[This is one in a series of devotional reflections prepared for Horley Baptist Church during December 2021]
“It’s over, now for a rest”. Another Christmas passes into history and there’s more than 360 shopping days before the next one, Was it a memorable celebration or eminently forgettable?
I recall a Christmas, over 50 years ago. Christmas lunch was baked beans on toast eaten whilst seated on a beach. It was one of those tropical beaches which travel brochures describe as idyllic, in a country where the primary celebration meal for Christmas was held on Christmas Eve. The main course featured eland steak grilled to look like zebra. Carols such as “In the bleak mid-winter” and “See amid the winter snow” did seem a little out of place in an area that had neither winter nor snow. It was Christmas, but not as we know it.
For those of us with birthdays in Christmas week it can sometimes seem that our special days get overlooked in the preparations for Christmas. Worse than that, we are expected to be thankful when receiving only one present to cover both occasions! Maybe of greater value is the lesson in humility and the management of expectations.
What is your experience of Christmas; how does that match up to your expectations? Does Christmas past invoke happy memories of family fellowship and healthy hilarity or was it subdued by empty seats around the table? Is it a case of gifts today and bills tomorrow? Perhaps it was enough that Christmas passed, just another day crossed off on the calendar.
The earliest mention of Christmas in Old English dates from 1038 although the feast itself was celebrated much earlier – some records place it at 200AD in Egypt. The determination of the date for Christmas Day is much later and to this day some Eastern Orthodox denominations celebrate Christmas Day on 6th January. In 1644 the English parliament banned the celebration of Christmas, insisting that it should be a normal working day.
Most dusty details from history get forgotten quickly, so what is it about Christmas that makes us continue to celebrate it? Is it just an opportunity to overspend and delay the consequences until next year? Perhaps it is the peer pressure – you can only say “humbug!” a limited number of times. Or could it be that there is actually something more in this story about a baby born in an obscure Jewish town some 2,000 years ago?
In many Christian traditions, the period immediately prior to Christmas is designated as ‘Advent’, a conveniently ambiguous term that can refer both to the birth of Jesus at Christmas and also his return as a conquering king. We put a lot of effort into celebrating his first coming; shouldn’t we be equally diligent about his return?
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Contributed by Steve Humphreys; © the Author
