Welcome
Prayer
Christmas Eve Ponderings
Christmas Eve… time to be quiet for a change. Jason slumped back into the chair. After all of the school break-ups, and shopping trips, and the work parties, and the kids’ end-of-year music concerts, and the sports club award nights, and everything else, he felt like he had been on the go, non-stop. Until now. Now he could stop.
The kids were in bed. He and Bex had hung the stockings, put some food out for the reindeer, tidied the lounge after all of the chaos of the day, and picked up the excess wrapping paper and Sellotape. She had collapsed into bed. Jason knew he should as well; it would be an early start in the morning – maybe 4:00 a.m. if last year was anything to go by – but, for some reason, he just wanted some time.
He sat and dreamed. His mind meandered but after a while he realised that it was meandering around one question: he wasn’t sure what Christmas was about. Tomorrow would be Christmas but so what? They would celebrate, but what were they celebrating? It seemed to him it was a celebration of nothing, just a celebration of… well, nothing. Family, yes, but why was family the theme of this one day? Was there a reason? At worst, maybe Christmas was a celebration of greed.
He thought back over those end-of-year school events. Pukekos in punga trees. Red-nosed reindeer. Apparently it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas. And, apparently, it was the most wonderful time of the year. But why?
Maybe the Christmas parade contained the clues. People on unicycles. Marching bands. He recalled the floats that had passed by: pixies and elves, the old woman who lived in a shoe, Frozen, local businesses promoting themselves. Then the obvious occurred to him. At the centre of Christmas was one person to rule them all: Santa! Huh! And maybe one song to rule them all.
Sing Jingle Bells.
Jason felt he was onto something. He got out his phone and opened Chat GPT. “Tell me about Santa.” Immediately, the response came:
· Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, etc. is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring gifts to children on Christmas Eve.
· Thanks to Coco Cola, he is generally depicted as a plump and cheerful, white-bearded man wearing a red suit with white trim.
· He is known for his generosity and gift-giving. Children often leave out biscuits and milk for Santa on Christmas Eve.
· Santa is based on a 4th century bishop known for his generosity and gift-giving, particularly to children.
Most of that he already knew… except for that last bit. But it all seemed a bit bizarre. Was all this fuss really about a 4th century bishop? That couldn’t possibly be true. He had never heard anyone, ever refer to this 4th century bishop in connection with Christmas. Well, that wasn’t quite true. He had heard about Saint Nick and Saint Nicholas. Really? Was Christmas about a 4th century bishop?
Jason asked Chat GPT about Saint Nicholas. Lived in what is now Turkey. Was a devout Christian whose faith prompted him to care for the poor and suffering. Known for his generosity. Various miracles attributed to him.
Another thought occurred to Jason: church. Perhaps he could go to church tomorrow and find out what this was all about. No, he couldn’t do that! He’d never been inside a church. He wouldn’t have a clue what to do. He’d be the stick-out-like-a-sore-toe stranger. How awkward! Besides, what would Bex and the kids think? What would his mates think? No way, Jose. Not church.
Then he would do his own research. “Chat GPT, tell me about Christmas.”
Wow! Too much information! Traditions around the world. Celebrated on different dates. Lists of Christmas songs. What people eat. Christmas-related art down through the centuries. He couldn’t read all that.
But what about this bit – origins? “Christmas is a Christian festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, celebrated on 25 December each year. It has become a major holiday celebrated by billions of people around the world, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack of belief.”
Jason suddenly felt a bit stupid. So, this is a Jesus-thing. He really should have known that, if he’d thought about it. Dummy! It’s in the name: Christ-mas. Christian, Christmas, Jesus Christ.
He wasn’t really interested in Christians things. OK, he’d learnt enough. Time for bed.
Sing What child is this?
But Jason didn’t move. Something still needed an answer. He didn’t really know any Christians and the ones he saw on the news seemed to have done some pretty terrible things.
Although, Saint Nick sounded like a pretty good guy. What was going on here?
“Come to bed.”
“Sure, Bex. I’ll be there soon.”
There was just one thing he wanted to figure out first. He just wasn’t sure what that one thing was. What was Christmas really about? He’d figured out that Santa was based on Saint Nicholas but Christmas wasn’t based on Saint Nicholas. Christmas celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ. So, why was that so important?
He vaguely knew that Jesus had been Jewish and had been a teacher of morality. In his mind he associated Jesus with teaching love although he didn’t know any details. Maybe “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or something like that? Unto? Where did he dredge that weird word up from?
Surely the best place to get the real facts would be the Bible. But he didn’t have a Bible. It must be online. Jason found a Bible online and noticed that, very helpfully, it had a search function. He searched for ‘Christmas”.
“No search results.” What? The Bible says nothing about Christmas? This was bizarre. Where the heck was he meant to find out about Christmas if the Bible knew nothing about it?
AI! He imagined that Chat GPT was probably far more up-to-date and reliable than the Bible anyway.
