St Margaret's Church Prestwich

This article was written for inclusion in the December 2025 issue of our parish magazine.

In mid-December 2024 Rev Christine cam to me with a suggestion of a new anthem for Christmas – “but not this Christmas”, she said, “it’s far too short notice!” I found the sheet music, loved it, checked with Tom, and bought it. We offered it at the midnight and Christmas morning services that year.

Graham Kendrick skilfully sets the scene of Mary, teenaged single mum, making an arduous journey and giving birth in a distant and dirty stable. Kendrick wonders whether she foresaw the tragedy and injustice of how her child would die… a sword shall pierce your soul…

As the child Jesus grows, Kendrick asks again whether Mary made the link between her son and the Torah prophets. As he began his ministry, did Mary fear for his future? As he died, did she link it all together?

Jesus’ crown of thorns was made from acacia – each thorn around 5cm long and needle sharp. In this song, Graham Kendrick uses these thorns as a device for Mary to understand the past, witness the present, and signpost the future. The lyrics are:

Since the day the angel came
It seemed that everything had changed
The only certain thing
Was the child that moved within
On the road that would not end
Winding down to Bethlehem
So far away from home

Just a blanket on the floor
Of a vacant cattle-stall
But there the child was born
She held him in her arms
And as she laid him down to sleep
She wondered – will it always be
So bitter and so sweet

CHORUS:       And did she see there
In the straw by his head a thorn
And did she smell myrrh
In the air on that starry night
And did she hear angels sing
Not so far away
Till at last the sun rose blood-red
In the morning sky

Then the words of ancient seers
Tumbled down the centuries …
A virgin shall conceive…
God with us… Prince of Peace
Man of Sorrows – strangest name
Oh Joseph there it comes again
So bitter yet so sweet

And as she watched him through the years
Her joy was mingled with her tears
And she’d feel it all again
The glory, and the shame
And when the miracles began
She wondered, who is this man
And where will this all end

‘Til against a darkening sky
The son she loved was lifted high
And with his dying breath
She heard him say ‘Father forgive’
And to the criminal beside
“Today – with me in Paradise”
So bitter yet so sweet

CHORUS

I particularly like this song because it doesn’t sanitise the circumstances of the first Christmas. It looks ahead, unblinking, to Easter, and the reason for Christ’s birth here on earth. For similar reasons, if I’m offered a choice of which king’s verse to sing in “We Three Kings”, I always choose Balthazar – “Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom – sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in a stone-cold tomb.”

You will almost certainly hear this song again this year in our church’s Christmas services. Meanwhile, here is Graham Kendrick performing Thorns in the Straw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv9sJ1s8Sik, and here are Tom and I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUof0-wNrPQ

Carol P