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Zurich Citizens News, 1970-12-25, Page 8PAGE EIGHT ZURICH CITIZENS NEWS CHRISTMAS EDITION, 1970 Summons at 'Christmas! This is Christmas Eve. Christmas bells throughout all Christendom are ringing out the most joyous procla- mation of the gospel message. "Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings, of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord," (St. Luke 2:10-11). Yes, 1967 years ago, the angels sang, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men, " and those that followed the star in the east found the Saviour, Christ the Lord, lying in a manager, in the city of David. But the first Christmas was a trying and painful one, despite all the manifestation of glory. Was not Joseph summoned from sleep to take unto himself Mary, who gave virgin birth to Christ Jesus? And were not Mary and Joseph summonded by decree from Caesar Augustus to go from Galilee to Bethlehem to be taxed? And were not all men of good will summoned by the angels to go to the manger in Bethlehem to find their King? Mary and Joseph lived under a dictatorship in which life was cheap. Their income was more than likely in the lower third of the nation. When it came time for the Baby, they were summoned to make a trip to meet the demands of the government. Whether the Baby lived or died was of no concern to the society in which they existed. As far as their own people were concerned, Mary and Joseph could make out for themselves. But because God reigned, they were not alone. The Wise Men brought gifts of great treasure. There was great rejoicing. And so tonight there is rejoicing and there are vis- ible tokens of Christmas. Most business sections have been bright with Christmas decorations for days past. Holly wreaths are found in many home windows, bells on doors and gaily "lit Christmas trees, if not on the front lawn, visible in the living room, from the street. Stores, in most centres, will have closed for a two-day holiday. Everywhere about us there seems to be a new spirit, a new life, a new hope, a new joy. Tonight children will go to bed assured that Santa Claus is on his way and will come down the chimney, in our re- spective home, to deliver a portion of his heavy load. Most of us will banish all thoughts of external troubles and for the next few days concentrate on internal joys. It is, indeed, a time of Merry Christmas. Guards Fall at Christmas! At this time of giving and getting, the best gift of all is Christmas itself. For a few brief days we shed the coat of cynicism and dare to be ourselves. What is deep in our hearts, comes to the surface. Perhaps the world of steel girders, roaring traffic, flashing lights and pushbutton controls accounts for our fear of any sort of sentiment. Though we come in constant contact with masses of people, and can summon every corner of the globe with a turn of the television knob, psychiatrists see our core personal problem is a sense of isolation and loneliness. We are afraid to open the barriers we erect about ourselves and let others in. Witness how, on those occasions when we do give voice to faith or trust or affection, we preface them with dodgy phrases. "I don't want to seem maudlin, may be its old age creeping up, I know this sounds square." At Christmas we can drop the guards as we let our hands, lips and pens communicate the goodwill and empathy that usually struggle below the surface, strangely muzzled. In this short season of beauty, we listen to the carols, send out greeting cards winged with grateful memories, dwell again on the age-old story of earth's renewal through a Babe whose advent brings a breath of hope and healing to a hard-boiled ailing world. ZURICH Citizens NEWS PRINTED BY SOUTH HURON PUBLISHERS LIMITED, ZURICH HERB TURKHEIM, Publisher Second Class Mail Registration Number 1385 01 lite Member: Canadian Weekly Newspapers Association Ontario Weekly Newspapers Association 0114 Subscription Rates: $4.00 per year in advance in Canada; $5.00 in United States and Foreign; single copies 10 cents CHRISTMAS A JOY ONCE WORK'S DONE by Bill Smiley Christmas seems to emphasize our basic natures. If we're slightly skeptical, we become deeply cynical the closer the day approaches. If we are in- clined to be optimistic and cheery, we are apt to begin wallowing in sentimentality. It seems to get me both ways. My natural skepticism. hardens into a surly misan- thropy as the annual parade ' of gifts and greed, cards and carols, begins creeping toward me. Not to mention the holy old jumpin' putting up of the tree, my annual struggle to avoid insanity from frustra- tion, and hell from blasphe- my. But my natural optimism sneaks in, and once the dirty work has been done, I wax sentimental to the point of tears over the wassail bowl, the log in the fire, the smell of singed spruce needles, and the loved faces around me. Neither attitude is right, of course. Both are base. Christ- mas is a celebration. It should be neither cynical nor senti- mental, but joyous, in the real sense of the word. It could, and should be the one day in the year when we can creep closest to the warmth of the basic teachings of the man -god: love and peace. It should be a day marked by solemnity and jol- lity, prayer and cheer. It doesn't really have much to do with turkey and trimmings and tinsel, though these don't hurt anybody. Nor does it have anything to do with the number of cards you receive, or the value of the presents you garner. Indeed, two or three cards mean more to some people than two or three hun- dred to