Do we deserve a good Christmas?

I’ve been thinking recently about we deserve. Or more probably I’ve been thinking about what I deserve. A rest? A nice big Christmas dinner – with lovely pigs in blankets and all the rest? Or a load of presents to open on Christmas morning?

But what about us generally – all of us, society?
A quick internet search reveals the spirit of the age – I literally got this within seconds of being online. Here’s the quote ‘You deserve to be happy. You deserve to live a life you are excited about. Don’t let others make you forget that.’

But my question is do we? Well, if we believe the marketing, and advertisers then the makeup people at L’Oréal famously tell us ‘You’re worth it’ - you do deserve it.

There is a problem though with feeling we deserve something.

Have you noticed that by the way? We don’t really ever THINK we deserve something – it is a much stronger, emotional response – no; instead, we FEEL we deserve something – the problem with it is that it steals away our gratitude.

If I am expecting it – feeling that it is my human right to a turkey dinner, and that I deserve a Christmas tree and all that comes with it then there are only 2 outcomes.

Firstly – I get it. I get what I deserve, and I am…relieved. A bit happy but mostly relieved.
Secondly – I don’t get it. Or it is not quite right. Then – even though some of it can be enjoyed – there is a bitterness. I SHOULD have had a nicer dinner, I SHOULD have had better presents, I SHOULD have had a better time with my family. I deserve it!

But… of course - the reserve is true. If we don’t FEEL as though we deserve something, or even anything – then everything more than nothing is a gift, and we ARE thankful.

There then is the problem with Christmas – we feel we deserve it – so it never properly satisfies.

But what I’d like to do now is to tell you, remind you, of 2 truths from the bible – that flip this perspective on its head – and correct our thinking.

WE DON’T DESERVE IT
The first verses I want to share are these from Romans 3.

‘As it is written: There is no-one righteous, not even one; there is no-one who understands; no-one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have become worthless; there is no-one who does good, not even one.’

You see L’Oréal have lied to us. You don’t deserve it and you aren’t worth it. I don’t deserve it and I’m not worth it. No one is. The world has got this utterly wrong – all this talk of deserving a good Christmas and deserving wonderful presents…is flawed. The God of the universe has considered our state and found us not to be deserving of much of anything at all apart from punishment.

BUT GOD GIVES ANYWAY
The second set of verses that we’ll think about are these from Luke 2, when the angels appeared to the shepherds on that first Christmas night. They said ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David, a Saviour has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger’

Remember how God has weighed people from our first set of verses? Not worth it. Not deserving of anything…and yet, despite that, God chose to send Jesus – the Messiah, the Lord, the Saviour into the world. This is the biggest miracle of Christmas. More so than angels appearing, or a bright star above the stable, more than the virgin birth itself. The miracle is that God would gift his own Son to be the Saviour of people who do NOT deserve it.

So, Christmas cheer, and mulled wine, and carols and nativity plays and sherry?! Well, it’s not because we deserve it. All these things instead have their root in a celebration of thankfulness in a, astonishing, gift that is just that; a gift that we did not deserve; a Saviour who can rescue us from our sin and restore our relationship with the God who made us.

And knowing, not just thinking, but feeling that we don’t deserve Christmas? Well that only increases our thankfulness all the more, of a Saviour born to us

Happy Christmas everyone.

The Mystery of the Star

The star is the most difficult item on the Nativity ‘agenda’, so to speak; the most difficult to understand, to digest. On those dark winter evenings, round the fire, when the storyteller begins this most rapturous story of all, he knows that the star will be the hurdle at which he runs most risk of falling. Yet it rarely happens. Folk just accept the stark, brief account of the star which finds and makes known the birthplace. So why is your narrator so apprehensive?

Imagine stepping outdoors on the brightest, moonless night, no clouds to obscure the countless assembly of stars. Now look directly up and try to determine which star is directly over your home, your sacred roof tree. About one minute into the epic film, “Ben – Hur”, there is a lovely sequence showing a beautiful picture of the star arriving over the stable, stopping, then just to be sure we go to the right place, the star shines a gentle beam of light on the stable, a mere 100 metres below, while the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing their hearts out. The picture is wonderful. It would make a perfect Christmas card, and no-one ever suggests that the star should be a shade – bigger, mayhap?

Now the bible simply tells that the star was seen to appear to wise men who followed it to Bethlehem, although we have confirmation the star (or stars- there are plenty of possibilities) did exist and at the right time, because others, mainly the Chinese and the Persians, did record it and documented it in detail. They tell us it may briefly have been two stars in transit (one obscuring the other) so making it extra bright, that it did appear to stop for a while then continued, then having appeared from nowhere, it disappeared back to nowhere.

