Monthly Message (December 2011 / Jan 2012) - Will Christmas make a difference?

Dear Friends,

Will Christmas, this year, make a difference? … to you? To someone you love … or find difficult? To a neighbour or stranger? To the world? Will Christmas, make a difference?

As the season of Advent dawns and in the Christian tradition we begin to prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the themes of our spiritual journey are all about waiting, preparing, hoping, longing, expecting … the arrival of the God who makes a difference. As we dust off the Christmas decorations and check out the tinsel and the tea-towels of the costume box for the Nativity play … we prepare to tell the story of the Light of the world who was born into frail human life to transform our darkness.

These stories are all about making a difference.

We’ll read along with an unexpectedly pregnant girl and a man who saw through the shame, shepherds who ran from the edges of society to the hidden centre of the action and wise men whose foolish journey brought all their worldly treasure to the real precious gift of a scrap of humanity, born in poverty. They are all stories of the God who comes … up close and personal … to make a difference. Stories of the God who chooses the vulnerable to live alongside and within … the God who challenges us to reach beyond what is considered right and proper to grasp what is real and loving … the God who loves to gather and cherish those whom the world would discount and forget, for in their eyes and hearts ‘truth’ looks different … the God who questions all that we value as ‘treasure’, by giving the priceless gifts of love, unearned, un-bought, unconditional.

These are stories all about a child born to make a difference to the life of the world.

So much about our Christmas celebrations seems tradition bound … we may love the traditions or find them a heavy weight to bear … but whether we look forward with joy or fear or weariness … I think this question challenges us as we prepare : Will Christmas, this year, make a difference?

I found a beautiful prayer recently … (Quoted by an American Minister on his web site – source author unknown) … which I share with you for your prayers in preparation for the challenges of faithfully waiting, looking for, expecting and celebrating the God who makes a difference …

(A 20th century blessing, in the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi, who gave up a comfortable inheritance to serve the poor.)

“May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.”

As I wish you a peaceful and joyful Christmas … it is with the hope that the Light of Christ, the God who comes into our very real lives, will shine to transform our darkness and, through our faithfulness, make a difference to the world.

Yours,

Tracey.