The Perfect Gift
As I write this, it is the 11th November, Remembrance day. Yesterday in our churches, we remembered, lest we forget, the sacrifice of so many that we might know peace and freedom in our time. But as is always the way, the world is pushing us on, and we are being bombarded by Christmas adverts on the television and through social media. It seems hard to imagine, that we could ever forget that Christmas is coming.
It is rightly an exciting time of the year, as Christmas draws ever closer, as more and more doors of the advent calendar get opened, as the advent candle burns lower and lower, that excitement mounts.
If we have children, or grandchildren, nieces and nephews, old enough to be aware of what is happening, then the adverts will be doing their job, and the list of Christmas gifts they want will be growing by the minute.
Conversely, for those of us who are fortunate to already have everything we need, possibly even too much. Then the answer to the question, ‘what do you want for Christmas?’ Gets ever harder to answer, or certainly does for me.
Not having that much time to watch television, I haven’t yet caught many of the Christmas adverts yet, but I did catch sight of an advert for Sainsburys the other day, featuring Roald Dahls BFG (Big Friendly Giant) which spoke about how they are working with Comic Relief, to distribute over five million meals to families experiencing food poverty this Christmas. In our family we give alternative gifts, I have lost count of the number of goats, beehives, school bags and sewing machines I have ‘nominally’ been given over the years, but it is always makes me so grateful and happy to think of the people that will be receiving these gifts.
Christmas is of course the time when we remember the perfect gift, a gift for everyone who willingly receives it. Jesus, wrapped in swaddling bands and laid in a manger. Foretold in Isaiah in these words ‘For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders, and he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.’ Or in the words of Simeon, as he held him in his arms at just 10 days old, ‘he will be a light to lighten the gentiles.’
At Christmas we remember the greatest gift of all, Jesus, the light in the darkness, through whom, we can have the assurance of salvation and life everlasting. May you know the fullness of the gift he offers this Christmas time
May God bless you
Heather