“Where can I find out about Christmas?” No, no, no, he didn’t want all that stuff about traditions in different countries again. “Where can I find out about the birth of Jesus?”
“The primary source for information about the birth of Jesus is the Bible, particularly the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.” The AI listed what appeared to be a number of passages labelled Matthew or Luke with some numbers and colons and dashes, whatever that all meant. But now he was on the trail. It seemed like a code.
He went back to the online Bible, but had no idea how to find his way around it. Fortunately the Chat GPT-suggested passages were hyperlinked. He clicked on the one that said “Luke 1 colon 26 dash 38”. It opened a passage that started with a little 26. And at the end, a little 38. He looked back and discovered he was in chapter 1. Aha, this was beginning to make sense. He read Luke chapter 1, verses 26-38.
Read Luke 1:26-38
Sing Silent Night
Hmmm, well there were several things there: angels, a virgin having a baby. Jason was not surprised that he categorised this type of story alongside the stories of Greek and Roman gods and their fantastic, unbelievable exploits. Ancient mythology, primitive beliefs that would not stand scrutiny in the modern world. He began to smirk at the naivety of it all. So sweet! So far removed from any modern scientific understanding. He amused himself with a little thought: the naivety of the nativity. Nativity! Where had he dredged that strange word from? He wondered if the word “nativity” was derived from “naivety”. Maybe.
He was interested now to see if the story would get any sillier. He turned to the second passage the AI had suggested.
Read Matthew 1:18-25
Another angel! Or the same angel again, or something! Unbelievable!
But there was something real-lifey about this story. The reality of an unfaithful fiancée. The desire to end the relationship. But, at the same time, the complete change of heart after the angel had explained the situation to Joseph.
And the angel predicted that the baby would be a boy. No, don’t be sucked in by that. Obviously this account was written sometime later when they knew that the baby had been a boy and they just wrote it back into the story.
But what about this bit about a virgin conceiving and giving birth to a son… and fulfilling what the Lord had said through a prophet. The footnote said the prophet was Isaiah. Jason asked AI, “Who was Isaiah?”
“Isaiah was a Jewish prophet who lived approximately 800 years before the birth of Jesus. He was the author of the largest of the prophetic books in the Old Testament.”
Hold up! What’s going on here? There was a writing from 800 years earlier that prophesied the birth of Jesus? Really? It had to be Jesus, right? There couldn’t be heaps of virgins having babies. Surely, there couldn’t even be two. It had to be Jesus.
“Jesus”. That was the name the angel had given him (as well as Emmanuel. It seems he had a number of names.) But he was to be Jesus “because he would save his people from their sins”. Save his people from their sins. Jason wasn’t sure what that meant but it sounded important.
And he was “Emmanuel” because he was “God with us”. It still didn’t seem credible, but it was intriguing. Some amazing things were said about this baby. Did people really believe this stuff? Did people still believe this stuff?
He clicked on the next link and read the next passage.
Read Luke 2:1-7
Sing O Holy Night
He read on.
Read Luke 2:8-20.
Sing Hark! The herald angels sing
More angels! But shepherds. Shepherds would be very down-to-earth, level-headed people. Terrified shepherds. Not big heroes. Yet, they clearly believed – or, at least, they did when the sign they had been given proved true. They would find the baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a feeding trough. That is exactly what they did find. What were the chances? How many new-borns were there in feeding troughs in that town that night.
Of course, this could all be a fairy-tale, but…
And what about the angel’s good news of peace and joy?
Actually, didn’t that prove that this was no more than a legend? If this baby had been meant to bring peace and joy, he had failed. Jason thought of the state of the world – conflict, violence, a mental health crisis. Peace and joy were sadly lacking in the world.
“Come to bed. What are you doing?”
“Be there soon.”
There were more passages, but Jason already had too much to think about. Tomorrow morning hundreds of people – actually, around the world probably millions of people – would go to church and celebrate the birth of this baby. Jason looked at the clock and realised it was already tomorrow. He did need to get to bed.
What would those people be celebrating? Were they all sucked in by some ancient fairy-tale? Were they celebrating peace and joy knowing that there was no peace and joy? Were they acting out some mindless delusion or did they actually have peace and joy? Were they celebrating because this baby had changed their lives?
Jason could not get one phrase out of his head: He will save his people from their sins. He had never thought much about sin but he knew that there were habits in his own life that he had never been able to conquer. He thought about how impatient he often was with people. Imagine if that could change. Imagine if that was what other people had discovered.
Some other words that he didn’t even know he knew surfaced in his brain. Maybe from a song? Something like “God and sinners reconciled… Born that we no more may die”
“Jason, for goodness sake!”
He sprang to his feet. It was already tomorrow. If he waited any longer he wouldn’t make it to church later and he realised he really wanted to go to church.
Sing Joy to the world
Prayer
O Come Let Us Adore Him
Benediction
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