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Bulletin 120 Date : 9th Dec 2007
Christmas – keep it simple!

As we celebrate Advent in the run up to yet another Christmas Festival, we are bombarded by all sorts of images which bear absolutely no relationship to the true meaning of Christmas. The shops are exploiting our consumerist tendencies whilst in schools, the move is away from nativity plays towards secular equivalents. What is happening to our good old Christmas Festival?

As Christians I feel we have allowed the true meaning of Christmas to be crowded out by all manner of things which divert people away from its real meaning. Take Santa for instance. He presents a wonderfully benevolent image and is undoubtedly the central figure for many children. Take Santa out of Christmas and what are we left with? Nick Page, writing in Christianity magazine exploded the myth that Jesus was born in a stable next to the Inn, reminding us that the word used by Luke for Inn (Luke 2:7) was the same word that he used to refer to the upper room where Jesus shared the Last Supper with His disciples (Luke 22:11). In all likelihood, Joseph and Mary was lodged with Joseph’s relatives in their guest or spare room, not in an Inn as we picture it today. The dating of Christmas day is possibly overlaid upon a pagan festival ‘The Birth of the Invincible Sun’ and may have more to do with the winter solstice than the actual date of Jesus’ birth. The Church even managed to get the year wrong as we now realise that Jesus’ birth probably happened 4 to 6 years earlier then suggested.

And what about our carols. What has Good King Wenceslas to do with Jesus’ birth? Why do we sing about ‘Three Kings’ when the bible only mentions three gifts? Were they really kings? Did snow fall ‘snow on snow’ or is that purely a romantic overlay to encourage a festive glow as we roast chestnuts and listen to Bing Crosby?

I was chatting after an advent service with members of the congregation about the true meaning of Christmas and it became clear that even long-standing church members were confused about what we do and don’t believe regarding Christmas and how much of it is fabrication.

In an age where Christian faith is under scrutiny in a big way, challenged by people of other world faiths – pagans, Muslims, Hindus and others – we as Christians are often found wanting in terms of explaining what we truly believe and what is at the heart of the gospel. We have made it too complicated and, if you’ll pardon the pun, have ‘thrown the baby out with the bath water’.

In my service this morning I read Psalm 8v3 “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained …” I think of a new-born baby – its tiny fingers – its vulnerability – its need of a peaceful future and happy home – and I realize that the tiny fingers which Jesus waved at Mary and Joseph in His early days are the same fingers that the psalmist referred to. Or am I being too sentimental? Can it really be that the creator of all things came to us as a vulnerable baby, confronted by the same dangers and problems as we are? Can it really be true that God would take such a risk? Or was it necessary that God would become one like us so that we can become more like Him?

At the heart of Christmas is the miracle that God became a baby and lived among us. Let’s keep it simple because in the simplicity of that message is the way to salvation for each one of us.