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He will save (Matthew 1:21)
In the news this Christmas there has been controversy over the Whitehouse Christmas Card because instead of wishing recipients a Merry Christmas it wished them a "Happy Holiday". Bill Clinton started this trend. Before him traditional cards were sent out. George W Bush has followed Clinton's example in any event and, in a film put out by the Whitehouse, the president spoke of the meaning of the "holiday season". In a country that has the highest number of churchgoers in the West this has not gone down well in many circles, although the ACLU is probably celebrating in its own secular way this triumph for political correctness. Of course Christmas means so many different things to different people and, in this pick-and-mix society, it comes as no surprise that people instil Christmas with whatever meaning warms their hearts - or proves politically expedient.
The usual controversy rages about Christmas lights - do you love them or hate them? Do you, like me, wonder if people really think those icicle type lights they hang around the eaves look like snow? Ten-foot inflatable snowmen - what are they all about? And why does a Christmas card with drifts of cold, wet snow make us feel warm and sentimental? Why is there snow on Christmas cards at all, and why are we disappointed more often than not when our expectations of a white Christmas are dashed - again? Why is the Christmas of our imaginations, and of the advertisers, nothing like the Christmas of our experience?
White Christmases began with Charles Dickens. Between 1550 and 1850 Britain was in the grip of a mini ice age. When Charles Dickens was growing up he experienced seven white Christmases in a row and this became his abiding memory of Christmas. In writing "A Christmas Carol" he wrote from this experience and created snow settings for other Christmases in other stories, such as "Pickwick Papers". We have inherited a sort of folk memory of those days that is as strong today as ever. Of course, with 2005 being officially recognised as the second warmest in the UK since records began, this memory is further than ever from reality.
My mother is especially delighted this year because Christmas falls on a Sunday. I remember her once saying to me, "It's not the same when it's in the week. I like it when they hold Christmas on a Sunday". I don't know who she thought these mysterious "they" were but she seemed convinced that a committee somewhere decided each year when to hold Christmas.
Where I live there is a large Anglican Church in the middle of town
that is regarded as the city's "mother church". This year the vicar
has decided not to risk holding a midnight mass because of the trouble
caused by late-night drinkers who frequently use the church grounds
to vomit and urinate and have been known to intimidate churchgoers.
The local paper observed, "People who don't go to
church at any other time will light a candle and say a prayer at Midnight
Mass. Young and old will remember loved ones at this service and feel
they are marking the most important day in the religious calendar".
It went on to remark, "If religious fervour was
such that it forced the pubs to close on Christmas Eve, imagine the
uproar." Now there's a thought.
I don't wish to rob people of their special Christmas traditions. Our
family has a few of its own and long may they continue to cheer us.
After all, when you think of the "true meaning" of our winter celebrations,
they are meant to cheer us as we pass through the shortest days, longest
nights and darkest time of the year. We light fires, hang lights, give
gifts and feast to lift the gloom and encourage one another to look
ahead to Spring, Summer and, God willing, another harvest. But, as with
white Christmases, we are less able than ever to identify with the agricultural
seasons that gave us so much of our winter traditions - Yule logs to
warm and light us through the darkest days, holly and ivy to celebrate
new growth - but as with Dickens' literary inventions we cling to them
still, hardly knowing why they warm our hearts and lift our gloom.
Likewise Christmas, with my mother believing that someone somewhere organises these things according to some lost knowledge, or annual churchgoers who "light a candle" to remember they don't know quite what, or the American president who seems to equate political correctness with good Christian practice, or late night revellers who still find some use for church, albeit unorthodox. We need a constant reminder that Christmas is the best news we could ever get. As the angel told Joseph:
"[Mary] will give birth to a son, and you will
give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their
sins." (Matthew 1:21)
Every year we hear people ask, "Where's the peace on earth?" and further declare, "There's not much good will among men!" The peace we seek can be found in a manger. It can be found there because the war between man and God has been ended on a Cross. This wonderful news is the news of God's good will to men. We need it more than ever now, so amidst the lights and celebrations lets recall that without the manger there would not have been a Cross, and without the Cross the manger might as well have remained empty.
Joy to the World! The Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare him room,
And heaven and nature sing.
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.
Happy Christmas and may we truly know His blessings flow "Far as the curse is found" in our own lives.