Dear Friends
It’s that time of year once again when we turn our thoughts and attentions to the festive season. Each year I remind us to use Advent, the times leading up to the big day, to slow down and bring our attention to the peace of the Christ child.
The reality can often be very different. Stress, money worries, having to spend time with the ‘other side’ of the family. Extra shopping, extra cooking and the expectation of holding the perfect Christmas. That’s without the pain many experience as we are reminded of who might not be around the table this year. However, my message will not change, year on year. Perhaps I might save this note and simply use it again for next year? The message is simple. The creator of the universe, whose hands flung stars into space, came to us as a vulnerable baby, with a young, inexperienced mother and father, into a stable full of imperfection, pain and mess. Yet became, arguably, the most historically significant person who ever walked the earth.
Christmas, whilst associated in more recent times, with the aforementioned, trials and tribulations, is also, naturally, a time of rest and recuperation, of love and joy, of reminiscing and reflection. Whatever you’re doing this year be kind to yourself and those around you, resist the temptation of having a perfect Christmas and instead I wish you all, a simple, joy-filled, Christ-filled Christmas, with those you love and perhaps even those you struggle to be with.
May the peace of the Christ Child be yours and with yours this Christmas.
Revd. Lee