Church News Volume 4, Issue 3

Dear friends,

When we think of Christmas we are often transported into a romantic world of snow on the rooftops and streets, carol singers on street corners, log fires burning in the home, bright lights and presents, food in plenty, family and friends gathered round in harmony.

But what is the reality when Christmas arrives?

It seldom snows at this time of the year, carol singers on the street corners are few and far between, we feel stressed out by having fought our way through the crowds buying our presents the weeks before, we have over shopped for our food and worry that we have forgotten something we might need 'just in case'.

Family harmony? We are dreading how we shall cope with the forced niceties of the days of Christmas!

No Christmas is never as romantic in reality as we like to picture it in our dreams. That's why, year by year, when Christmas Day does arrive finally, we feel a sense of emptiness, anticlimax. We have spent so much time building an ideal Christmas in our minds that the reality leaves us disappointed.

When we spare a thought for the first Christmas scene that too is often a romantic image. A baby wrapped in beautifully white clothes, in a clean manger with fresh hay. The stable is bright and warm, the visitors polite and reverential, the cattle are sleeping or looking on knowingly.

The reality was quite different. The stable would have been cold and damp, the floor and manger dirty and smelly, the visitors rough looking and unwashed. The clothes of the baby almost rags. Mary tired from the birth, Joseph exhausted from the journey, stressed by worry and relief. Yes the reality was quite different. Christmas calls us to see beyond the glitter and commercialism of the Christmas the advertisers would like us to believe in, and be realistic in what we are celebrating.

God was made man in Palestine. He chose to become poor so that we might find the riches of His love shown to us in Jesus Christ. Keep Christmas simple and be realistic in your preparations and celebrations - then you will begin to really understand and find the true joy of the Christmas Feast.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS to you all !

EVERY BLESSING in the NEW YEAR.

Revd Ian M. Finn

News Letter Archive.