Friday, December 24, 2021 15:22:43
Posted By Nan
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Luke 1:26-56 In our family, the 5th candle, to be lit Christmas Day, was always called the Jesus candle. Growing up I was always hearing Noel sung, spoken or even written. I just assumed it was one of those words a child didn’t understand. When I was preparing for this Christmas I decided to look it up. It is from French meaning to be born. Beautiful. And what a celebration of a birth it is. A birth that is the most important and world changing birth ever. Christmas is so much more than a holiday. It is easy to forget that. Here in Australia we usually take time off between Christmas and New Year and even into early January. Even if there is no time off, there are plenty of public holidays to extend Christmas. I know I look forward to the time in December when I see my last client for the year and close the door to my room with the promise I will return in a few weeks. It is easy to see Christmas as being about holidays and soaking up the sun. Christmas is more than buying presents, wrapping presents, buying food, cooking food. It is more than Christmas wishes shared around. It is more than Santa or Elf on the Shelf. It is more even than being with family. Christmas may include those things, but more importantly it is the time for us to reflect on God’s promises for our salvation to come from one who sits on the throne of the line of David. It is time for us to reflect on what it cost Jesus, who was God, to humble himself to become a human and live a life that would end in a horrifying death. Christmas is also about preparing to honour that baby, born into poverty, destined for a difficult life, yet willing to do it for us. Christmas is also about renewal. Coming away fresh from a day honouring Jesus and renewing our memory of what He has done for us, renewing our faith and commitment to the path following Jesus. What we must not neglect in this time is the reading of our Bibles. It isn’t too late to get that Bible out now and read it. It is never so busy that you cannot spend even 5 minutes remembering what Jesus did for us when he was born as a tiny baby, grew, ministered and died for us. We must never forget Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, the Christ. It is about the arrival of the light of Jesus into the world. About the light that lights our path so we may follow Him in the light, so we may have the true light of life. I was reading an article this morning that talked about how important it is for children to believe in Santa and be allowed to grow out of that belief. The writer likened Santa to mercy, compassion and justice. It was sad to read that. To read how those stumbling in darkness have invented a character that has the characteristics of Jesus, but in an imperfect, secular way. This week I have spoken to so many people who cannot get home to see family this Christmas. I have spoken to those who have their family there but only see the point of Christmas because they have young children who will be present. All these people fail to see how Christmas means anything or is even enjoyable. Once the magic of Christmas was dispelled at the realisation Santa was not real, the magic was gone from Christmas. Without God, without Jesus, Christmas is just empty consumerism. That consumerism is contagious. It infects us too. It is important we don’t forget that Christmas is about Jesus. That the magic and attraction of Christmas is remembering and acknowledging Jesus birth in a stable. While we come to be obsessed with Christmas being about family, it is easy to forget that Joseph and Mary had no family around them. They were in a dirty, drafty stable with the animals. They did not even have a cradle to put Jesus into or lovely clothes to cover Him with. At the time of Jesus’ birth, the Jewish people were unsure of their identity. They no longer had a homeland. It was under Roman occupation with a non Jew as their nominal king. The promises of God ruling the world with justice and peace seemed so far away. Mary was one of that nation who remembered the past and what they had lost in the present. There was the promise of a Messiah who was to come. The people endowed Him with all their longing to return to the days of nationhood. The Messiah seemed to be an impossible promise. In this time, we see Mary, a young teenager, visited by an angel who tells her the impossible. The Holy Spirit was to place in her uterus a baby, who was the Messiah, God. This young girl did not deny the visit from the angel, or the fact that she was pregnant when she had never lain with a man. When Mary visited her cousin, pregnant in a point in life way past when women usually fell pregnant. The baby in her cousin’s uterus leapt for joy. She wondered what was happening. She knew something amazing and mighty was coming. Something that, although it promises a better way, was frightening in the radical changes it would bring about. For hundreds of years people had waited despairingly for the promised Messiah. Now Mary and Elizabeth realised He was coming. But people had been waiting so long many had lost hope He would actually come. For people today, the promise of Jesus return was made two thousand years ago. It seems to so many that it will never happen, and they have fallen away. The symbolism of the Messiah appearing as a tiny baby. Symbolising the newness of what was happening, of the need to be reborn. The day when Jesus returns comes closer all the time. We don’t know how long we will have to wait. It may not even be in our life times. But it will come. Mary had faith in God, despite the danger of her being an unwed, pregnant woman. She had faith in what God had told her. She was one of the few who was full of faith and hope in the promises God had made. We need to be like that too. We need to let go of the cynicism that has seeped in as Christmas is made into a secular holiday with all the commercial bells and whistles, as people rob the day of its true meaning. We need to declare as Mary did that we are God’s servants. We need to ask that His promises are fulfilled as He decrees. May we be blessings to others, witnesses of the baby’s birth. May our souls glorify God and our spirits rejoice in God our Saviour. May we never forget that God delights in the humble and blesses them. That His idea of the worthy is not the world’s idea. That God fulfilled His promise to Abraham in sending Jesus into the world and He will fulfil His promise to us in Jesus return. In the meantime, we need to use Christmas as the time to remember the baby’s birth. God’s promises. We need to remember each year to spend the time of Advent reflecting, preparing and being open to renewal at the celebration of Jesus’ birth. |