MERRY Christmas. What a strange greeting. We would never meet someone in the street and wish them a "merry" day.
Yet the greeting to the gentlemen in the popular carol is "God rest ye merry, gentlemen".
This greeting conjures up an image of red-faced Victorian gentlemen celebrating with their tankards of ale.
However, the truth runs a little deeper.
"God rest you merry" was the hymn writer's version of the greeting from the angel to the shepherds.
It was not a description of slightly tipsy revellers.
The word "rest" relates to "keep" whilst the word "merry" can mean "joyful" or "at peace".
So the greeting in this traditional carol is better understood as "God keep you at peace".
As an opening address to the shepherds, it was not just an attempt to calm them down in their terror.
It is an assurance that, in uncertainty, either at a personal or international scale, there is a way of peace.
The shepherds were urged to go to Bethlehem and find their peace in the Christ Child.
We look today to the same source. God rest you merry, this Christmastide.
The Venerable Brian Harper,
Archdeacon of Clogher.
