A Christmas Story
The stories of the ancestors are very important in under-standing the context and meaning of Jesus’ birth, these stories are recorded in the Old Testament. God’s Christmas gift of the holy child is a gift of love. A gift of love for you and me, a gift of love for all people in all times and places, and for all of creation. Jesus the Christ is above time and above creation, but came to be with us, so that we would know we are loved.
The traditions that surround the holy story of the birth of Jesus that took place in a far away time and place help us to make it ours, and to remember that the story of Jesus is for everyone, in every time and place, on every day of the year.
In the Christmas of 1936, a young couple were struggling to make Christmas special for their young family. They had found a pine branch, cut it and brought it home and decorated it. They had a little boy who was three and a half, a little girl who had just turned two and another baby girl.
They lived in Cowra towards the end of the Great Depression. Many things were scarce then, for them and many others, and they could not afford to buy toys for their children that Christmas.
But as it turned out, they won a raffle on Christmas Eve, and when the little girl woke up on Christmas morning – there was a life size Shirley Temple doll under the Christmas tree for her, resplendent in a beautiful frilly outfit of the latest fashion, with her blond curls gleaming softly in the early morning sunshine. She still lives at my Mums house and brings joy and a reminder that love was what mattered most that Christmas, and every Christmas.
Santa Claus has always put an orange in my Christmas stocking and in my children’s Christmas stockings – a family tradition which began because oranges were very precious during the Great Depression years.
This family tradition, and many others of yours and mine, remind us that the greatest gift is love, and that we need to remember to value ordinary things we often take for granted.
What are some of your family traditions? How will you pass those on, to help you and others embrace and be changed by the gifts of God?
The Gospel of the birth of Jesus calls us to re-assess our values, and to remind us that the greatest gift is love. May we have courage to question the false values which enslave us.
May this Christmas season be filled with love given and received unconditionally. Amen.
Reverend Amanda Lea Brockwell
