Thinking About Easter Already?

I've just popped to Sainsbury's and spotted that they already have hot cross buns in the bakery.  It seems that the moment Christmas ends, Easter - at least in the retail world - begins.  I even remember my brother buying a Creme Egg one year on Boxing Day.

 

This rushing to the next big event usually bothers me: why can't we just enjoy the moment?

 

But this evening, it got me thinking.

 

This weekend, we have celebrated Epiphany and have remembered the visit of the wise men to the baby Jesus. 

 

They brought gifts for Jesus which were symbols of great importance: gold, to reflect and acknowledge His Kingship; frankincense to show His purity and holiness and to reflect His role as a Priest, interceding on our behalf; and myrrh, an oil used to anoint dead bodies and a sign of what would happen to Jesus.

 

I always wonder how Mary and Joseph reacted to these gifts, especially to the myrrh.  They must have known what it was usually used for.

 

They knew that their Son was the Son of God and that He had come to fulfil what had been foretold about bringing peace and restoration to mankind.  But did they know that the way that this peace and restoration would be achieved was through the death of their child?

 

And if they did, would they really want to think of it, so soon after His birth?

 

Whether or not they thought about it, it is the reason that Jesus was born: to reconcile man to God, through His own death on the cross. 

 

 

        "Surely he took up our pain

        and bore our suffering,

        [...] he was pierced for our transgressions,

        he was crushed for our iniquities;

        the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

        and by his wounds we are healed."

 

        [Isaiah 53:4-5 NIV]

 

I am fully aware that Easter eggs and hot cross buns are appearing in supermarkets for financial reasons.  But perhaps, rather than complaining about them, we should use them to remind us what Christmas was all about.

 

Perhaps it's not wrong to turn our attention to Easter so soon after Christmas.  After all, there is no Easter without Christmas.

 

 

 

Think Outside The Box

When I was younger, I used to think that Boxing Day was so called because there must have been a big boxing match on somewhere. As I got older, I began to think it must have got its name from the fact that people box up their Christmas gifts on this day.

However, it seems both are wrong. Boxing Day apparently got its name from the fact that servants were traditionally given a box of gifts after the rest of the family had celebrated Christmas. In recent years, the meaning seems to have changed again to signal the day that people box up their gifts to return them to the shops in search of something better.

I think we can be in danger of 'boxing' Jesus up too, on Boxing Day. We remember His birth in the run-up to Christmas and on Christmas Day itself, but after that, how quickly do we pack Him away again until next year? How quickly do we seek to exchange Him for something else?

But Jesus didn't just come to change one day. He didn't just come so that one day of our lives would be better with food and drink and presents and a day off work. He came to change our whole lives: to change the way we see ourselves and God and to bring us back to our Father in heaven.

Jesus said,

"Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can't bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can't bear fruit unless you are joined with me."

[John 15:4 MSG]

I wrote earlier in the week about Jesus coming, not just for a visit, but to live with us - to move in. In the same way, He invites us to live in Him, to make ourselves at home in His love.

To paraphrase a popular RSPCA advert, "Jesus is for life, not just for Christmas."

Instead of neatly packing Jesus away until the start of Advent next year, let's remind ourselves of why He came and make ourselves comfortable and at home in Him.

Let's consider what life might be like if we didn't pack Him away in a neat box, but invited Him deeper into our lives.

Let's think outside the box.

Wrapping Paper

There is nothing more irritating when you have given someone a present, than watching them open it  r-e-a-l-l-y   s-l-o-w-l-y. 

 

You know what it is that you've bought them and you're excited to see their face when they unwrap it, but the longer it takes them to get into the present, the more irritating it becomes.

 

I remember a friend telling me several years ago how his nephews had been more interested in the wrapping paper that their Christmas presents had been wrapped in, than the actual presents themselves.  As soon as they had unwrapped their gifts, they had screwed up the wrapping paper to make a football and spent longer playing with that than they did with their gifts.

 

When it comes to Christmas, sometimes we can get distracted by the 'wrapping paper' too - the extra bits that the real Christmas message is wrapped in.

 

You hear people saying Christmas starts at home, or Christmas is all about family.  We focus on the gifts and the decorations and spending time with loved ones and eating a lot and drinking a lot and watching TV and going to parties and going to nativity plays and carol services.

 

And these things are all good.

 

But they are only the wrapping paper.  They are only the packaging for the real message, the real gift of Christmas.

 

These things are all good, but they cannot save us, or bring us life.

 

Only Jesus can do that.

 

“And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins [...] 

        Look! The virgin will conceive a child!
        She will give birth to a son,
        and they will call him Immanuel,
        which means ‘God is with us.’”

 

       [Matthew 1:21, 23 NLT]

 

 

Let's not let ourselves get distracted by the wrapping paper and the 'packaging' this Christmas.  Let's look beyond the food and the drink and the decorations and the parties and the church services.  Let's look beyond it all and peer into the crib, until we can see the tiny baby who came to save our world.