Happy Christmas everyone, and thanks for all your support and friendship over the past term!
As I said at the nativities, can you really believe another year has passed? We’re all another year older, and time has passed us by once again—time we can’t get back. What a depressive start to the final newsletter of 2021. Maybe. But what a great way to start the holiday… by being present in the moment…. And enjoying every minute of the holiday, and 2022.
Let’s try hard not to worry about the future… of course, there’ll be choppy waters out there that will come our way, but let them come to us…. There’s no point swimming out to them.
And we will make mistakes, do things we regret. When we do, focus on the apology—either giving it, or accepting it. And move on as quickly as we can.
The birth of Jesus is not about being perfect—indeed the birth of Jesus was fraught with difficulties, trials and tribulations, just as life is. Starting with the pregnancy itself – Mary was only a young girl, probably about 15 or 16, was unmarried, and was worried how Joseph would react.
In Matthew's Gospel, we learn of the difficulties Herod created. Mary and Joseph faced massive danger from King Herod, who sought to have Jesus killed. They took the baby Jesus from their home in Bethlehem to Egypt. After Herod died, they began the return journey to Bethlehem, but were warned in a dream that Archelaus, Herod's son and successor as king of Judea, was still a danger to Jesus. They therefore turned aside and travelled to start a new home in the city of Nazareth in Galilee, out of reach of Archelaus.
In Luke's Gospel, Mary and Joseph faced the inconvenience of travelling from their home in Nazareth for a census in Bethlehem, where Jesus was born – all on foot. As they faced no danger from Herod, they journeyed from Bethlehem to Jerusalem a few days after the birth of Jesus, to present him at the Temple. They then returned peacefully to their home in Nazareth.
Mary and Joseph faced other problems as well, not least finding place to rest - there was no room at the inn, they had no family around to help them, and very little money. Problems which in time they dealt with, and successfully overcame.
I pray this Christmas that the “Good News” of Christmas is the start of a gradual period where peace, and comfort return to everyone’s lives, and I do also continue to pray most earnestly for those of you who I know are having it unfairly tough at the moment.
Moving into 2022, Jesus showed us how to forgive, and that is a great trait to embrace.
So enter into the Christmas Period with gentleness, calmness and with a determination to accept and forgive imperfections, not just other people’s, but our own.
Settle down, pour a glass of the mulled stuff, focus on the good stuff.
Take it easy, thanks ever so much for your support, friendship and banter over the last term, and I’ll see you in 2022.
Andy xx
