The Long Walk Home

Here he is: James Howarth. He lives in Canada with his Mum and Dad most of the time but came over for his Baptism yesterday. He is cute and smiley and laughs a lot. I like him.

Read this. It’s not about Christmas, but in a roundabout way probably is. It’s certainly what Real being a Christian is all about.

Sometimes we need things put in a different way, we need things phrased differently. Recently I got some people to read out John 1 in three different versions of the Bible. Hearing the familiar words expanded, rearranged and explained helped get the meaning across loud and clear. Here are some examples:

From the Amplified Bible:
“All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him was not even one thing made that has come into being. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men. And the Light shines on in the darkness, for the darkness has never overpowered it [put it out or absorbed it or appropriated it, and is unreceptive to it].”

“And the Word (Christ) became flesh (human, incarnate) and tabernacled (fixed His tent of flesh, lived awhile) among us; and we [actually] saw His glory (His honor, His majesty), such glory as an only begotten son receives from his father, full of grace (favor, loving-kindness) and truth.”

From the Message:
“The Word became flesh and blood,and moved into the neighborhood We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.”

From the Word on the Street:
“Bizarre! No-one recognises him! He speaks them into existence, but they don’t recognise him or his voice.”

“So God’s voice gets flesh and blood, skin and bone. He spends time with us; we hang around with him, get to know him and see what he’s like. And? As magnificent, as superb as you’d expect God’s only son to be.”

The point? God has come into this world as one of us. We can know him. He has revealed himself to us. We are not left in the dark. Yes, there are a million things I do not understand about God. But I can know Him. Christmas reminds me of who he is and how I can. That makes all the difference in facing whatever good or bad confronts me. Well, sometimes it does. Sometimes I want to scream and rage and cry. And I can. Because he came. I can’t escape the reality of being held by the Maker of the world. Right now I don’t really want to.

Yesterday was Christmas day in our house, a long standing tradition where we invite many people who live near us to participate in good food and lots of fun. Yesterday was no exception. We ate much food, walked on the beach, took a multitude of photos, ate mince pies with brandy butter, drank mulled wine, took a Christmas Quiz, gave presents, got presents, laughed and rounded off the evening singing Christmas songs and listening to pretty music at Kate Rusby’s gig in Brighton. All in all a highly satisfactory Christmas day.

The downside of Christmas is the spending of money on presents. Which isn’t too much of a downside because you get to see peoples faces lit up with excitement at what you’ve bought them. It does however mean money is on the elusive side right now. Also time is sparse, what with all the Christmas events to go to. This combination is interesting when it comes to finding food. Last night my housemate, Lizzi, and I decided to cook together. This would have been a good plan. However.
Contents of our fridge: Some saver cheese. Margarine. A few spindly bits of Rocket left in a packet. Lots of cherry tomatoes.
Contents of our Freezer: A fish finger. Some random meat in packets. Pitta bread. Chicken Nuggets.
A selection guaranteed to tax the most creative of chefs.

We ended up with chicken nuggets in pitta bread with ketchup and the last bits of rocket for garnish. Which was surprisingly good. Tomorrow I’m highly looking forward to Team Days with good food and the best Christmas dinner ever, that’s got to last me until the weekend.

(A small disclaimer…money situations may have been exaggurated for comedy effect. I have a roof over my head, the possiblity of going to the shops and getting some more food, and many other cheering things in my life. This is in no way grumbling and complaining. Yes I have just read Philippians 2 with a student. Yes I am pants at applying this to my life.)