Happy Christmas - The Reality!

Happy Christmas to you, one and all. A period of partying and drinking; contacting by card, and celebration; a day of happiness and rejoicing; giving and receiving. But . . . sadly, few of us recognise the real meaning of Christmas – especially children. Historically, it is the birth day of the Saviour: Jesus Christ. The day on which the King of Kings, God of Gods, having spent nine months in the womb of a virgin, now shows the humility of becoming an ordinary human being who, ultimately, would die a painful death in order to to redeem us from our sinfulness, so that we may become God's chosen children, knowing that we will be with Him in eternity.

So how do you explain that to a child? Here's an adapted excerpt from my latest book, Picked For A Purpose, in which I share some of my early discoveries.

Mummy says it’s nearly Christmas. My cousins have come to stay with us. They are going next door becaise they were asked if they’d like to see the Nativity. I love Simon and Chrissie and I want to go too. The Nativity is the Baby Jesus’ birthday. Next door is a convent. That’s a place where ladies in long black frocks with veils over their heads live. Mummy says they’re called nuns.

Mummy says I can go next door if cousin Simon looks after me. Chrissie stands on tiptoe to see the Nativity but I’m too little. Her brother Simon lifts me up so I can see it. Simon says it’s in a fish tank, but there’s no water and no fish inside. Only lots of little dollies and a pretend shed with lots of straw.

It’s so beautiful I can’t breathe. Simon lifts me higher and props me up on his knee. Chrissie says the dolls are the Baby Jesus in a manger, his mummy, Mary, and his daddy, Joseph. Behind them are some angels. I know they’re angels because they've got wings. In the front, there’s lots of straw and some cows and sheeps. It’s amazing.

Simon puts me down. We’re in next door’s church and there’s crackly music and singing playing on a radiogram: Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head.

I know about the Baby Jesus because Daddy says prayers with me every night when I go to bed. Sometimes it’s, Sorry I been a naughty girl today. Please help me to be good for Mummy and Daddy tomorrow. Sometimes it’s, Please help all the children who have no food. And sometimes it’s, Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.

That one frightens me, because I don’t want to die before I wake. Daddy says lots of little children he knew when he was fighting the Germans in the war, died before they woke because they didn’t have enough food to eat. Daddy says he used to give them money to buy food but nasty grown-ups took it off them. So he, and some of his friends who also flew aeroplanes, used to buy the food themselves and gather all the little children together to eat it, so they could keep the greedy grow-ups away. He’s kind, my daddy.

REFLECTIONS & QUESTIONS

My father had been in a reserved occupation prior to the Second World War but, having volunteered for service, had relinquished his career in order to learn to fly in the United States Naval Air Station in Pensacola. Stationed, subsequently, in Burma and India, he rarely spoke of the trauma he beheld there, other than the story recounted above. On his return, once peace was assured, he resumed work in the Civil Service by taking up a post in Dover. It was here that the first seeds of awakening were sown in my life.

The kingdom of God is like a man scattering seed on the ground and then going to bed each night and getting up every morning, while the seed sprouts and grows up, though he has no idea how it happens. The earth produces a crop without any help from anyone: first a blade, then the ear of corn, then the full-grown grain in the ear. And as soon as the crop is ready, he sends his reapers in without delay, for the harvest-time has come. (Mark 4:26–29 PHILLIPS)

When we scatter seed in the garden, then like the man in the parable above, we cannot always explain why some of it takes and some does not. The same is true of life! We see it in nature and in nurture. For some of us, the seeds of DNA and personality traits fail to grow, while the thwarted dreams of our parents may actually take root in our own lives. Likewise, people of faith sometimes speak of coincidence as being God-incidents. So while a coincidence might be described as random ­– an accident, chance, luck, fluke, or a twist of fate – a God-incident is thought to be an unexpected occurrence in which God is perceived to have had an influence. Unlike a coincidence, it is seen, with hindsight, to have purpose. And when multiple God-incidents occur, they may be seen to conform to a pattern, to be part of a bigger rationale.

Those who distinguish this pattern and observe the purpose behind it find it astonishing. Which is why it never ceases to amaze me that in a family of non-churchgoers (what my father jokingly referred to as a family of heathens – though I should qualify that by saying ‘so far’) I appear to have been singled out for a life of discipleship. But why should God pick me? And from such an early age?

What a coincidence that we should have been living in rented premises next door to a convent at Christmas time. And that my cousins should have come to stay and thus accompanied me to see a nativity for the very first time. Or was it? Could this have been a God-incident? A seed of awakening in my life, sown by a loving God who wanted to open my eyes to his existence? If so, it’s a seed that took root. Eventually!

In Ephesians 1:4 we read, He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him (New American Standard Bible).

Imagine! God chose me! He chose you, too. And he did so long, long ago. Before the creation of the world. What a privilege. How awe-inspiring is that? The fact is, God didn’t single me out. We’ve ALL been chosen to be adopted into his family. It’s just that we’ve also been given free-will to decide whether to accept the gift. Or not!

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• What seeds of awakening do you recall as having been sown in your childhood?

• What God-incidents can you recall in your early life?

• How, if at all, have they impacted upon you now?

FOR WHAT PURPOSE HAVE WE BEEN PICKED?

To thank God for the gift of his son, Jesus, who came to earth to reconcile us to the Father, and for the seeds of faith he’s sown in our lives.