The puzzle is this- How did the Magi connect millions of tons of burning rock, hurtling through the galaxy, with a stable? It was more likely a hovel, because all poor dwellings housed both humans and livestock. Everyone had a manger; the cattle in the home compensated for the lack of heating. The Magi didn’t have the use of a sextant; it wouldn’t be invented for hundreds of years, yet, but they did have an instrument called an astrolabe. This was an item consisting of wheels within wheels. Think of a clock without the spring. It could determine longitude. By recording the direction of the star, and the direction of another known body, fixed, say the pole star, and relating the two. Now picture the world- like an orange with the segments running from pole to pole. The astrolabe could tell you how far up the segment line the star was. You must bear in mind, first, at that time, it was common belief that everything orbited the earth, and second, that this humble storyteller is very much in the dark, here, but bear with me, my Masters. With the astrolabe, we now have the vertical hair on the eyepiece, so to speak. Now for the horizontal.

We need to refer to the beginning of the journey of the star. It was first commissioned, along with all the other stars, on the third day of Genesis. But the stars weren’t just flung across the sky at random. They were set in intricate patterns of interdependence – Constellations. Many were in thrall to others in that they orbited them. Some were wandering stars in that they passed out of one influence, or gravitational pull, into another. Our star was such a one. It had a long way to go; it had a purpose, a mission.

Imagine the star making a broad sweep as a partial orbit, horizontal to our gaze. In the vicinity of Bethlehem, we see the star moving, say left to right, and as it begins to round the curve, it appears to slow down, slower, slower still until at the right-hand limit of the curve, where it is approaching us, head on, it appears to stop for a brief time. Then as it starts on the near quadrant, it starts to move left, apparently- back the way it came.

Now our Magi, learned and familiar as they are in their arts and skills, would be more than capable of anticipating this development, and having ensconced themselves on the hills above the town, would be in readiness to mark that second hairline, so providing what would later be called ‘co-ordinates’. You must appreciate that even such a precise placing can only give us, at best, a quarter of the town, a district. It can’t give us ‘last dwelling down the pump yard of the inn at the sign of the Star, in the Artificers’ quarter.

Now I beg you, my Masters, do not rail at me that you have come all this way at the cajoling of your unworthy servant, led astray by the whims of this scoundrel. Of your mercy, hear me a little longer. I have brought the story as far as I may.

By the arts and devices of mere mortal man we have travelled thus far, from the moment when God swung his mighty arm to fling the stars across the heavens, to the moment when a babe’s cry is barely heard- somewhere in Bethlehem. We have still some way to go. But what light have we to guide us? Why faith of course. What other guide have we need of? Hold out your hands, in faith. Seek the hands of the Magi. Let them guide you to where God sends them, and there you will find the babe wrapped in swathing bands and lying in a manger.

God is good.

THANKS BE TO GOD.

The camel is an enigmatic soul

Seen at a distance, the camel has grace, serenity, timelessness. Watch one of those snips of travelogue film of a caravan at sunset, moving along the crest of a sand dune. It is so suggestive, so evocative, so other worldly, so romantic. One can almost hear the beautiful young Scheherazade beginning one of her thousand and one tales of the Arabian nights.

At close quarters, you will find the camel to be obstreperous and ill mannered. He will spit in your eye as soon as stand on your foot. He has bad breath, is flatulent, wayward, and no respecter of his fellow creatures or of property. He takes firm handling. On a picket, he will slobber all over his halter, causing the knot to jam, unless you can tie the camel hitch. He can’t be bridled like a horse, can’t be controlled by a bit in his mouth. The first foot or so of his halter must be metal chain or he will eat it. His teeth and chops are like the crusher in a scrap yard. He can enjoy munching on acacia thorns like you slurping strawberries and cream.

And yet he is so damnably useful and capable. He can walk for weeks without food or drink. He can just sit stock still while a sandstorm rages about him for days, then when it abates, he just shakes his head, rouses himself, and plods on his way.

In fact, we have camels to thank for the visit of the Magi. We only know they came ‘from the East’. Well if you look across the Jordan from the west bank, there’s thousands of miles of ‘East’ to go at, before you get interrupted by China, or Mongolia. If the Magi only came from Persepolis, a great Persian seat of learning at the time, that’s still over a thousand miles. They couldn’t have done it without camels.

It is interesting to note that the Magi form the first Gentile (that includes us) first Gentile connection to the Nativity story. Until their arrival, this birth of a Messiah had been a wholly Jewish affair. It might well have remained so. Do we know at what point God decided not to be so selective? The message to the shepherds included the phrase ‘peace towards men’- not to my chosen people, not to the Jews- just ‘men’. I wonder what stories the Magi told on returning, and who listened. I’m not suggesting that they were the first evangelists, but don’t forget – God decided on their involvement with the creation of that star, and as the Magi might have said at the time- ‘That wasn’t yesterday’.

Did you know that one of the earliest known titles of the Abyssinian Emperor was ‘Lion of Judah’?

I wonder, what does the camel know that he’s not telling us?