Daily Readings for Christmas 2023
Dear Friends,
In the days running up to Christmas I thought it would be good to share with you as our daily readings some particularly Christmas mediations. Each is an excerpt from my father James Philip’s Christmas Letters for the Holyrood Abbey Congregational Record, written in the years 1961-70. They were published in 1971 in a booklet called ‘Good Christian Men Rejoice’ which I tend to bring out to read again every year at Christmas myself.
I have only adapted them very slightly, adding some Scripture references to poinder each day beside the readings, but leaving the original references to world events and society from that time because – despite the passing of half a century – they could have been written about events today, and are just as relevant for our own time.
May they be a blessing to us this Christmas as we ponder together the beauty and wonder of (as the Nicene creed says) the One ‘by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was…made man.’
Willie
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PEACE ON EARTH ?
Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. Luke 12:51
There is no denying the special atmosphere that prevails at Christmas time.
Charles Dickens once said 'There's magic in the very name of Christmas'. The world speaks quite frankly of 'the season of good cheer’, and gives way to a rejoicing and generosity, and even kindliness, that it will not show again for another year. It enters, as it were, into a land of ‘make-believe', with Christmas trees and fairy lights, for a week or two, then, when all is over, resigns itself to the cold, sullen reality of modem life. The magic has gone, and nothing is left but a rather wistful memory.
Moreover, there is the disturbing question asked by so many puzzled and doubting hearts, whether there can be any sort of reality in this Christmas message of peace on earth, goodwill to men, or whether, in fact, this also belongs to the realm of make-believe and fantasy. What else can it be in a world convulsed by tension and crisis, with nation wrestling with nation for world supremacy, and everywhere men's hearts failing them for fear?
But there is a simple, and indeed a decisive answer to this. It is that the message of the Babe of Bethlehem is only part of the story.
What we must realise, through the gospel, is that He Who once came as a Babe has promised to come again as a King, to usher in the Kingdom of righteousness and peace. As the ancient prophecy puts it, 'The government shall be upon His shoulder' (Isaiah 9). As a matter of fact, paradoxical as it may seem, the deepest thought about Christmas lies in the future. For us who believe on His Name, the best part of Christmas has not happened yet. And every Christmas season that comes, reminds us that now is our salvation nearer than when we first believed, and that at the last our eyes shall see Him, 'not in that poor, lowly stable' but 'set at God's right hand on high'. Then - but not till then - will all that is spoken of Him in the Scriptures come to pass. For the Christian, Christmas is the time which reminds him of the great glad day for which, as Paul says, the whole creation waits with eager longing; it is not only a foretaste, but a pledge, of what one day will be; for whereas now He offers peace to men and nations, then He will enforce it, as the King Whose right and prerogative it is to do so.
The message of Christmas, then, is a foretaste of that Coming Day, a harbinger of something that still lies in the future, just as the snowdrop is a harbinger of Spring, telling us, as C S Lewis so beautifully points out in his book on Miracles, that we have turned the corner of the year. Summer is coming but it is still some way off, and the snowdrops do not last long. But they prophesy, and even if further snowstorms come - they often do - the signs of coming Spring have been seen in their blooming. We are still living in the frosts and cold east winds of the old order (and what a bitter Winter it is proving to be!), but the everlasting Spring of God's love and grace is on the way, and Christmas is His gracious foretaste and reminder that we do not hope in vain.
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Romans 8:22-25