Christmas is coming!
Usually that is an announcement of the festivities to look forward to as a year ends – like icing to top it all. But this year has been so very different. How can we say “Merry Christmas”? It’s not been a merry year for so many: job losses, reduced salaries, sickness and death, children and youth in depression unable to cope with on-line classes. Most people have been confined to their homes unable to visit family and friends or have them visit – especially sons and daughters and their families living abroad. All holiday plans had to be cancelled.
Earlier, in one way or the other, we asked spouses, children, grandchildren – even ourselves, “What do you want for Christmas?” How do we answer that question this year? The answers of yesteryears just don’t seem right this year.
We’ve been so out of focus about Christmas which is why we find ourselves hesitating to ask or answer that question about what we want for Christmas.We have Christmases because “God gave”. It was never about ourselves or what we wanted. And, we lost sight of what God’s gift was: “God gave His Only Son”. If we focus on the divine gift, then we could say, “I just want God’s gift. I want Jesus – I want to know Him more, love Him more, be closer to Him than last year.”
Gospel writer Matthew records that Joseph was told to call the baby “Jesus – for He shall save His people from their sins” and followed that up by quoting a prophecy that the son born to the virgin will be called “‘Immanuel’ – which means ‘God with us’.”
Yes, God is with us in this terrible year. Even though it has been a very strange year there is one thing that we’re not strangers to – the love of God personified by Jesus. Can anything “separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Yes, the pandemic cannot separate us from God’s love.
Some may think that the hard times have come as punishment. “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” (from Romans 8:31-38). There is one more from the foregoing portion of the Bible that is reassuring: “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (v.28). Indeed, God hasn’t abandoned us. God is with us. That is what Christmas is about.
Roshini and I rediscovered the presence of God and His love and care through all the trials of this year. Before the country went into lockdown, I was already in that mode after I had a relapse of the cancer and needed chemotherapy again. Then things got escalated (worse) with a diagnosis of diabetes, and a bad case of cellulitis flaring up requiring prolonged treatment as an in-patient. Then the insurance company refused to settle my claim, but that has been cleared up after approaching the ombudsman. So we end the year well by the grace of our Lord.
Ishaaq, Jess, Priya, Alisha and Juliet are all well in Seattle. Work and schooling are all from home. The kids find it hard not being able to interact with their teachers and classmates.
Elishba, Joe, Sophie and Zach are all well in Sheffield. Elishba has to go in to work as a doctor and she also volunteered to test for the development of the vaccine for Corona Virus. Sophie and Zach didn’t have all their schooling from home, though now they have their Christmas break.
We won’t wish you a Merry Christmas this year. Instead we wish you a fresh experience of relating to Jesus, who brought us all our Christmases. Joy and peace be yours.
Love,
Roshini & Kuru
