Monthly Message (November 2007) - ALTERnativity

Dear Friends,

Dare I mention Christmas so early?

The shops have started to decorate and tempt us with special offers. The consumer dream of a 'perfect' Christmas is being awoken in glowing images as the annual machine starts up. Some love it ....others dread it! Most of us are somewhere in between.

Now is a good time to think about Christmas, and make some decisions, before we're too caught up in it.

A few years ago I came across a little book by a charity group calling itself ‘ALTERnativity’, which is an intriguing and clever use of words! Their concern is that much of the real Christian story and celebration of Christmas has been buried in the rush and cost of secular festivities. The message that Christmas should be a time of joy and celebration often becoming hollow because the essential centre, the reason for the season, has faded from view or been lost.

Christmas should be a time of great celebration as we proclaim and enjoy again the good news that Jesus came right into our human lives, shared our flesh and bone, and lives among us inspiring a full and rich sense of God's love in and through our lives. A celebration that should make a difference to us and to the world around us.

ALTERnativity suggest that we need to refresh our celebration of the core Christian message of Christmas, to offer a real alternative to the world around us, and that we need to start early. Not with the shopping, cooking, card writing and decorating. But with the thinking and the praying, remembering the story of Christmas (particularly the song that Mary sings when she hears the good news, Luke 1 vs. 46-56,) and make some decisions and plans for a refreshed, Christian, celebration. Picking up the passion for justice that ring's through Mary's song, the Magnificat, ALTERnativity offer the phrase, ‘Just God, simply Christmas’, to ponder in our preparing. How will you celebrate Christmas, what will you do, that will share the good news of God, born in the child Jesus, among the smallest and the least?

Through Advent this year I'd like us to prepare for Christmas by creating a Jesse Tree together. The Jesse Tree is a tradition that can be traced back as far as the middle ages. (You may have come across stone carved representations of a Jesse Tree in ancient churches - the idea grows out of the Biblical text: Isaiah 11 vs.) It gathers together some of the stories in the history of Jesus' family tree. These stories are summed up in symbols that are hung upon a potted bare branch. By Christmas day the Jesse Tree will show us the great variety of people whose lives and stories prepared for the coming of Jesus - and will help us think about how our lives are branches of the story of Jesus still.

I'd like to invite you to get involved in creating our Jesse Tree. In the next few weeks I'll have some guide notes, suggesting stories to be looked up in the Bible, and how the symbols can be prepared. I'll be looking for volunteers to take the notes, read the stories, and through Advent, bring to the Jesse Tree in church the ideas they have found. (All will be explained.) Volunteers can be of any age - can volunteer in ones, twos, small groups or families - and it will not be too difficult for anyone! It will be great to do this together. A real ALTERnative.

Yours,

Tracey.