From the Manse
Dear Friends,
You may remember the Charles Dickens story ‘Great Expectations’ where all the main characters had different expectations of life. The same can happen with Christmas. People have different expectations of what Christmas will bring. For some it will be a time of celebration, a time to spend with family and friends; for others it will be a time of sorrow and a reminder that family and friends are no longer here to share the festivities; for some it will be a time of loneliness and isolation whilst for others, it will be a time of revelry and an opportunity to eat and drink as much as possible!
I’d like to share a couple of stories which show how expectations can alter the way we view things.
This first story is about two wealthy brothers who set out one Christmas to buy the very best Christmas present they could for their mother. The search for this present became so fierce that the two brothers turned it into a contest to see who could find the best present.
One brother thought he had found the perfect present when he came upon a Zurka bird.
This was no ordinary bird. It was very rare and special. It was also very expensive and had to be flown all the way from the Amazon. It could speak five different languages. It could recite poetry and sing opera. It was a truly amazing bird.
This brother paid dearly for the Zurka bird, and had it sent to his mother for Christmas.
Finally, he could wait no longer. He called his mother and when she picked up the telephone, he almost shouted into the phone, "Mum, Mum, what did you think about the beautiful, intelligent Zurka bird that I sent you, isn’t it just amazing?"
On the other end of the line, the Mother replied, "Oh son, it was absolutely delicious."
Obviously the son’s and the mum’s expectation of the present were somewhat different!
This next story is also about two sisters. One was an incurable optimist and the other an incorrigible pessimist. No matter what happened to the one child, her spirits couldn’t be deflated, and no matter what happened to the other, her spirits couldn’t be lifted.
So, one Christmas, totally exasperated, their parents tried to shake both girls out of their extreme pessimistic and optimistic attitudes.
For the pessimist, they bought Christmas gifts that anticipated her every wish, hoping that seeing so many good things on Christmas morning would lift her pessimism and produce signs of a more positive disposition. And, for the eternal optimist they gave nothing but a bag of horse manure.
Christmas morning arrived. The pessimistic girl opened a box of magnificent dolls. In response she said in dismay, “They’ll probably break.‟ When she opened a box containing a brand-new stereo she simply groaned “I don’t have any CDs to play on this thing. And if I did I probably wouldn’t like the music anyway.‟ She went on like this as she opened one gift after another.
On the other hand, when the optimistic child opened her bag and found that it was full of horse manure, she started shouting and jumping up and down for joy. When her parents wanted to know what she was so happy about, she exclaimed “Did you see what I got? Don’t you see what it means? With all of this horse manure there’s got to be a pony around here somewhere!”
There are many different expectations of Christmas but at the heart of Christmas is the good news that God loves us so much, he came to us in human form. He came as one of us, born a child and yet a king. And because of the first Christmas, we can have peace with God, we can know the joy of sins forgiven, and through putting our faith in Jesus, we can have life everlasting.
Whatever your expectations this Christmas, I hope and pray that you will know the joy and peace that came into the world at the first Christmas, and that you will be blessed as you journey into the New Year.
Every good wish,
Gary
The Rev Gary J Mcintyre