Thoughts From The Cottage
Dear Friends
Once again Christmas is rushing up on us and the season of goodwill, turkey, pudding, mince pies, crackers, trees, cards, presents and carols is here. No doubt it will be a good celebration as we met up with family, digitally or in person, and share Christmas together. Amongst our festivities we may spare a thought for those for whom it is the first Christmas without a loved one, for those who are homeless or can’t afford gifts for their children, for immigrants experiencing Christmas in Britain for the first time and for those for whom Christmas brings back painful memories. It is also a time of hope and joy, a time wwhen peace and goodwill seems to be more prevalent that usual. Despite that our Christmas tends to look back to what was, not forward to what will be. Yet it is supposed to do both, to look back to the good times and forward to the good times.
As Christians the good times we look back to are the creation of the universe and God’s gift of it to us as well as God’s gift of His Son, Jesus, to the world. The good times we look forward to are the second coming of Jesus and our place in heaven at His side. Put together it is an amazing story and sets us apart from all other faiths. True we share a common heritage with Judaism and Islam but the place of Jesus is what is crucial in our faith. We are living in part of a story, we are part of the history of God’s relationship with the people he created. It as an amazing, wonderful marvellous story that spans the whole of eternity.
One day scientists might be able to tell us how the universe was created and as fascinating as that might be it will not provide the answer to why it was created. Anyway, we already know the answer to that. God created it for us to enjoy. It is his gift to his greatest creation, us. We are supposed to enjoy it, explore it, care for it and pass it on to the next generation. We screwed it up, we got it wrong and we ignored God so he sent us another gift, himself. He came as a human being and lived amongst us as Jesus. Born in a stable to an unmarried mother was an ignominious start which was followed by a night time dash to another country as a refugee family. A short itinerant ministry of preaching, teaching, healing and miracle working led to his death on a cross as a common criminal. Then the impossible happened. Dead and buried in a tomb he came back to life three days later. Here’s a story really worth celebrating.
But the story doesn’t end there. We long for the day when Jesus returns as King and the whole universe bows before him to acknowledge his sovereignty. Just as surprising as his birth in Bethlehem, witnessed by Angels, Shepherds and foreign Kings was so will his second coming be. It will be unmistakable and shatter all our preconceptions about this universe and its Creator. It will be beyond our wildest dreams, more magnificent than we can envisage and we will be part of it and spend the rest of eternity in the presence of the one eternal God.
Ian Ring
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