Do they know it’s Christmas? and does it matter anyway?

On this first Sunday of Advent, it’s getting to the time when we start to hear the unforgettable (at least for my generation!) voices of Boy George, Bono et al open the Band Aid (1984) song that brought to the forefront of our consciousness the fact that there were (and still are) many thousands of people suffering from famine and other major crises across the globe (and this without taking into account the global pandemic we are all living through in 2020).

While millions have been spent and many have been helped, the fact is that we have merely scratched the surface of human misery and new generations are being born into the same grinding poverty and frustration at the unfairness of life.

And so Christmas comes around again, with its message of hope and salvation, we remember the coming of Jesus as a baby and we think of his future return. We wait and prepare and revisit the old familiar story.  But there are millions, even billions of people who don’t know Jesus, and more millions who know of him as a prophet, or as a good man in history but have not encountered the real Jesus.

So on one hand, when you live in conditions of starvation, sickness, war etc. it probably doesn’t matter if you don’t know it’s Christmas as you probably have more pressing things to think about.  Especially the kind of Christmas that has evolved in the Western World which has more to do with Disney and the American Dream than the coming of the Christ child.

But on the other, it absolutely does matter, if you miss out on knowing the one person who can really change things for you.  Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, the Light of the World, the Son of God and the one who makes a way for us to enter God’s Kingdom now and forever.

Missing out of the festival may not be such a big deal, but it really does matter if you lose out on the blessing and beauty of meeting Jesus and getting to know him.

That is why it really does matter if they know it’s Christmas, because in knowing about Christmas, they will know about Christ, and that is the most important thing of all.

Let’s share our waiting and our preparation with others, so that they too might meet Jesus this Christmas time.

More about choice

The last post I wrote was about choice, and I’ve continued to think about choosing over subsequent days. So a few more thoughts about choice.

Jesus chose. He turned his face to Jerusalem. He faced his accusers when they arrived with a mob to arrest him. He had escaped through murderous crowds before but this time he spoke peace, restrained his followers from violence and healed the man who was injured, before submitting to capture. He chose to lay down his life.

There can be a kind of fatalism among some Jesus followers that holds that God has a plan for us and that plan will unfold regardless. It seems to eliminate the need to choose, decide, plan or set goals, a que sera sera attitude to life. Sometimes there appears to be a very fine line between submission to God and complete passivity, but I believe that God gave us reason and the ability to make decisions and that while He wants us to share our decision-making process with Him, we will not always receive definitive guidance about what we should do. Even not choosing is a choice.

Our choices form us.

And we all make choices at many levels of life. From the mundane putting on of clothes or deciding what to have for breakfast to life-changing choices to move home or country, whether to marry, or to accept or refuse treatment for a terminal illness. Every day we face a host of small choices and these form us more than we realise. Because choices turn into habits and habits build character. I wrote about the lure of self-indulgence in the previous blog, and how choosing simplicity sometimes speaks into my life and reminds me that I am not the centre of the universe. Ongoing attention to choices can form us and bring about transformation.

Wounds leave marks, deep wounds leave scars, and if I choose to pick at a wound, it may get infected and the scar may be worse. Can I choose to turn from the wounds of life? Not to forget them, but not to be consumed by them either. Rationally, I think I have that choice, but in reality I cannot always make this step, allowing them to burden me, all the while knowing that letting go will free me, but not being able to take the steps to make it happen. I need God and other people to help me disentangle myself.

And ultimately, can I choose death to self? To become Christlike, this is a step I must learn to take, but it is not a single bungee-jump leap, but a never-ending chain of small choices that paradoxically make me more like Jesus and more like the person He made me to be. Jesus told us that for a plant to grow, the seed has to die. Do I dare to let the little brown seed-like me die, in order to flourish and flower and bear the fruit I was created for?

As Carolyn Arends sings at the end of her insightful song ‘My favourite lie’ – ‘God, help me to die to live the resurrection.’

The scarily addictive power of choice

Once a year I have a week when I choose to eat for £1 a day as a spiritual discipline. While I am painfully aware that this is an entirely artificial construct, it reminds me that there are billions on this planet for whom this kind of restriction is an ongoing reality, day after day after day.

This year my thoughts have been drawn to the subject of choice. Eating on a budget is a challenge and limits my choices considerably. The little extras that go to make a meal pleasurable are not available when you are counting the pennies. It reminds me of the blandness of not enough, and helps me to appreciate the things that make eating enjoyable and more than a simple refuelling.

It also makes me realise how much I take for granted in terms of adding ingredients, just a little bit of this or that, wanting things done my way, and how easily this can spill into being demanding or selfish to the detriment of others. Do I consider the barista when I demand my tall, short, skinny, frothy, extra hot decaffeinated, with extra sprinkles? Do they feel my appreciation on a regular basis, even if they get it wrong? Do I want things my way regardless of the cost to others?

It reminds me of a lady in the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis who causes distress and mayhem by appearing to be humble and simple in her tastes while being utterly fastidious and demanding about how everything is served ‘just a cup of weak tea and a slice of really crisp toast’. But woe betide the person who makes the tea too strong!

The vast array of items in our shops can be bewildering, overwhelming even, but it’s surprisingly easy to become accustomed to this, and even to tip over the edge into complaining because product x or y doesn’t come in enough colours or sizes, or we can’t get this delivered yesterday. The burden of acquisition can take over our lives, and not in a good way.

When I eat plainly, I remember those countless millions who have few choices any day, who always have to make do and mend, and still fall below acceptable basic living standards. I want to remember the dangers of the lure of more. To be grateful for having choices, but not stray into greed or gluttony, to remember my privilege and the choice I have to be generous to those who have less than me or to pretend they don’t exist. Even the choice I have to choose less is a privilege that I will do well to remember.