On Saturday we took down the tree and wrapped up the ornaments and baubles, which I always find a sort of sad thing to do. We are a divided house, some of us want to move on and get the year started, some of us are a bit nostalgic for what has passed.
In the church year, it is still the Christmas season and I found this quite hard to manage. How do we keep Christmas, even as we pack up the decorations and finish ( although it is perfectly possible we may never finish) the cake and Christmas pudding? It's quite a contrast to what is going on in the world outside the church.
However yesterday a quick glance at the weekend papers clarified things for me, for the supplements were filled with articles and research on happiness, how to be happy, what makes us happy and why we are not happy? When Christmas is over in the secular world there is for some, a hole left behind. The reports tell us that we are not as a nation happy, that happiness does not rise proportionately with income and it seems that all the joy and expectation we had, tragically, seems to go after twelve short days.
In church we have been thinking about what it all means, what does it mean that Christ is fully human and fully divine, what does it mean that Jesus was born and is with us, how does that change my life in bleak January and cold February and all the days ahead. The answer to this is full of hope. We need each of us to work that out for ourselves, but God knows us, he knows our fears and our worries and if we don't put him away with the Christmas decorations, but are willing to open up to him, that lovely expectation we had through the season will be fulfilled beyond anything we can imagine.
In the church year, it is still the Christmas season and I found this quite hard to manage. How do we keep Christmas, even as we pack up the decorations and finish ( although it is perfectly possible we may never finish) the cake and Christmas pudding? It's quite a contrast to what is going on in the world outside the church.
However yesterday a quick glance at the weekend papers clarified things for me, for the supplements were filled with articles and research on happiness, how to be happy, what makes us happy and why we are not happy? When Christmas is over in the secular world there is for some, a hole left behind. The reports tell us that we are not as a nation happy, that happiness does not rise proportionately with income and it seems that all the joy and expectation we had, tragically, seems to go after twelve short days.
In church we have been thinking about what it all means, what does it mean that Christ is fully human and fully divine, what does it mean that Jesus was born and is with us, how does that change my life in bleak January and cold February and all the days ahead. The answer to this is full of hope. We need each of us to work that out for ourselves, but God knows us, he knows our fears and our worries and if we don't put him away with the Christmas decorations, but are willing to open up to him, that lovely expectation we had through the season will be fulfilled beyond anything we can imagine.
Comments
Post a Comment