Tag: Christmas

Reclaiming Joy, Peace, Hope and Love

Someone once gifted me handmade Christmas decorations with the words joy, peace, hope, and love carefully stitched across the front. Growing up in a family that had many Christmas traditions, I was familiar with candles, angels, and tinsel but never decorations that were words. Shops then and now lean more towards snowflakes, reindeers, and Santa Claus, so I didn’t expect to see words there.

It got me thinking. From a Christian context, I wanted to know why these four words and why not a bunch of others: like faith, grace, Jesus?

It wasn’t until I started to research Christmas traditions that I discovered why we use these four words and why they are so significant at this time of the year. Do you know why?

These words are connected to the tradition of Advent. Some Christian churches who follow a liturgical calendar include this season called Advent, in the lead up to Christmas Day. Advent is the Latin word for coming, arrival and birth. Evidently, this season is one about remembering the birth of Jesus Christ and because he has already come, the anticipation of his second coming. What I had forgotten was those four candles on the Christmas wreath in my childhood church, represented these four words. Sure, wreaths have roots in folk traditions of Northern Europe, but the symbolism of each of these candles is worthy of reflection. And the message behind these words is timeless. I don’t know about you, but I believe everyone is seeking joy, peace, love, and hope. I am and do. Who better to find that, than God with us-Immanuel- Jesus Christ?

The reality is that if I possess any of these qualities at all, they seem to disappear when I get caught up in the expectations of Christmas celebrations and the end of year wrap-up. Hope might be the most tenacious, or then again, it has possibly morphed into wishful thinking. Joy is the first to go, as I press on to meet the expectations and demands I place on myself this season. Love of self and others is hanging by a thread, especially on a day when I dare brave the hustle and bustle of the shops in our summer heat. Peace: well that went out the window when Joy walked out the door.

I am calling joy and peace to come back into our home and asking love and hope to stay. I am planning to start this with new Christmas decorations. The tired me, was going to skip them this year, and start fresh when my first grandchild is on the scene in 2021. Besides, it was all feeling too hard to decide what I needed to spend money on; especially when I don’t particularly want Santa Claus or reindeers as centerpiece. I want to reclaim the spirit of Christmas; and I have decided to give it a name; or names. Centerpiece this year is peace, hope, love, and joy- in no specific order, and established in Jesus Christ- God with us.

Photo by Alexandra Fuller on Unsplash

December 18, 2020
An Aussie version of the Christmas story

In a season, full of traditions and symbolism, the Christ story-the Christmas story is often some vague and cliched backdrop to the season’s celebrations. The nativity scene or the Christmas play has become condensed to a scene with three wise men, a bunch of shepherds, some angels, livestock and of course Mary, Joseph and a baby doll in a box.

Like any story, told over and over again, it can lose its impact and even its relevance. Sometimes hearing the story told afresh is enough to remind us of how wonderful the Christ story was, and still is and to bring the Christmas story to the fore.

Kel Richards wrote a book over ten years ago, called “The Aussie Bible-(Well bits of it anyway!)”. He took the story retold by Jesus’ disciples Matthew and Luke and wrote it in Australian vernacular. I hope you enjoy the extract of the Christmas story-Aussie style as follows:

“…God sent the same angel-this Gabriel bloke-to a backblocks town called Nazareth, in Galilee shire, to a nice young girl who was engaged to a local carpenter, Joe Davidson. Her name was Mary,

The angel said to her, “G’day Mary. You are a pretty special sheila. God has his eye on you.”

Mary went weak at the knees, and wondered what was going on.

But the angel said to her, “Don’t panic, don’t chuck a wobbly. God thinks you’re okay. You’re about to become pregnant, and you’ll have a son, and you’re to call him Jesus. He will be a very big wheel, and will be called the Son of God Most High….

“God’s in charge,” Mary answered. “If that’s what God wants, then it’s what I want.” Then the angel knicked off and left her alone….

In those days Caesar Augustus ordered a head count of the whole Roman world. (This was the first big tally, when Quirinius ran the Syrian branch of the empire.) And everyone had to go back to the bit of country they were born in to fill in the forms.

So Joe hiked up from Nazareth (in Galilee shire) to Bethlehem (in Judea shire) because his spot in the mulga was where King David came from, and Joes’ family tree had King David up in the top branches. He went there to fill in the forms and sign the register with his fiancée, Mary, who was pretty near nine months by this time. While they were there, she gave birth to a baby boy. She wrapped him in a bunny rug, and tucked him up in a feed trough in a back shed, because the pub was full to bursting.

