Christmas: Giving or Getting?

Today, at St John's Seven Kings, the number of people able to get to our services was understandably affected by the snow which makes the church look beautiful in the early morning light. Nevertheless, those of us there thought about the work of the Children's Society and, using their Christingle resources, the extent to which people are prepared to give up things in order to achieve something else.

We said that giving up things is something that we are all generally prepared to do if it means we can achieve something that we want. Sometimes, the something we achieve is for others but more often it is for ourselves.

The difference that we see in Jesus and one of the reasons why we still remember and follow him today seeing him as the light of the world, as symbolised by the Christingle candle, is that when he gave something up, he actually gave up everything – his very own life, when he died on the cross – and he did it not to achieve something for himself but instead something for us and for all people, that we might be saved from the wrong things that harm us and our world and become part of God’s family. That is what the red ribbon on the Christingle reminds us of and it is the reason why we are here today and the reason why we love and follow Jesus.

Around this time of year it’s very easy to get distracted by the things we’re hoping to get at Christmas. It’s very easy to think of Christmas itself as a time of getting rather than giving or as a time of giving so that we will get. But we need to remember that, when Jesus was born as a human baby, he gave up everything that he had had previously as God in order to become human and that, when he was a man, he gave up everything once again by dying in order to save us.

Christmas is therefore primarily about giving, not getting. We need to remember that the measure of Christian’s life is not what we get, but what we give, and what we give up for others.

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Jon Boden and Sam Lee - On Christmas Day It Happened So / Lisa Knapp - Coventry Carol.