Well, it is Christmas Morning. We are helping in the kitchen (which includes keeping out and letting the cook go for it, if needed). As is our tradition, we are watching Andre Reiu and other Carol songs and giving small gifts to children only — we are not American, where the traditions differ. (And I approve of SSM giving her husband the gun he wants. If for no other reason than it annoys the politically correct) . At this time, let’s remember those who are working (which includes my daughter this year) and serving overseas — from Scott Base to the Sudan to Afghanistan if one considers NZ troops.
The texts for today remind is that there is more to this day than the lack of advertisements for boxing day sales, or bad movies on TV.
It is about the incarnation, and the incarnation is a profound mystery. How the almighty managed to humble himself and become incarnate in a babe is beyond understanding. Mary’s virgin birth is small beer compared to this profound event. And this should change us. The fact it does not as much as it should is a comment on our frailty, not on Christ.
7Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 15God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God.
16So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.
31The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. 33Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. 34He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. 35The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. 36Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.
This is a blog, and blogs are fairly grubby. We spend most of the year arguing with each other, looking at errors within the church, and generally enjoying the fact that on a blog you can be politically incorrect, while in real iife you generally tone the same thoughts down. When you talk about relationships, or politics, or money… you get traffic.
When you become overtly religious, you lose traffic.
But this is not about traffic. It is a selfish endeavour. Today we should be looking not at our division, but enjoying the feast. We should not be quibbling about if our traditions are Papist, Reformed, Orthodox or from Coca-Cola or the NRA. We should be enjoying the beauty that exists now, for it is ephemeral, and the traditions of old, for they remind us that we ourselves are ephemeral, and in twenty or thirty years from now the crises of today will be only recalled by schoolboys studying history.
So this Christmas I pray for a functional unity of beleivers. Not some kind of artificial ecumenicalism, but mutual support: the RCC for the reformed, the reformed for the Methodists and Anglicans, and that the peculiar strengths each branch of the faith has will be allowed to build up all the faithful.
And, as we wait, let is recall that Christ will come again.