As we approach another Christmas season, I wonder how you would finish that famous song lyric. I know my children would absolutely love a whiteout this year…
And yet it is almost a Christmas sermon cliché – to speak about the need to put aside the distractions and get back to the true meaning of Christmas. But it’s said so often because it’s so true!
And until I had spent Christmas on the other side of the world, away from all the Western associations with Christmas, I don’t think I had really appreciated how pressing a need this is!
One of the genuine surprises for me about the years spend in Mandritsara was just what a truly wonderful time Christmas was there. After all, there was so much –at face value - going against it: the searing southern hemisphere summer heat, the typical lack of water, the aching distance from family and friends, the limitations when it came to finding gift options for the family…
And yet –perhaps in a way akin to the blessing of fasting – this pared-down context for Christmas very often served to focus the heart and mind much more acutely on the miracle and the meaning of the incarnation in a thoroughly uplifting way.
How so? Well some of my top Christmas in Mandritsara highlights included the festival of praise and reflection, that was the HVMM Christmas staff meeting… the Christmas Eve Kid’s Church nativity re-enactment with the missionary children… the Christmas Eve night Messiah concert under a majestic starry sky… and the joy of celebrating the birth of Christ with brothers and sisters on Christmas Day morning at church, and the Christmas Day afternoon children's concert at church. Christmas Day lunch never felt over-indulgent but a wonderful time of fellowship with the other believers living on site. And all the time, by radio or by epilogue on hospital wards, we were aware that more and more people were coming to learn of God’s supreme gift to us all in His Son, born of Mary, born to save us.
And so it wont be so much dreams of anything in particular for this coming Christmas for me, but I will certainly be praying for a wonderful Christmas – in the truest sense of the word: that in the midst of the festivities and despite the distractions… God might give me the greatest gift of them all – a fresh wonder and awe in my heart as I remember the coming of the King of kings, with the birth of Jesus... a wonder and awe that then leads to a renewed longing to worship Father, Son and Holy Spirit as they deserve; and a refreshed walk with Him on into 2022.
Let's pray for those around us – those who perhaps we have never imagined becoming believers – having their eyes opened for the first time… to their eternal good and to the glory of God in Christ. For to receive the gift of adoption into the King's family is unparalleled, the greatest gift a person could ever receive.