THOUGHT FOR THE DAY ON RADIO OBAN FM
10 minute Service for Sunday 19th December 2010
Murdoch MacKenzie
Good morning. Love came down at Christmas. Love all lovely, love divine. Christmas is about love. It is not meant to be dominated by shopping days but by loving days. The buying of gifts is not meant to be a chore but an expression of our love for other people. Christmas is not meant to be about Wallace and Gromit on so-called Christmas stamps but about the birth of Jesus Christ, the child in the manger. Because God so loved the world that he gave Jesus to be our Saviour. Love came down at Christmas and that’s what it’s all about.
Yet something is happening in the world – our world. In Europe and North America there is an average loss of 7,600 practising Christians every day. Our children no longer know how to pray. Many of them don’t even know the words of the Lord’s Prayer. 43% of people in Britain say they have no religion. Whereas in Africa there is an average daily gain of 23,000 new believers each day and by the year 2025 Africa and Latin America together will account for at least 50% of the world’s Christians. The 1.5 million Chinese Christians in 1970 now number 90 million and by 2030 may reach 120 million. Already China has the fifth largest Christian population in the world. Because people are discovering that love came down at Christmas. What about Scotland? What about you and me? Are we to be reduced to being Wallace and Gromit people or Jesus people? We each have the choice this Christmas.
Someone put this poem through my letter box the other day. It’s about The Christmas Tree:
10 minute Service for Sunday 19th December 2010
Murdoch MacKenzie
Good morning. Love came down at Christmas. Love all lovely, love divine. Christmas is about love. It is not meant to be dominated by shopping days but by loving days. The buying of gifts is not meant to be a chore but an expression of our love for other people. Christmas is not meant to be about Wallace and Gromit on so-called Christmas stamps but about the birth of Jesus Christ, the child in the manger. Because God so loved the world that he gave Jesus to be our Saviour. Love came down at Christmas and that’s what it’s all about.
Yet something is happening in the world – our world. In Europe and North America there is an average loss of 7,600 practising Christians every day. Our children no longer know how to pray. Many of them don’t even know the words of the Lord’s Prayer. 43% of people in Britain say they have no religion. Whereas in Africa there is an average daily gain of 23,000 new believers each day and by the year 2025 Africa and Latin America together will account for at least 50% of the world’s Christians. The 1.5 million Chinese Christians in 1970 now number 90 million and by 2030 may reach 120 million. Already China has the fifth largest Christian population in the world. Because people are discovering that love came down at Christmas. What about Scotland? What about you and me? Are we to be reduced to being Wallace and Gromit people or Jesus people? We each have the choice this Christmas.
Someone put this poem through my letter box the other day. It’s about The Christmas Tree:
The Christmas Tree
There’s a star at the top of the Christmas tree
On the floor the parcels are piled.
The light of the star is reflected
In the eyes of a happy child.
A star shone out at Bethlehem
So wonderful and rare.
It showed the way to the baby
In the stable cold and bare.
It showed the way to the wise men
Who longed to find a King,
But all they found in the stable
Was a little baby thing.
There’s an angel on the Christmas tree
Dressed in shining white,
With arms outstretched to greet us all
On this blessed Holy Night.
There are candles on the Christmas tree
Shedding forth their light,
Enfolding us in their glowing warmth
On this our Christmas night.
Christmas trees, stars and angels,
Candles burning bright.
What do they mean to us right now,
As we think of the first Christmas night?
There’s a star at the top of the Christmas tree
On the floor the parcels are piled.
The light of the star is reflected
In the eyes of a happy child.
A star shone out at Bethlehem
So wonderful and rare.
It showed the way to the baby
In the stable cold and bare.
It showed the way to the wise men
Who longed to find a King,
But all they found in the stable
Was a little baby thing.
There’s an angel on the Christmas tree
Dressed in shining white,
With arms outstretched to greet us all
On this blessed Holy Night.
There are candles on the Christmas tree
Shedding forth their light,
Enfolding us in their glowing warmth
On this our Christmas night.
Christmas trees, stars and angels,
Candles burning bright.
What do they mean to us right now,
As we think of the first Christmas night?
Can we think again about Christmas – think again about our own lives? Can we look for a world in which the love of power is replaced by the power of love? Can we think of that first Christmas night in Bethlehem and kneel down with the wise men and the shepherds, and hear, really hear the sound of the angels singing ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill among all people.’
Let us hear these words as they are found in Luke 2:8-14
And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!"
Let us pray: Loving God, as we journey on through Advent we know that on Christmas morning we will hear a baby cry. We know that we will see you edged out of society and into a stable to be born in poverty and great humility. Some of us wonder at it all. We are touched and we’re troubled. Yet sometimes it is just another Christmas and we couldn’t care less. Move us now O God. Trouble us. Disturb us to the very depths of our being that we may so serve the hungry and thirsty, the stranger and the naked, the sick and those in prison that this Christmas may be different so that we will be really prepared to receive the gift of the Christ-child on Christmas Day, and to realise again that love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, love divine.
Amen
Let us hear these words as they are found in Luke 2:8-14
And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!"
Let us pray: Loving God, as we journey on through Advent we know that on Christmas morning we will hear a baby cry. We know that we will see you edged out of society and into a stable to be born in poverty and great humility. Some of us wonder at it all. We are touched and we’re troubled. Yet sometimes it is just another Christmas and we couldn’t care less. Move us now O God. Trouble us. Disturb us to the very depths of our being that we may so serve the hungry and thirsty, the stranger and the naked, the sick and those in prison that this Christmas may be different so that we will be really prepared to receive the gift of the Christ-child on Christmas Day, and to realise again that love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, love divine.
Amen
‘Love came down at Christmas’
Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Stars and angels gave the sign.
Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, love divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?
Love shall be our token,
Love be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.
Christina G. Rosetti (1830-94)
Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Stars and angels gave the sign.
Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, love divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?
Love shall be our token,
Love be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.
Christina G. Rosetti (1830-94)
May the love that came down at Christmas, God’s love in Jesus, fill our hearts and lives, today, tomorrow and for ever.
Amen.
Amen.
