Christmas in New Zealand

It's a Southern Hemisphere thing, Christmas in New Zealand. Snow is not entirely impossible of course. On 27 December 1897 there was some snow low on the hills near Masterton, which is really part of greater Wellington. And on 13 December in 1872 a Mrs Snow sailed from Wellington to Napier on the St Kilda, a 91 ton vessel. I guess that the probability of a white Christmas is somewhat remote. We look at our European and American cousins and breath a sigh of relief. The non-occurence of snow here is re-enforced by the fact that a local choir Nota Bene produced an evening of entertainment called "A Snow-free Christmas" about which a local critic quipped "nothing new there".

So we are gearing up towards a fairly Yuley Christmas - without the Yule log but with the pleasure of a hot meal that does not kill you from heat fatigue in the kitchen while cooking. In Africa an annual collapse of just a nature led us to go for cold gammon and salads for some years while melting like snow in the hot humid east coast climate. At least here it is cool enough to eat hot!

In short we are fairly well prepared. Armed with various delicacies and goodies waiting for their demise (waiting in the fridge or freezer) we wait. And what is this waiting for? Anticipation of the secrets hidden under Christmas wrapping? Children wait for this. We are still children in part - it is actually quite nice ripping open the presents even when you know what they are and probably wrapped them yourself.

Waiting - for those special services at church - the candles and traditional warm songs and words - the readings that take you back to your youth and childhood - the songs of angels and the persistence of foreign travellers following a star.

Waiting - for a chance to be with family and friends again - knowing that some family you may never see again anyway. Yay for facebook - at least we see one another and share a cyber-Christmas.

Advent - the Christian season we are enjoying - is about anticipation and expectation - looking to God to breakthrough again into a troubled world. A whole lot of preachers will produce profound new angles on this (yes angles not angels). Some will look for new stories to re-tell the Christmas thing in a far too secular fashion. How sad that we can reduce the angels' words to some form of contemporary nursery rhyme or folk tale.

The angels are key to all of this. They are literally messengers. They bring eu-angelion - ευαγγελιον - good message, a good announcement.

So my Christmas wish to you is simple. There is good news. We need to be good news - just as Christ is God incarnate - literally God in-flesh, we need to be in Christ and Christ in us - living examples of Jesus who encapsulates the good news. It's not just his birth that was good news to humble shepherds (who by the way told people very quickly what had happened!!). His life is good news - a second Adam, a real prototype for the rest of us not to be cloned into his image, but transformed into his likeness! (But we all, with our face having been unveiled, having beheld the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are being changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:18)

Has this good news grabbed your heart and captured your imagination? At school we have a chapel-ianity, where I fear too many miss the point. A Friday going-through-the-motions. If only they would hear -and yes they may hear still. This good news is drastic, dramatic, and requiring daring response. Listen to the words of an aging prophet who saw the baby Jesus: "And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary His mother, Behold, this One is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign spoken against." (Luke 2:34)

The gospel life was the life He lived. The gospel death was the death that he died, a death in which he reached out to absorb all death and danger, and dread which drives men and women to hide away from life's challenges in depression and desperation - or to end their own lives in horrible ways. His gospel death absorbed the pain of suffering and sickness, and the septic influence of selfishness and sin. His gospel resurrection vindicated God's "yes" to life and Jesus' faith expressed in self-emptying and surrender to the grave.

The gospel Jesus brings hope - and greater expectation of a new future. A good message.

For goodness sake, go somewhere this Christmas where you will hear this gospel - a fresh reminder of the light of the world shining in our darknesses.

A very blessed Christmas - may the good news re-enliven your heart and re-capture your imagination. Wait on this God - for He is still near. God with us.

our love in Jesus,

Robin