St Luke's Church Eccleshill - Articles from "The Link"

Incredible Christmas

"The Word was God ... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory" (John 1:1 & 14).

Dear Church Members,

“Mum had a fetish about Christmas. Everybody had to give the others proper presents, and they had all to be complete surprises when they were opened round the little twinkling tree at precisely ten a.m. The wrapping paper had to be a secret too - there had been one terrible year when Mum and Davy had both chosen the same pattern at Smiths. Christmas, in Mum’s view, was serious. In the children’s view it was doom-laden. Mum was an appalling chooser of presents, always giving something too expensive that would suit the person she thought the recipient ought to be, rather than what that person actually was. And for months afterwards she would take note whether Penny was wearing her new jumper honourably often, and whether Ian was using the chest-expander she’d found.”

I came across the above lines in a story I was reading: it’s not my own family’s experience, but it rings a lot of bells. Small wonder that Christmas is a key stress-time for familes on the edge of breakup.

But all of that is quite wrong. We give each other presents because God gave us the greatest present - but we’ve often allowed the humdrum nature of a human celebration to obscure the magnitude of God’s present.

I watched a “Star Trek” episode a while ago. The crew had discovered an alien civilization on a remote planet, and they wanted to understand these unknown people before making first contact with them. A crew member was surgically altered to resemble the aliens, sent down to the planet, and lived for a while on the outskirts of a village. Unfortunately he had an accident, and the aliens took him to one of their hospitals, where it didn’t take them long to discover that he was really from a completely different species. The story was about the cultural difficulties which the hospital staff then had, as they realized someone from outside their horizons had visited them.

“Star Trek” never mentions Christmas. It professes to be a non-religious TV programme. But for me it captured the essence of Christmas. Jesus, of course, was not a visitor from another planet, but the Creator of planets himself. His visit forces us into a rethink of the way we look at our world, our lives, and our species. We are not alone, and we need to wake up to the fact.

John Hartley

	*St Luke's Church, Eccleshill - The Link* magazine** The Link is published monthly at 40p (Senior Citizens 35p), and we deliver free within the parish and post copies (at the reader's expense) to those who request it. Please contact us if you would like a free copy for a trial period. December 2000, Page 1.
Home Page. Index of articles. Vicar's Letters: index, Settling in, One body, What for? Pilgrims, Christmas, Old dog? In this issue: (December 2000) Vicar's Letter, Christmas, Question, Quiz.	Incredible Christmas "The Word was God ... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory" (John 1:1 & 14). Dear Church Members, “Mum had a fetish about Christmas. Everybody had to give the others proper presents, and they had all to be complete surprises when they were opened round the little twinkling tree at precisely ten a.m. The wrapping paper had to be a secret too - there had been one terrible year when Mum and Davy had both chosen the same pattern at Smiths. Christmas, in Mum’s view, was serious. In the children’s view it was doom-laden. Mum was an appalling chooser of presents, always giving something too expensive that would suit the person she thought the recipient ought to be, rather than what that person actually was. And for months afterwards she would take note whether Penny was wearing her new jumper honourably often, and whether Ian was using the chest-expander she’d found.” I came across the above lines in a story I was reading: it’s not my own family’s experience, but it rings a lot of bells. Small wonder that Christmas is a key stress-time for familes on the edge of breakup. But all of that is quite wrong. We give each other presents because God gave us the greatest present - but we’ve often allowed the humdrum nature of a human celebration to obscure the magnitude of God’s present. I watched a “Star Trek” episode a while ago. The crew had discovered an alien civilization on a remote planet, and they wanted to understand these unknown people before making first contact with them. A crew member was surgically altered to resemble the aliens, sent down to the planet, and lived for a while on the outskirts of a village. Unfortunately he had an accident, and the aliens took him to one of their hospitals, where it didn’t take them long to discover that he was really from a completely different species. The story was about the cultural difficulties which the hospital staff then had, as they realized someone from outside their horizons had visited them. “Star Trek” never mentions Christmas. It professes to be a non-religious TV programme. But for me it captured the essence of Christmas. Jesus, of course, was not a visitor from another planet, but the Creator of planets himself. His visit forces us into a rethink of the way we look at our world, our lives, and our species. We are not alone, and we need to wake up to the fact. John Hartley
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