F e a t u r e s
Get Ready for Christmas
by the Reverend (Wg Cdr) Ian Ward Senior Chaplain Ops at Air Command
H
ow do you get ready for Christmas? Many of us have set patterns and events that lead up to the
big holiday binge. For me, many of the events leading up to Christmas Day are just as important and as much fun as the whole turkey and presents thing. I love the day that my wife and I set apart for Christmas shopping, which for the last few years we have done in the city of Norwich where one of our daughters is at university.
This year, the preparations for my family and I are slightly different. At the moment I am in the middle of preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. It is even possible that I will have to travel out just a day or two before Christmas in order to be in post in time for my predecessor to return to the UK after taking the Christmas services. My family are trying to plan a flexible Christmas that can be enjoyed anytime from mid December onwards just in case. I expect many of you have had the same experience. Perhaps someone from your family is away this Christmas, or maybe you are eagerly waiting for someone to return.
All of this has got me thinking about what I really want out of Christmas. What, when all the unnecessary elements have been stripped away, is the centre of the Christmas experience for me?
For most of us family is a key part of Christmas, though often with our military lifestyles this is reduced to BFPO parcels and email. Christmas is important to me so I want to share it with those I love. I also enjoy all the decorations and special food, and these remind me that Christmas is a celebration and a party. On deployment as well as at home we will be having our Christmas decorations, Christmas dinner and even a chance to listen to the Queen’s speech on BFBS for those who want to.
All of these things are the wrappings which surround the events in a small Middle East village two thousand years ago when a baby named Jesus was born. We know that Jesus existed. There was an actual historical character called Jesus, part-time carpenter and religious teacher. He fell foul of the religious and civil powers of his day and ended up being executed on a first century gibbet, the cross. People still quote some of Jesus’ teachings today. But what if there is more to Jesus than that?
In the Bible account of that first Christmas we read that there were shepherds on the hills watching over their flocks when suddenly their world was blown apart by a message so unusual that they had to stop and listen. In an amazing way angels (messengers from God) told the shepherds that “Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you...” They were so amazed that they went to see for themselves and found baby Jesus newly born in a stable.
In the words of those angels Jesus is being proclaimed as more than just a character on the stage of history. Jesus is being proclaimed as the one to ‘save’ and rescue the world. This one Palestinian man’s birth, death and teachings have influenced the lives of generation after generation. Jesus himself did not claim to be a great teacher. Jesus claimed to be the sent one of God, the son of the Father, the Christ. This is what we celebrate at Christmas, the coming of Jesus, the one who sorts us out with God.
www.raf-ff.org.uk
If we want to get the most out of Christmas then we need to take it seriously, as more than some large excuse for a party. We can only take Christmas seriously if we take seriously the person we are celebrating. In the end we can only take someone seriously if we accept who they are. Jesus might have been a good man, a great moral teacher, but both he and his followers, and if you can credit it, God himself, proclaimed him to be something else as well, the Son Of God.
A famous writer called C.S. Lewis once wrote that Jesus must be Mad, Bad or God. Mad, because to claim to be the son of God is the act of a madman, Bad because if he knowingly deceived his followers then he was nothing more than a conman, God, because that is who he claimed to be. It’s up to you and me to decide for ourselves.
So, wherever I am this Christmas, at home with the family or at the end of an email, I will be celebrating Jesus. Christmas is something I can celebrate anywhere. It is something and someone which is with me wherever I go.
Have a Happy Christmas Padre Ian Envoy Winter 2010 11
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