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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Lucknow Sentinel, 1993-12-22, Page 26Page 2A - Lucknow Sentinel, Wednesday, December 22, 1993 SEASON'S GREETINGS One of the real joys of the holiday season is the opportunity to say thank you for your patronage and to wish you the very best for the New Year. / r Paul, Joan & Marg CARPETING and VINTLS WLNDOW TREATMENTS Tour Complete Home Decorating Centre FINLAY DECORATORS WALLPAPER AND C.I.L. PAINTS LUCILNOW 52S-SR34 THE JOY OF GIVING Allow us please .to give all of you our thanks. Brian., Kathy and Staff [+rrPmvt r + + A vT s vi �rf+7�.: ►rC+m AvAvAw►r vAw."• Experience anew the Christmas word by Pastor Ron Luchies Lucknow Christian Reformed Church A bold move, being born into our world as a baby. A bold move when you hear any number of brighter options available and when you know the darkness of this particular way. A bold move even for Almighty God. He does without the glory of His heavens,. and the continual praying of His angels, and the perfect communion of His three-personed Godhead! Of course, some of this leaks out into our world - just enough I would think, to help us realize how very homesick Jesus must have felt at times. A bold move on the part of God Almighty. Bypassing the richness of castles and the power of kings and the safe respec- tability of the well-off, Jesus is born to a no -name family in a no -name town. And He is born in a barn of all places, a smelly, noisy stable. We find the baby wrapped in clothes and lying in a manger. And there are shepherds gathered around to see this child. God has become flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. The transcendent and sovereign Lord is now a down-to-earth baby, My) cries and nurses, who drools and dirties his diapers. God has entered our history as one of us. It's as messy for Him as it's been for us. He walks our earth. He feels our tiredness. He knows our frustrations with a less than perfect environment. He is weak and vulnerable, a baby. Surely this is wonder and mystery beyond our understanding, beyond our wildest imaginations. And yet, because He enters our life and because He lives our existence, we are inescapably involved. Jesus comes and none of us can be spectators. We are pressed into participation of one kind or another. His boldness cannot be ignored or dismissed, not when it comes this close. Some of 'us will probably respond with offense. After all, we didn't ask to be so loved and sought. And it works havoc on our delicately balanced Christmas budget. Purchases have been made. Everyone is finally taken care of. We will be giving to those who have given to us. With propriety we • will fulfill our responsibilities, measure for measure. But then Jesus comes. He gives His heart, His life, His all for us. How in the world can we respond to that kind of giving? Our carefully arranged tally sheet is ripped to shreds. Whatever boundaries we laid are exploded. We find ourselves terribly obligated, now and forever, As if we don't already have enough obligations. Some of us will probably respond with offense. ' Others will misunderstand this boldness of love. There is a flavor of impossibility surrounding such intentional giving. In a world like ours, we can easily become suspicious and ask ourselves, "What does He want? What is He after?" As quickly as that the real celebration of Christmas will be blocked. You and I will remain on guard against any surprise attack. We will effectively close off the possibility of simply receiving what God has to offer. The most difficult response to a truly costly gift is gratitude. That's why some will always misunderstand. This Christmas season there will also be those of us who see, and seeing, we will come to Jesus and experience anew this Christmas word making His home in our hearts. Then the Christmas story will be our story. Then the• love and the boldness, the joy and the celebration, the grace and the peace will be ours as well. Then we can hear the angel for ourselves. "1 bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Today in the town of David a savior has been born to yot4; He is Christ the Lord." The Christmas carol comes full circle by Rev. Bill Bresnahan • Lucknow United Church This year marks the 150th anniversary of Charles Dlt;ken's "A Christmas Carol" (1843). Paul Davis observes • in his essay, The Lives And Times of Ebenezer Scrooge" (1990), that. each generation in history recreatesiahe Christmas classic in• response to its own cultural needs. Davis points out that in the first decade after Dickens wrote the tale, the public saw a parable (the miser redeemed by the child) as proof that urbanization had not destroyed England's good old Christmas. Ten years after Dicken's death the story becomes a Biblical Christmas epic, with Scrooge a 19th -century pilgrim seeking the Christ child. A' decade before the first World War the narrative became a children's story for the first time, a fairy tale with Scrooge, the ogre, becoming the kindly grandfather. Before and after the stock market crash of 1929 the revolutionary North American version focused on Scrooge's employee Bob Cratchit and suggests that North Americans "could escape the depression by freeing themselves from bankers and celebrating the Christmas.of the -common working man." In the 196Qs Scrooge himself is the revolutionary who joins the "hippies and flower children" in the streets to celebrate being human. From 1983 to our present day hunger and homelessness, food banks and child poverty, mass unemployment and factory shut -downs, hard times and recession (another word for depression) brings the Christmas Carol full circle with the same world problems that inspired Charles Dickens to write the original in 1843. No matter how we interpret this story or from what generational perspec auty of- Dicken's classic is the transformation of Scrooge, to become Christlike. It is a salvation story, pure and simple, from beginning to end. A Christmas Carol is not only the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim, or the ghost of Christmas Past, of Christmas Present or of Christmas Yet to Be...it is our story as well. There is not a character in the tale that we cannot identify with, including old Scrooge himself. Recall the scene when Scrooge's nephew enters the dismal office with a cheerful, "A merry Christmas uncle!" To which Scrooge responded with his notorious "Bah! Hum- bug!" Sometimes (if we are honest) Scrooge describes our sentiments exactly as we contemplate the busyness and expense of the Christmas season. But then, as we journey through Advent, and as Christmas fast ap- proaches we have a change of heart. Again listen to Scrooge the new man: "Good Spirit...I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live the Past, Present and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. r1 will not shut out the lessons that they teach...I don't know what to do! cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath, and making a perfect fool of himself, I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an Angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy...A Merry Christmas To Everybody!" Yes...his story and our story. As Tiny Tim observed, "God bless Us, Every One"!