Mary gave her body
Joseph gave his reputation
Caesar gave his orders
The innkeeper gave his manger
The magi gave their gifts
The heavenly host gave their praise
And the shepherds gave their worship.
Mary gave birth
Joseph gave a name
Heaven gave a Saviour
The Father gave a Son.
The darkness gives way to the light
And death gives way to life.
I hope you all a Christmas filled with light and life.
If you hadn’t noticed it’s nearly Christmas, that time of year where we go slightly loco with money and stuff, and it’s a unique event. Rampant consumerism and the celebration of the birth of Christ in a stable, and it was combining those two things that led to this very clever advert. Of course in the race to condemn all this excess we may kill all the fun or so thinks Sarah Dunn. This chart shows Christmas spending by country.
Unsurprisingly, in America despite not having the most money they will spend nearly the most on gifts. This is because, as Eugene Peterson says in this short video, the most materialistic we have ever known and shows how to handle wealth! (Ht: Mark Meynell)
It was following a drive through America that Tim Challies began to seriously think about the issue of money. He found this prayer on stuff and contentment and then ways to think wrongly about money. He then asks the questions do I have to give? And if so how much do I give?
This all goes to show that we live in a consumer age and it’s a pressure not evenly felt. By that I mean, as this post says, ‘UK parents seem to find themselves under tremendous pressure to purchase a surfeit of material goods for their children. This compulsive consumption was almost completely absent in both Spain and Sweden.’ A thesis that our personal experience can anecdotally support.
The best antidote is to be generous and to cultivate gratitude and that takes some thought. It’s worth thinking about.
“(this is)…the centrepiece of what Ratzinger actually did say in his Thought for the Day. ‘Christ destroyed death forever and restored life by means of his shameful death on the Cross.’ More shameful than the death itself is the Christian theory that it was necessary. It was necessary because all humans are born in sin.”
Absolutely, Christians believe that humanity is riddled inescapably with sin. Dawkins on the other hand resents the notion.
“That sin, with which every newborn baby is hideously stained (another charming notion), was so terrible that it could be forgiven only through the blood sacrifice of a scapegoat. But no ordinary scapegoat would do. The sin of humanity was so great that the only adequate sacrificial victim was God himself.
That’s right. The creator of the universe, sublime inventor of mathematics, of relativistic space-time, of quarks and quanta, of life itself, Almighty God, who reads our every thought and hears our every prayer, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God couldn’t think of a better way to forgive us than to have himself tortured and executed. For heaven’s sake, if he wanted to forgive us, why didn’t he just forgive us? Who, after all, needed to be impressed by the blood and the agony? Nobody but himself.”
Dawkins forgets completely about justice, refuses to think sin is all that serious, offensive or destructive. He fails to see in the cross God’s condemnation of sin, abhorrence of sin and rejection of sin because there is no price that needs paying. He’s God he can just let us off right? And so Dawkins fails to see the need for repentance and therefore of redemption. He misses the totality of forgiveness.
Dawkins sums up his feelings about the heart of the Christian faith, forget science, forget the creation of the universe, this is the key:
“But he [the Pope] is also guilty of promoting one of the most repugnant ideas ever to occur to a human mind: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22).”
Sadly I don’t think Richard Dawkins would appreciate 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 but it’s what he needs to know.
At Christmas I’ll gladly stand up and promote, even boast in such repugnance. Not that I think it occurred to a human mind but instead began in the heart of God. Sin is costly, it is deadly, it is death. Sin is repugnant, repulsive and rancid. Frankly I need to be see that or I’d be complacent and reckless, and I’m grateful that someone stood in my place on the cross because when I stand in front of God in His place I’ll know I’m not out of place.
At Christmas we celebrate not just a birth but grace coming in human form, we celebrate salvation from repugnance. Merry Christmas.
“I felt I wanted to write and say many thanks to you and Soul Purpose and to other kind friends who helped to arrange such a Happy Christmas Day.I’ve had ninety-six Christmas’ and the one Soul Purpose invited me to was one of the best I wasn’t looking forward this year to Christmas without my dear husband but you helped to take some of the sadness away. I thank you all for giving me a happy joyful time to share with others and for the hard work and hours of preparation to give so many lonely folk such a great time. A Happy New Year to you all. God Bless”
I nearly cried.
Merry Christmas – may the truth of God become flesh remind us of His great grace to us.
Have hope, there is light in the world!
This video is on my front page for a reason
“Over a billion Christmas cards are now sent in the UK every year- 17 for every man, woman and child in the country. Most of them end up in the bin”
and
“Bearing in mind that most cards say little of any significance, and end up in the bin within days, I personally think that the greeting card culture is a bit odd. If I have something to say, surely it’s more meaningful to say it in person. To buy a card is just outsourcing our affection to Clinton’s Cards, a kind of commodified sentiment.”
Dinner for 120 it is then. So families volunteered on mass and we began asking people who would otherwise be on their own to come and join us for dinner. And nearly 30 of them did.
We had a good number of guests which is always key to the success of a guest service. The musicians did a great job and we have some very talented people for a small (ish) church.
Our theme was ‘why Christmas is beautiful news’ and I decided to try and make the link with this years Christmas no.1, which is Alexandra Burke’s version of ‘Hallelujah’ (for the record the Jeff Buckley one is better). It’s interesting that at Christmas we have the nation humming hallelujah, but like the song, without Jesus it’s a cold and broken hallelujah.
