| “Jesus Christ is for life, not just for Christmas.” from Father Roger at S. James the Less Church |
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I read in the Newspaper of a man who has kept Christmas Day every day for twelve years. Every day he eats turkey and Christmas pudding, Every day he watches a video of the Queen’s Christmas message, and toasts her with a glass of sherry. Since 1993, the paper said, he’s eaten 4,380 turkeys, 87,600 mince-pies, 26,280 roast potatoes and 109,500 sprouts!
‘I’ve been doing this for twelve years,’ he said, ’and I’m going to be doing it for another twelve. I’ve never, ever got bored of it. I absolutely love Christmas.’ Sad, or what?
And yet for Christians the meaning of Christmas Day is not just for once a year, either, but for every day.
Christmas celebrates that mind-blowing act of love, when God himself, the Maker of all that is, who keeps the whole creation going just by his loving will, who knows intimately every particle of the deepest space—when that almighty God came to be with us as a human person like ourselves. Can you get your head around that? I can’t—and yet it makes a greater difference to my every day than anything else could.
It’s a wonderful thing to be told that someone loves you. But it’s even better to be shown it. Love is proved by action—by generosity, by sympathy, by compassion, by understanding and not least by forgiveness.
God’s love for us is proved when he cared enough to share our life— and even to share our death.
So what about a Christian version of that car sticker about Christmas pets?
“Jesus Christ is for life, not just for Christmas.”
God bless and Happy Christmas, Father Roger
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