Readings:
Micah 5: 2-5a;
Psalm 80: 1-8;
Hebrews 10: 5-10;
Luke 1: 39-45

Collect:
Eternal God, as Mary waited for the birth of your Son,
so we wait for his coming in glory;
bring us through the birth pangs of this present age
to see, with her, our great salvation
in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.  

Reflection - The Christ of Christmas!

Another time of the year is upon us! when we put up decorations, exchange gifts, sing carol and have a jolly good time -  it’s another Christmas

For some people, the preparation for Christmas have already started and for others, preparation will begin shortly, but while we are preparing to celebrate another Christmas, let us pause for a moment and ask ourselves whose Christmas are we celebrating? Is it the Christmas of Christ or the Christmas of consumerism when we are encouraged to spend more money than we would normally spend?

Everywhere we look around us, we are bombarded by retailers with print and electronic Christmas adverts with the sole aim of filling their coffers with more cash than ever, few years back a retail store in Centre London even opened its Christmas shop on 1 August  – four months before Christmas! Other stores followed few weeks later. Hence the motivation driving Christmas festive in our society today is sadly down to profit making, and this is one of the reasons why the real message of Christmas seems to be getting lost in the commercial busyness that has come to define Christmas Celebration in recent time – a lot of people know about the Christmas of Christ, but few know about the Christ of Christmas.

While there’s nothing wrong with shopping and other activities relating to Christmas preparations, we must not lose the focus of what the season is about and we must constantly remind ourselves that Jesus Christ is the reason for the season. We must remember that’s it is not only a season for merry making, but it is also a time to search ourselves and appraise our journey of faith to understand areas in our walk with God that are in need of urgent attention. 

We must remember further that present in the very midst of Christmas merry making are the poor, the homeless, the lonely some of whom have may have come to despise the Christmas season because their needs becomes amplified as a result of the celebrations going on around them. It is our Christian duty to remember and reach out to such people with the love of Christ so that they realised that they loved and valued by God – This one of the ways by that people can come to encounter Christ in a life changing manner.

I want to encourage everyone of us therefore, to make this Christmas the best one yet by preparing our heart to receive the one who has come to dwell with us - the word made flesh. Let us constantly remind ourselves of the truth of Christmas that Jesus Christ came to us that we might be reconciled back to God and that we might walk in his likeness so that we might show those around us who doesn’t understand the true meaning of what Christmas is really all about – that Christmas is all about Jesus Christ!

Adedayo Adebiyi