Christmas in 2020

Christmas 2020 promises to be a Christmas like no other in recent memory!

By now we would usually be in the middle of a busy church season and, while there is still a good amount to plan and plug into, we are challenged by the limitations that surround us. As I lamented the things that are missing this year, I felt a nudge in the spirit to look again at the things we do have and the things we are still able to do! Perhaps you are more of a ‘glass half empty’ kind of person. I encourage you to let the Spirit of God nudge you too. Psalm 23 is well known to all of us, I’m sure. It is a testimony of King David, that even though he had experienced a valley time, he was still determined to declare, ‘My cup overflows.’

Fast forward several hundred years to a scene in a ‘town of David’ and we see a couple who are many miles from home, caught in a desperate situation. The young wife is in labour and there is no place of refuge other than a stable loaned to them by a kind stranger. The event that follows is eternity changing; ‘She gave birth to her firstborn son… and laid him in a manger.’ (Luke 2:7)

The first Christmas was unique: the little family of Christ ‘socially distanced’ and soon to face more challenge; forced to be exiled into Egypt because of the tyrannical King Herod! The lowly circumstances of Christ’s coming were not reflected in heaven: the angels were so excited that they burst through the darkness and began to praise with dazzling gusto, completely caught up with the implementation of God’s salvation plan to send his only begotten son; you could say their cup ‘overflowed’.

We, too, are called to see beyond the darkness and look upon the light that has dawned. Whatever we might be missing this year; let’s look at what we do have and most importantly let’s look to the one who’s arrival is worthy to be celebrated, even in the most unusual of years.