There were some drovers, camped out in a paddock nearby, keeping an eye on their mob of sheep that night. Their eyes shot out on stalks when an angel of the Lord zapped into view, and the glory of the Lord filled the air like a thousand volts of electricity. The angel said: “Stop looking like a bunch of stunned mullets. Let me give you the drum, the good oil, it’s top news for the whole crew-everyone, everywhere. Today in that little town on the hill a rescuer has been born; he is the Promised One, the King, the Lord. And here’s how you’ll find him: the little nipper is wrapped up in a bunny rug, and lying in a food trough.

And before you could say, “Well, I’ll be blowed!” the whole sky was filled with more angels than you could count, all singing away at the top of their lungs (if angels have got lungs, that is): “God is great! God is bonzer-and to everyone on this planet who’s on God’s side: peace and goodwill, and by the way, Happy Christmas.” (Which rather confused the drovers because they’d never head of Christmas before.)

Suddenly the whole choir had nipped off in the blink of an eye. The drovers said to each other, We’d better make tracks to Bethlehem and have a squiz at what’s happened-check out this message from God.”

So the lot of them shot through like a Toorak tram to Bethlehem-and they found Mary, and Joe and the baby who was, sure enough, wrapped in a bunny rug and lying in a food trough. When they’d seen this they told every Tom, Dick and Harry about what happened, and everyone who heard the story was blown away by this…

…some egg-heads from out east turned up in Jerusalem asking everyone: “Where’s this new Prince of the Jews, this Promised One, who’s just been born? We saw his star out east, and we’ve come to say ‘G’day Your Majesty”.

… They … found the baby, with Mary his Mum, and they bowed and scraped and gave him some terrific pressies: gold and frankincense and myrrh (strange pressies for a baby, but better than a hankie or a pair of socks).”

photo by marvelmuzhko on pixabay.com

December 23, 2017
Oh Christmas Tree, O Tannenbaum, how lovely are your branches…

Our Christmas tree in the Queensland bush as a child was a spindly, needled tree that was more grey than green. My Dad would venture into the nearest scrub to cut down the tree on Christmas Eve. Its trunk was placed in a crepe paper covered metal bucket of river rocks and water. We would drape its branches with crepe paper streamers before hanging a few special and colourful glass balls from it. The most important decoration was the angel that had to be placed on the top of the tree.

Today, my tree is artificial and dark green,and lives in a box during the year. Our decorations are much more sophisticated and mass produced. These days our family can afford tinsel and fairy lights and grand baubles. Most years the tree is setup in early December. This year I have not even unpacked it.

Why do we put up a Christmas tree? Why did my Dad set ours up on Christmas Eve and not the beginning of December? He is not around to ask but I suspect it has something to do with his German and Protestant roots and customs. Some say legend has it that Martin Luther invented the Christmas tree, although there are many pagan and Christian examples of the tree being centrepiece to Christmas celebrations before then. It was German immigrants who introduced the Christmas tree to England and America in the nineteenth century and of course why we as Australians have associated a tree with Christmas today.

I confess I have placed more symbolism in the decorations rather than the tree itself. I have associated it with a place to lay the gifts rather than it being a gift itself. Tradition says the evergreen tree symbolises faithfulness during a time when most trees in the forest during the European winter are without leaf. And so it is with Christ, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas time which represents God’s faithfulness to mankind. Just as the tree is evergreen, so is God’s love for us.

The Christmas Carol “Oh Christmas Tree” is translated from the German song ‘O Tannenbaum’ that is centuries old. There are many versions it seems. Here is one that is said to be a translation that is truer to the original than many others. (Credit to Tradition in Action.)

O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree
How steadfast are your needles!
Green not only in the Summertime,
But also in Winter when it snows.
O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree
How steadfast are your needles!

O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree
You make me very happy!
How often at Christmastime has
A tree like you given me great joy!
O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree,
You make me very happy!

O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree
Your dress wants to teach me something:
Your hope and durability
Always provide comfort and strength.
O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree,
That’s what your dress teaches me.

Will you have at tree this Christmas? Have you thought about the why? Perhaps you, like me will look at the tree itself differently this year. I think I shall go and put mine up. Or should I wait and get an evergreen on Christmas Eve?

Photo by Manuel Will on Unsplash.com

December 17, 2017