Pastoral Letter
Dear Friends,
I expect many of you have been spending a lot of time and money thinking about and searching for the right Christmas presents to give to your friends and family this Christmas.
Each year the Christmas shopping frenzy seems to start earlier and earlier, and the true meaning of Christmas seems to be drowned by the clamour and noise of commercialism, as our materialistic society gears itself up for its annual bonanza. Many retail and commercial organisations actually make the bulk of their profits at Christmas time, and there is an air of intense determination in the commercial world at this time of the year, as our eyes, ears and senses are assaulted with the encouragement to spend, spend, spend.
In all this intense clamour, where is the true meaning of Christmas? Just a few days before Christmas one year two ladies stood looking into a department store window at a large display of the manger scene with clay figures of the baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men, and the animals. Disgustedly, one lady said, "Look at that, the church is even trying to horn in on Christmas!" That seems to be the prevailing attitude. And yet the giving of presents to each other at this time of the year reflects the giving of a very special gift to our world on the very first Christmas.
Shortly after World War II came to a close, early one chilly December morning an American soldier was making his way back to the barracks in London. As he turned the corner in his jeep, he spotted a little lad with his nose pressed to the window of a pastry shop. Inside the cook was kneading dough for a fresh batch of doughnuts. The hungry boy stared in silence, watching every move. The soldier pulled his jeep to the curb, stopped, got out, and walked quietly over to where the little fellow was standing. Through the steamed-up window he could see the mouthwatering morsels as they were being pulled from the oven, piping hot. The boy salivated and released a slight groan as he watched the cook place them onto the glass-enclosed counter ever so carefully. The soldier's heart went out to the nameless orphan as he stood beside him. "Son, would you like some of those?" The boy was startled. "Oh, yeah—I would!" The American stepped inside and bought a dozen, put them in a bag, and walked back to where the lad was standing in the foggy cold of the London morning. He smiled, held out the bag, and said simply: "Here you are." As he turned to walk away, he felt a tug on his coat. He looked back and heard the child ask quietly: "Mister, are you God?"
2000 years ago God gave the world the greatest gift of all. As Vance Havner puts it: ‘Christmas is based on an exchange of gifts: the gift of God to man - his Son; and the gift of man to God—when we first give ourselves to God.’ So in all the hustle and bustle of Christmas let us put time aside to stop and reflect just why we are going to so much trouble to give presents at Christmas, and to take time to reflect on that first Christmas, when the Christ-child came into the world. Let us reflect that, in that child, the God who fashioned the universe came down to live amongst us to demonstrate the depth of his love for us, and to work out our salvation. And let us take time to say ‘Thank you’ to God by responding to the very special gift that God gave us all those years ago, and let us give him the most special gift we can ever give—all our love. As Lois Lebar so eloquently puts it:
Thanks be to God for his unspeakable Gift
indescribable
inestimable
incomparable
inexpressible
precious beyond words.
I wish you a very happy, blessed and thankful Christmas.