WELL, was it, is it, will it be – a happy Christmas for you? Can any of us reach the perfection of television advertisements where the tables groan with extraordinary amounts of food, all presented without fault, where family and friends laugh and enjoy each other’s company in complete harmony and joy?
Now I am no humbug when it comes to Christmas – I love bringing people together, eating rather too much, seeing coloured lights in streets and people’s homes, sending and receiving cards. All these things give me pleasure, make me thankful and alleviate the inevitable gloom of winter.
However, I also want something more, a deeper joy that won’t fade as decorations are taken down and lights turned off. I want a precious gift that I don’t deserve and can never equal. I want, and have been offered, a gift of light and love that is total, unconditional and eternal.
This love is utterly expressed in the birth of Jesus that we celebrate at Christmas, even when this marvel becomes hidden beneath the frippery and pressure to achieve an illusory perfection. A perfect love that cannot be spoiled by our incompetence in the kitchen or any dysfunctional family relationships.
How can we believe that something so wonderful can be given to each of us when we might feel pathetic at sharing it with others, failing to show care and compassion because we are too tired, too preoccupied by our own troubles or too absorbed in worries about things we cannot change?
Amazingly, God’s love is so much greater that our inadequacy or failings; it is a love that still shines through any darkness in our lives.
So, we can certainly rejoice, and have a very happy Christmas indeed, because God offers us a love that is beyond our short-lived efforts of generosity, however genuine these may be.
God’s love, made tangible in the birth of Jesus, is a joyous event and a reality that can change our lives.
May the peace and hope of the Christ Child be with us all this Christmas. Nadelik Lowen!
Kathy Pope
Co-ordinator, Churches Together in Cornwall