For those of you interested you can read my talk here but we don’t have the audio up yet. (I’m not even sure it was recorded).
And for your appreciation I compared the slightly depressing lyrics of Hallelujah with Lincoln Brewster’s worship rewrite, Another Hallelujah and put this slideshow with it. (Tech geeks, I recommend SlideRocket for presentations). Enjoy and hope you know the presence of our Saviour with you this Christmas.
Recent extras in our household include £260 on gas boiler repairs and parts. Deep joy. But I have a wife who ceases to fu
nction at low temperatures. Heating and hot water made this an essential.
This coincided with a planned expenditure. My motorbike needed an MOT and I needed a new helmet. £100 to keep my head in one piece should I fall off the bike is I think a sound investment. Others may disagree. I’d already stretched the replacement of the old one beyond reasonable. I also happen to think my new piece of gear is quite cool.
When you’re on a below national average income these things can be a challenge, it’s the timing of these events more than anything. December isn’t a great time for most people to be hit by extra financial burdens because on average they will spend £655 on Christmas festivities. Fortunately for us, living simply means this isn’t something we’ll be doing and because we live within our means and budget we can cope with the extras and (hopefully) quickly return to pre-challenge levels of giving.
A few key lessons emerge for me:
“If you understand God – what Jesus has done, and will do; the awesome majesty of the Father – then you are not going to worry so much about money! Christmas often minimizes Jesus. We see images of the crib and the cattle. We sing away in a manger. But Paul wants us to lift our gaze. He wants us to see the indescribable greatness of God, and live like a Christian.”
Others have also been doing some good thinking about Christmas – read, remember and act
For other ideas try Buy Nothing Christmas or Alternativity or Advent Conspiracy or Rethinking Christmas
“This text speaks of the birth of a child, not the revolutionary deed of a strong man, or the breath-taking discovery of a sage, or the pious deed of a saint. It truly boggles the mind: The birth of a child is to bring about the great transformation of all things, is to bring salvation and redemption to all of humanity. As if to shame the most powerful human efforts and achievements, a child is placed in the centre of world history. A child born of humans, a son given by God. This is the mystery of the redemption of the world; all that is past and all that is to come is encompassed here.”
“No priest, no theologian stood at the cradle of Bethlehem. And yet all Christian theology finds its beginning in the miracle of miracles that God became human.”
“When God chooses Mary as the instrument, when God wants to enter this world in the manger in Bethlehem, this is not an idyllic family occasion, but rather the beginning of a complete reversal, a new ordering of all things on this earth.”
“The miracle of all miracles is that God loves the lowly….God is not ashamed of human lowliness, but goes right into the middle of it, chooses someone as an instrument and performs miracles right there, where they are least expected”
“Celebrating Advent means being able to wait. Waiting, however, is an art that our impatient age has forgotten….We must wait for the greatest, most profound, most gentle things in the world; nothing happens in a rush, but only according to the divine laws of germination and growth and becoming.”
This is another attractive gift book with Bonhoeffer in the same vein as Who Am I? and makes for a thoughtful gift for Advent (it’s a bit late for such recommendations but never mind there’s always next year). The format is the same with a reflection, phrase or thought from the great man and they really did make me stop and think about the season we’re in.
I’m a bit jaded about Christmas, it doesn’t have much wonder for me and I’ve been seeking how to celebrate what it really means in a way that has integrity to the event itself. So for example the way we share the Lord’s Supper (while by no means perfect) seems fitting to the event I’m remembering, but I just can’t say the same about Christmas. So to genuinely pause again in awe at what happened was a pleasant surprise. So I’m going to post some of the quotes in the last few days before Christmas day.
“With fripperies available for a song, sobriety and responsibility have set in: eco-friendly and organic increasingly belong to the mainstream, while value for money has made a comeback.”
I would have said a silent ‘hurrah’ if I’d actually believed any of that tosh. What I did believe was some of the facts I read in the headlining piece of their Extra section – The Bank of Britain: How did you spend Christmas? We are in so much debt, we don’t know why or what to do.
And I did believe Bruce Anderson in his op ed piece where he said this:
“Modern Britain is a contract society. It is also one in which the poor are bombarded by the relentless propaganda of consumerism. Throughout their day, they are constantly reminded about the goods which they would like to possess, but cannot attain.”
How very sad and very true.
I’m getting itchy with all the buying going on around me, so I’ve started to simplify (again). I was going to wait until New Year but as I look around at the videos I may never watch again, the wardrobe with clothes I haven’t worn for a year, the junk that has accumulated in the various corners of the house. You have to feel sorry for my wife as I poke around constantly asking ‘do we need this?’ while holding up some unknown item from under the stairs.
It may be a personality thing but I feel more at ease with myself, more open to others when I’m not bloated with possessions. Besides consciously not wanting so much stuff is, albeit rather slowly, helping me focus on the joy of giving rather than receiving at Christmas. Sorry for the slightly worthy tone of this post, just how I’m feeling today.
I believe Jesus when he said 'life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions'. I believe he offers something better. This blog is mostly about that search.
I'm also a husband, a father, church planter, keen runner, reader, and motorcyclist. These and a few other things make guest appearances from time to time.
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