Picture courtesy of Alex Seabright – Thanks Alex!
Beverley’s Letter December 2016
Christmas already?!
I’m writing this more than a month before the 25th December, but there have been Christmas decorations up in the shops for weeks. Yes, Christmas is coming, and we’re all probably resigned to seeing more and more Christmas adverts on the telly.
It’s all too easy to get swept along with all the jingles, hype and marketing that goes with a ‘commercial’ Christmas, and perhaps every year many of us find ourselves asking – is this what Christmas is really all about?
So much of the rushing around we do in the run up to the big day seems to involve finding just the right gift for each person on our list, and in all that frenzy of buying, wrapping, giving and receiving of gifts in can feel that the real message of Christmas is being forgotten.
But actually the real message of Christmas is all about giving and receiving – but not the kind of gift we buy and exchange with one another. The real message of Christmas is about celebrating the giving and receiving of the most wonderful gift of all – God’s gift of himself to the world – as at Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Son of God, the Messiah.
God sent his Son into the world as a tiny defenceless baby, human and vulnerable just like each of us. He came to teach us that we should love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and that we should love one another just as Jesus loves each of us.
So what about that little baby in the manger? Will he be an important part of our Christmas, or will he and his message be lost in all the busy-ness? Amidst all the excitement, all the planning and organisation, all the card-writing, gift wrapping, house decorating, food preparation and so on can we find some time to a time to reflect on that real meaning of Christmas?
This Advent, maybe we can all try to do just that. Maybe we can take just a quiet moment or two each day to prepare ourselves to celebrate the birth of the Christ-child – God’s gift to each and every one of us. Time to prepare to celebrate the wonderful news, which was revealed to the shepherds, to Joseph and Mary, to the wise men…. that God sent his son to became a human being to live among us, to die for us, to defeat and transcend death and the grave, and to offer to all of us his wonderful gift, the only gift really worth having, the very best gift of all… his love – and the promise of eternal life with him.
At Christmas, and always, God reaches out to you and to me – to each and every one of us. So in accepting his gift, and celebrating anew again this year the birth of Jesus, I pray that we will all feel the warmth and light of Christ.
I wish you a blessed Advent, and a joyful Christmas.
Beverley.