CHRISTIAN VIEWPOINT: Festivities create conflicting feelings - especially with subliminal message that we must buy our way to a joyful Christmas
I'm conflicted about the way we do Christmas. I love the old story of Mary and Joseph making their way to Bethlehem, the baby Jesus, angelsong, shepherds, wise men. I even love the grudgingly hospitable inn-keeper. And I recoil from the villain, evil King Herod.
I love the focus on kindness and giving and celebrating together. I love remembering the tingling sense of anticipation I felt as a child on Christmas Eve.
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Above all, I love the fact that Jesus was born to bring us light, hope and love. Light to see the way ahead, hope to bear us forward, a profound divine love to encounter.
I loved, last Christmas, seeing Father Iain at St Michael's kneeling at the stroke of midnight and reverently placing the baby into the nativity scene crib. It was as if God was kneeling, tenderly placing the newborn in the cattle-shed manger.
But I'm conflicted by the commercialism surrounding the festival, the subliminal message that we must buy our way to a joyful Christmas. I'm conflicted by awareness of so many people for whom the festive season is a time of pain due to haunting memories, mental and other health issues, financial struggles, loneliness, crumbling relationships, a crushing numbness of spirit.
What Christmas needs is much less consumer messaging, much more focus on that Jesus-centred light, hope and love. And all of us who have glimpsed this reality are called to embody it in our living.
Like Mary, we bear Christ within us, and give birth to him in actions and words; like Joseph we take it on trust that there is a divine scenario; like the inn-keeper we make space for Jesus in our lives and welcome the stranger, which often amounts to the same thing.
Like the shepherds we come to see if it is truly true; like the wise men we read the signs of God's activity, and bring to Jesus the gift of all we are, and seek to discern Herod-heartedness in ourselves and others. Like the angels we say 'Wow!', amazed that the Creator comes humbly to us.
All our holy Christmas words are in vain unless our lives are beacons, no matter how flickering they may be, spreading light and hope and love.
As I approached the communion rail at St Michael's last Tuesday, I was numbly muttering to God: “Please view my taking of this bread and wine as an expression of my faith in you.” Father Iain placed the symbolic wafer reverently in my hand, saying: “This is Christ's body, given for you.” And it seemed that God was saying to me: “You don't have to struggle to prove your faith. I have given myself for you! All will be well!”
