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| Merry Christmas |
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| Don’t know about you but I just love Christmas, getting together with family, devouring a poor turkey over the period of about a week, mince pies, laughter, games, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and of course presents. |
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My favorite present is still my first bike I remember it well – black with red trim and shiny new alloy stabilizers, however this bike quickly lost its newness as within a matter of days I had rapped it round a lamp post, but that’s a whole other story. I just love Christmas!!!!
Christmas comes round once a year - just in case you hadn't noticed. It's a theme that is so, so familiar and yet so rich with meaning for Christians.
It can be difficult to come up with something fresh to talk about - young people are over-familiar with the story, they're busy with end-of-term concerts and parties, they're thinking about presents and holidays. And yet it's really important and worthwhile to get everyone to stop the whirl of Christmas activity, take a deep breath and remember what it's all about. It can be difficult to get the balance right in celebrating Christmas. We know that ‘Jesus is the reason for the season' and so we rightly want to make Him the focus of our activities. But sometimes I think we can do that in a way that makes people feel inappropriately guilty about the tinsel, turkey and presents and that's not helpful, especially if that is how they are going to be celebrating with their friends and family who are not Christians. There's nothing wrong with tinsel and turkey - there's just a lot more to Christmas than that. It’s not Jesus or presents – we can enjoy both Jesus and presents.
The Message expresses the heart of Christmas brilliantly in John 1:14:
The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one of a kind glory, like Father, like son. Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.
Jesus' time on earth means that He can understand what we go through, our joys and sorrows, difficulties and temptations. It emphasizes that God is not a distant God who looks down from a far, but He is a God who is involved, who lives and breathes, laughs and cries just like us. And yet Jesus was also different. He was tempted and yet didn't sin (Hebrews 2:14-18; 4:15, 16). He also retained his divinity while here on earth - He was both fully God and fully human. And the incarnation is a source of great wonder - that Jesus should leave the safety and comfort of heaven, to come to earth as a tiny, vulnerable baby in order to live among people who were so slow to recognize who He was, and ultimately to die for us. What a present!!! Let’s share it this Christmas.
Have a great Christmas and well earned Christmas Break.
Wilson
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Urban Saints is the operating name of The Crusaders' Union, a registered charity in England and Wales (223798) and Scotland (SCO39313) |
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