Reflection for December

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The timeless seasonal greeting re-awakens memories of times past, and kindles our expectations of pleasures to come. Living as we do in the Earth’s Northern Hemisphere the weather reflects our bleak mid-wintery hymns, ‘’Snow had fallen snow on snow’ and all the other chilly scenes we set for Bethlehem two thousand years ago when Christ our Saviour was born.

At this point I have to admit that capturing the Christmas spirit in the Southern Hemisphere is a little more difficult. I have stood on an Australian beach in the blazing sun, and with the temperature over 30 degrees singing ‘In the bleak mid-winter’ but despite that the jolly greetings between friends - and strangers- were every bit as sincere as they are here. Christmas everywhere should rightly be a time of love, of sharing of hope, and of happiness and joy.

Christmas Day for us, December 25th, roughly coincides with the winter solstice, when the nights grow shorter and the days longer, the sun begins to declare that spring is surely on its way. Long before that first Christmas the ancient peoples kept festivals to celebrate the return of the sun and the promise of new life in the spring, a time of joy after the hardship of surviving the winter.  We can be even more joyful than they were, now that the light of Christ has dawned on us. In His name we share the love of God and sow the seeds of his mercy and justice for all. 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!