others. And a home - knit scarf from someone can mean more than a mink coat from someone else. (Hope my family doesn't read this.) Easy enough to say what Christmas is not. It's more difficult to say what it is, be- cause it is intangible. You can't reach out and grasp the spirit of Christmas. You must feel it. If you don't, you're dead, spiritually. Naturally, children get most out .of it. Perhaps it's because they don't look for gimmicks. There is a wonderful com- bination of the mystic and the materialistic that entran- ces them. Little realists that they are, they are fascinated by the thought of goodies. They love the hide-and-seek aspect of gifts. There's a great thrill in opening the stock- ings, and squeezing and rat- tling things under the tree. But they are equally en- chanted by the aura that sur- rounds these material jollies. The carols, the pageants, the never -stale story of the birth in the manger, the very smell of Christmas: all these in- crease their inner excitement to the bursting point. It's also a day when they can get away with anything short of murder, and they know it. This year, after the big family gatherings of other years, we'll have a slim crew, but three generations. Granny won't be there, but we'll be thinking about her, There'll be just Grandad and us and daughter Kim. (At time of writing. We might wird up with eighteen.) There'll be early church. Then the opening of gifts, and thoughts of son Hugh 1,000 miles away, and the smell of turkey, and music, and perhaps friends dropping in for a drop. We'll have a big fire and lie on the rug, groaning, after dinner. I hope it won't be as big a fire as last year, when my wife set fire to the ever- greens on the mantel and nearly burned down the house. This is all qualified by the word "hopefully". It could be a complete schmozzle, like the year I dropped the turkey on the kitchen floor as I took it out of the oven. But I hope it's peaceful. And I hope with all my heart, whatever your situation, that your Christmas will be blessed by peace and love. TWO M1MUTES WITH THE BIBLE BY CORNELIUS R. STAM PRES. BEREAN BIBLE SOCIETY CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 60635 "NOW IS THE TIME" As another New Year dawns, we think of St. Paul's words to the Corinthians in II Cor. 6:1,2: "We then as workers together with God, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain . . . Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Soon after the world's celebra- tion of Christmas comes the New Year, as if to remind us that it is not enough that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sin- ners," collectively; we, each one individually, must do something about appropriating this salvation for ourselves. After the classic passage in II Cor. 5:14-21 where the apostle tells how Christ "died for all," and how God deals with all men in grace since "he hath made Him to be sin for us" so that "we might be made the righteousness of God in Him"—after this great unfolding of what God, through Christ, has done for us, he urges individual acceptance of this great truth. As "workers together with God," the apostle and his associ- ates begged the Corinthians not to "receive the grace of God in vain," but to frust Christ, each one as His own personal savior, to apply His redemptive work to themselves. And even at that early date in the history of the Church, the apostle gave them to understand that there was no time to lose, the day of grace was not to last forever, but was to give place to the day of judgment and wrath upon this Christ -rejecting world. If this was so then, how much more is it so now! God has been very longsuffering with the world. He has continued to deal with mankind in grace for nearly two thousand years and according to,. both Old Testament prophecy and Paul's "mystery" He will judge this world for its rejection of Christ. When will this happen? No one knows. It is the very essence of the dispensation of grace that no one knows when it will end. It is grace, pure grace, on God's part that causes Him to linger day after day in mercy toward a world that rejects Him. Thus God's messengers cannot offer even one more day of grace. We must say as St. Paul did: "Be- hold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salva- tion" II Cor. 6:2. "Christ died for our sins" (I Cor. 15:3). "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" (Acts 16:31). Business and Professional Directory OPTOMETRISTS J. E. Longstaff OPTOMETRIST SEAFORTH MEDICAL CENTRE 527.1240 Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sat- urday a.m., Thursday evening CLINTON OFFICE 10 Issac Street 482.7010 Monday and 'Wednesday Call either office for appointment. Norman Martin OPTOMETRIST Office Hours: 9. 12 A,M, — 1:30. 6 P.M. Closed all day Wednesday Phone 235.2433 Exeter Robert F. Westlake Insurance "SpeciallzIng In General Insurance" Phone 236-4391 -- Zorlah Guaranteed Trust Certificates 1 Year — 75 2 Years — 71/4% 3, 4, 5Years — 81/4% J. W. ] YABERER Z1U1811CH PHONE 2364346 AUCTIONEERS ALVIN WALTER PROVINCIAL LICENSED AUCTIONEER For your sale, large or small, courteous and efficient service at all times. "Service That Satisfies" DIAL 237.3300 — DASHWOOD FUNERAL DIRECTORS WESTLAKE Funeral Home AMBULANCE and PORTABLE OXYGEN SERVICE DIAL 236.4364 — ZURICH ACCOUNTANTS Roy N. Bentley PUBLIC ACCOUNTANT GODERICH P.O. Box 478 Dial 524-9521 INSURANCE For Safety .. . EVERY FARMER NEEDS Liability Insurance For Information About All Insurance -- Call BERT KLOPP DIAL 236-4988 — ZURICH Representing COOPERATORS INSURANCE ASSOCIATION