Call me Ebenezer Scrooge but, for me, Christmas is a cop-out.

 

The ghost of Christmas Past is a jovial, sunburnt, child-like memory.  He visits friends and relatives, enjoys the occasional barbecue, and revels in the presents.  He transports me back to that long ago summer when, wonder of wonders, we had three Christmas Days in a row.  (We were traveling and visiting relatives and at each stop there were new presents and more food.  You can't get much more exciting than that for an 8 year old kid.) 

 

He takes me back to the church services, Christmas Carols and Nativity plays.  Eventually the novelty wears off but, for a time at least, it still meant something.  He reminds me of later festive occasions when my family had blown apart and I dread having nowhere to go, feeling a burden upon those I do visit, and continual surprise at being made so welcome.

 

The specter of Christmas present is one of obligation to visit family if I'm lucky, or sitting at home on just another day if I'm not.

 

The spirit of Christmas future is foggy and uncertain.  He appears to me, not as a celestial TV in which I can flick through the channels to find the preview channel, but rather as a radio in which a number of stations are over-lapping.  I might, one day, have a family of my own that I can share the excitement with.  I could even find the missing meaning of Christmas again  - looking deeper than the repetition, the commercialism, the traditions and obligations.  One day I might even look forward to the next few weeks, but for now, all the stations are playing static.

Robbie Titchener

 

“The wonder of the Incarnation is that in Jesus we are told that God and humanity are meant for each other. We discover that God loves bodies, God plays with matter, God speaks to us through quarks, and atoms and molecules, through blood and lymph and bone. Through every human race and culture. The Christian story tells that God chooses to be human, chooses to know human life from moment of conception to the suffering of death. In Jesus, God knows intimately what it is to be a toddler, to have a stomach ache, to feel the rain and wind, to be betrayed and forsaken, to die. Incarnation is about God choosing to be one of us, so that we might become communities of compassion, mercy, courage, justice and care, God's  embodied presence here and now.”¹

 

“Historically at this time of year, the peoples of the Celtic lands (Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, Isle of Man, Galicia) marked the natural rhythm as autumn turned to winter. This was a time for watching for the light's return, even in the midst of darkness.  A time for pondering endings and beginnings. The pre-Christian religious practices of the Celtic peoples were inclined to celebrate the natural world as shot through with divine presence. For them, a faith tradition that celebrated the divine becoming human was plausible; incarnation was not a stumbling block as it was to the Greeks.  The Celtic tradition looks at the world and wonders at the fact that there is anything at all. The natural world is perceived as pointing beyond itself, to the divine source. God's presence makes the world……. makes you, makes your family, makes each person. God's presence invites loving, active response. God's incarnate presence provokes us to action, to care, to justice.” ²

[1 and 2 excerpts from A Celtic Christmas: Celebrating the Sacred in All Creation by Mary Earle]

 

Christmas is celebrated by Christians as a time God entered the neighbourhood and was reduced to a specific location in time and space.  Christmas is many things, not least a celebration of the locale.  The coming of Christ into a little Palestinian village, heralds a grounded spirituality that finds god among shepherds, prostitutes and piles of washing needed to be folded.  Finding god is no longer the exercise of the religious on some sacred pilgrimage, god finds us where we are at; our location, our small village of whanau, friends and colleagues.  The bustle of Christmas is apt… Christ in the hustle, the mess and stress which is year-end… as you race to secure the last of the pressies on the list, don't miss the face of Christ in a stranger and the opportunity to offer the peace of Christ… a smile or cup of cold water.

Craig Braun

 

 

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time.  Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?                                     

G.K. Chesterton