On the first day of Christmas...

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me…. A Partridge in a pear tree!
There is some debate about the Christmas song, The Twelve days of Christmas, as to whether it is simply a fun and nonsensical song or a Carol that has secret meaning, sung by those who lived in areas where Christianity was not accepted.
If the latter is the true, then it is said that my true love is a reference to God, and on that first day of Christmas his gift is the word made flesh – Jesus Christ. The portrayal of Jesus is like that of a partridge which will appear injured to protect its offspring.
Whether or not we accept this meaning in the song, the song itself tells us of a tradition from an earlier church time where there were twelve days of celebrating the “Christ’s Mass” and the first day being the 25th of December - a celebration of the word made flesh… the incarnation. An amazing and mind-blowing miracle!

I think it would be great to be able to spend 12 days concentrating on what it was that happened to our world each day looking at some aspect of God’s interaction with us.

If we’ve been to church the last few weeks we come to this first day of Christmas already aware of and following the journey of Mary and Joseph. They both had their interaction with God’s Angel a little earlier in the story and both needed to respond positively in order for things to be.

In our own way, we need to come to this same point with Mary and Joseph in order to experience our own first day of Christmas. First we need to have dealt with those same issues. Mary’s story was the more difficult. She had to say yes to God’s will in her life, even though it would mean rumours and rejection and the possibility of being stoned as an adulterer. She trusted God’s plan was not for that to eventuate, but still nothing could proceed without her will being in line with God’s. Are we willing to be counted as a Christian though it may mean the scoffing of peers?

God gave us free will, and he won’t override that gift, but he asks us to make him the Lord of our lives. He asks us to freely say, “Yes” to him, admitting that we need His guidance. God cannot be “born” in us unless we give him the permission to do so.

Joseph had to trust God’s working in Mary. Joseph had to acknowledge that God had chosen to work through this person to whom he was engaged. Joseph had to say, “yes” to God also, though his role would be different. Joseph’s role is very interesting if we relate it back to our own experience. His was a support role in a world where it was generally accepted that Mary’s role was to support him… I’m sure that in instances of true love that the support is always mutual and we note glimpses of this in the relationship of Abraham and Sarah, but this is one record where it certainly focuses on the upside down nature of leadership that Jesus promoted. Are we willing to serve and support our fellow Christians who are also called by God for His purpose?

What really happened that Christmas night? What do people really think?

There has always been a tension between the God aspect and the humanity of Christ. Was he really just human and then became someone who really answered God’s call? Or was he always God and never really experienced the ugly side of humanity?

Human minds find it hard to settle this issue and even Jesus human family struggled, as we read in Mark 3:21, “When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind."”
I love imaginative, fantastical movies. I find that we can learn so much about so many things when we use our imagination to create safe places to explain and explore some very difficult topics.
One of the best examples that I know of, to explain Jesus being fully human and fully God, is found in the movie, Superman 2. In this movie the love between Lois Lane and Superman is acknowledged and so Superman gives up his power for love of her.
Almost immediately there is some conflict and superman is hurt. His love for Lois is greater though and he accepts that he will now feel pain and all those fragilities common to humans. As the show goes on it becomes apparent that superman has to sacrifice his own personal desire for a comfortable life with Lois and go back to being Superman - for her good, and the good of all humanity. So he takes back his power once again, but with great heart ache. Those who he saves would never really know the full extent of his sacrifice.

In the song, The twelve days of Christmas, the twelve drummers drumming refers to the 12 articles of faith listed in the apostles creed. These beliefs served to formalise the Christian faith and safeguard against heresy.
It begins with “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible:”
We easily acknowledge the humanity of Jesus. He is a person of history… recorded in sources that are not Christian… he really existed. But the reason we have a faith called Christianity is because we believe that he is more than just human.
Some people do believe that he was a great man who did wonderful things and was inspired by God, but not God, but did you know that this is simply not logical?
Jesus was finally crucified because of blasphemy. That is, he declared himself to be God. If he was a good man and only a man, why would he declare this about himself? People who do these kinds of things are usually evil or crazy. We have already established that Jesus did many good things so evil doesn’t fit the bill.

Crazy? Well, we know that his family thought so at one point in time. But then we look at what happened later… those closest to him, including some of his family, were prepared to suffer and be put to death for what they considered to be the truth. If he was crazy or if they still thought him to be crazy this simply would not happen.
How many years later… approximately 2014, we are still celebrating that God came to live as one of us… Emmanuel – it means , “God with us”. It is the name given by one of the Angels, saying that Jesus would be called this…. He is God with us.

And yet…. God is one. I believe in one God, the Father Almighty. Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible….
If we believe in one God how is it that Jesus prays to his father. I actually only have a very simplistic answer. God is God and is beyond our understanding. For a short, powerful and amazing time in history, somehow God was clearly seen as different identities.
Once again I turn to imagination to explain. There was an advertisement for chocolate where a golden clad goddess couldn’t make up her mind which chocolate to choose so she separated into three identical forms of herself… each one choosing a different flavour.

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of a baby… we call him Jesus, but who is Jesus for you?

Our society is currently experiencing some anxiety over the numbers of Muslims which seem to be taking over our world like a spreading dark storm cloud. If we truly proclaimed the truth of the Gospel, I believe there would be so many more Christians, because Christianity is such good news….. What other religion acknowledges that we cannot obtain the standard of perfection and so their God comes down to be the sacrifice for them? NONE… Only Christianity!
The reality is that we don’t really know or proclaim the fabulous Good News that we have in Jesus Christ. Our faith is diminishing because we have taken it for granted for so long and so people have become ignorant of the amazing message of hope and truth that this holds for all.

We can wish for Joy and peace and love eternally this Christmas, but love and joy and peace are there already…. What we need is our eyes opened to see.

To truly celebrate Christmas we need to become part of the Christmas story… Say, “yes” to God’s will in our lives and stand up for our faith, supporting, guarding and protecting it like Joseph and proclaiming the Good News like the Angels did.