to peace just for the while and I'm thinking you know this is really really what Christmas is the woman who distensible down the mines was linked arms of the person who essentially suffered from that and he'd sort of let it go and he was singing with her and I thought if this isn't what Christmas all types of people you know with different difficult we've all difficulties in our lives but Christmas is a time when you can just sort of let go of hatred let go maybe of fear the grudges that tie me up and knots and I have them but now they were just singing to the Prince of Peace for two years in the rain in the dark and I kept staring at it trying to sing that start thinking you know if this isn't what this confused unforgiving world needs right now the warring situation I don't know what is imagine if we all just just stopped the ones who hate each other and just shut her eyes and fangs the Prince of Peace imagine imagine if we love the people we hate it such a relief to let it go that's Christmas I also think odd as it sounds I Barry hadn't at home you always find it painful when people said where are you going for Christmas he wasn't going anywhere and I think you know ultimately God is really home that's the thing it starts in the manger as an invitation but that's really where it ends it's home and if you struggle with Christmas remember that that home can be inside if anyway a week or so later we all I took Barry did you see the Messiah he'd ever been to anything like it in his life it's a performance in Westminster and we took a few of us went and we're sitting in the back as usual and Barry was sitting next to me and I don't if you've heard the Messiah but it's pretty beautiful and we talked about it before we've read through that the word so he did know what it was about and it got got to the bit about the Shepherd's and Barry was listening intently and it got to the bit you know the shepherd bit and I just noticed that tears were just pouring down his face just pouring down his face he was showing his eyes and I sort of wasn't sure I didn't I tried not to look at him I just kept so staring at the orchestra and stuff and he was just it was extraordinary and then he just about you know minutes later he remember him just leaning into me just learnt into me and said Oh sir I said yes buzzer he said chatter is this really is just about love isn't it and I said yeah it really is this is just about love anyway right Thanks Thanks you

Channel: HTB Church

Views: 44,987

Rating: 4.9150443 out of 5

Keywords: holy trinity brompton, htb, htb church, htb church london, charlie mackesy, god, love, hope, christmas, margaret thatcher, live, jesus, carols, htb alternative carols, alternative carols, alpha, alpha course, try alpha, christian, faith, new faith, life

Id: BO4knJlgKpw

Length: 20min 35sec (1235 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 21 2015