Post Christmas Thoughts

By New Year’s Day our Christmas 2017 celebrations are almost past and gone, although we are still in the Christmas season, and some of our Orthodox friends, in other parts of the world, will be celebrating the Nativity of Christ on the 7th of January.  

That’s not because of any difference in belief about the importance of Christmas; they are simply following an earlier calendar for their traditional festivals.  
 
What is important is not the actual date of the celebration, but what we are all celebrating. It really is amazing. God, becoming one of us, and not even as a full grown man, but as a tiny, helpless babe, totally dependent on the love and care of a human family.  
 
Of course, Jesus did not remain a baby. He grew into manhood and lived a fully human life, but such a life! A life filled with God’s love, poured out for all of God’s creation. A life spent teaching about the Kingdom of God, a life spent in the service of those around him, healing the sick, befriending the outcasts, comforting the lonely, transforming the lives of sinners.  
 
And ultimately sacrificing himself for the redemption of the world, our redemption, so that we might know the wonder of God’s love and live in harmony with God for ever. 
 
No wonder Angels sang at his birth and shepherds came to worship, wondering at their message of peace.  
 
No wonder Wise Men came from afar, not realising the full import of the child’s destiny, but recognising that it would be significant. 
 
No wonder Simeon in the temple could say that he would die in peace because he had seen God’s salvation.  
 
And Mary kept all these things in her heart, not understanding what it all meant, but loving her child and trusting in God.     What of us? We too do not understand it all. We can only trust in God as Mary did. 
 
The wonder of it all for Christians is that Christ now lives in our hearts, and once again is dependent upon human frailty for the life of the Kingdom. 
 
We cannot let him down. With God’s Grace we can be fruitful labourers in the vineyard until indeed ‘the Earth is filled with the Glory of God as the waters cover the sea.’  
 
Love, Prayers and Blessings,        

Joy