From Cradle to Grave and Beyond

 

As we prepare for Christmas, I wonder what you’re having to make room for.  Are you having to make space in a bedroom for extra guests or an extra chair or several at your table?  Are you rearranging your furniture to make room for a Christmas tree or even rearranging your outdoor planters to make room for a blow up snowman or Santa?  I wonder if you have time, or consciously make room, for pondering what Christmas is about?

This year, somewhere between the tinsel and the turkey, or maybe in the days between year end and year beginning, I invite you to make room for pondering Christ Jesus.  This is after all what many Christians around the world do during Advent.  They intentionally stop and take a pause to remember that first Christmas, which reminds them that Jesus is the Christ child that gave us Christmas.  But why does it matter today, 2,000 plus years later? 

I’m looking forward to Christmas 2022.  It seems so much more hopeful than recent years where the threat of death from an unknown and virulent virus overshadowed all our lives.  I am grateful to those gifted in medicine and prevention to ensure that this year we can meet up with loved ones and celebrate perhaps in a more usual way.  However, I’m also mindful that there are many who even in these times struggle to find love, joy, peace, and hope.  Having recently had my latest Covid vaccination, I reflected that whilst this might delay serious illness, as Ben Franklin said, death is one of the only two certainties in life.  I also ponder what is Christmas hope to those who are homeless, hungry, and harassed.  So as I pause to reflect on the Christ-child, I remember that he came as the Prince of Peace who is able to comfort all in need.  I remember that his Spirit of peace lives in those who follow him and seek to be his Kingdom carriers and carers to those who are hurting and in need.  But I also remember that he came into our world not only to demonstrate the amazing power and beauty and goodness of God’s Kingdom, but also to defeat the power of death.  He came to make a way that leads to a new life on earth and an eternal life with a loving, gracious, and merciful God in heaven.  The promise of eternal life in a place where there is no more pain, no crying, no wars, and no disease.  

Now that is worth celebrating.  

So, if you accept my invitation to pause and ponder, why not ask the Spirit of Christ to show you the fullest meaning of the spirit of Christmas and receive a gift that will never go out of date or run out of batteries and will endure forever and ever.  


Wishing you blessings of eternal joy, peace, hope, and love this Christmas and always.


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