I listened to an interview with the renowned artist Tracey Emin on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on the 3rd December. After having major cancer in 2020 and being told she would not see Christmas, Tracey is now recovering well following major surgery and treatment. She said, ‘I’m taking every day as it comes, I’m just so happy to be alive’. You could hear the joy and relief in her voice. Her surgical team call her ‘miracle woman’ because she was not expected to be alive to see Christmas.
Tracey told us how that she is more balanced now, more cautious and feels like she has been forgiven and that a great curse has been lifted from her life. ‘If the choice was losing your bladder to survive and be happy – I chose to be happy’. She had a near-death experience, making her will and ordering her affairs, and then she was set free. ‘You prepare yourself and then receive a sudden reprieve. I will never ever take anything for granted again and I will do my best in every day, every moment. I’m on the cusp of something great’, she burbled joyfully.
Hope has come to her. Hope is the Christmas message. I too came near to death, more than once, and survived. I made my will several times and wrote out my funeral plans etc. But that was not God’s plan for me, and I am grateful. I also feel that a great curse has been lifted off from my life, and despite my advancing years, I too can’t shake off the feeling that she describes that I’m on the cusp of something great! I see it happening in the church I serve. I have hope now, but it’s all because of Jesus and Christmas.
This pandemic has been awful. There’s a lot of darkness and despair around, but I take hope from hope, and from the message of Christmas. This is how Eddie Askew puts it in his book of prayers and poems called No Strange Land (p65):
I hope for hope, Lord.
The seeds of light sown in the darkness round your cross,
germinate, and flower and fruit
in the fallow fields of my small life.
My hope starts in your death and resurrection.
Continues in the certainty of your presence.
Fulfills itself in the clear calm confidence
of final victory.
