A Trifle for Tuesday.

Our Commercial World

 (Photo krb - 2022)

I didn't know that Christmas was for sale. It is the only conclusion that I can come to. With just a few days to go it seems that the entrepreneurial spirit has claimed Christmas as its own. Can we just stop for a minute in the mad rush to make a profit and just think about what we are doing? That after all, is what we are asked to do in this season of Advent - to pause and contemplate the world- changing event that we are about to celebrate again. Yes, I understand the need for the business world to keep ticking over. That is, after all what keeps our economy operating. But it seems that in recent years we have got it all out of skew. Our commercial world has taken control leaving no room for us as a community to take in the true meaning of Christmas.

I don't view the commercialization of Christmas with a bah humbug attitude. All I ask is that maybe it is time we all got things into perspective. Christmas does not belong to any one group. Christmas belongs to everyone, to all people everywhere and maybe it is time to allow that message to get through. Maybe it is time to step back from the bigger, brighter, better attitude and look for something simpler. Something that brings hope in these terrible troubled times. 

For me, at Christmas, we celebrate the moment when God, whatever you may think of that term, turned the expectations of the world upside down. God took on human form in the shape of an ordinary human being , not as a royal prince in a grand palace in some beautiful city but as a baby to peasant parents who lived among peasants, born in the most humble circumstances in a borrowed stable in a small insignificant village at the outer edge of the Roman Empire - a poor man who came to proclaim God's preference for the poor, the oppressed and the outcast.

So, let's make Christmas simpler. Let's give ourselves space, whatever our beliefs, to see the wonder and hope of this time reflected in the delight of little children. Let's give God a chance through the birth of a baby to bring hope, peace and justice to our world.

Advent peace and blessings to all.