{"id":67,"date":"2013-10-27T14:50:07","date_gmt":"2013-10-27T14:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=67"},"modified":"2013-10-27T14:50:07","modified_gmt":"2013-10-27T14:50:07","slug":"preparing-for-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/2013\/10\/27\/preparing-for-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Preparing for Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, here we are, half way through Exploretumn<\/i> and the nights have really drawn in.\u00a0 I guess it\u2019s round about now that most people start thinking more seriously about Christmas.\u00a0 Office parties are being booked, town-centre lights are being erected, and we\u2019re conscious that time is pressing on \u2013 if we don\u2019t get the cards written soon, the intended recipients will not know we\u2019ve been thinking about them.\u00a0\u00a0 This season of preparation has a lot in common with the church\u2019s season of Advent, which begins four Sundays before Christmas (1st<\/sup> December this year) and in which Christians look forward to the Christmas Day celebration of Jesus\u2019 birth in Bethlehem 2000 years ago.\u00a0 One of the similarities between the seasons is that there\u2019s a clear end-point to both: it\u2019s quite plain that Christmas shopping must be complete by Christmas Day; and the season of Advent is defined as ending as Christmas Eve wanes.\u00a0 There\u2019s no avoiding the fact that Christmas Day is definitely the end of the pre-Christmas season!<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a difference between the seasons too.\u00a0 As well as helping Christians prepare for the celebration of when God became a man in Jesus to rescue sinners and make them his children again, the season of Advent has a second purpose.\u00a0 Remembering Jesus\u2019 birth is only part of the deal \u2013 Christians also look forward to his return as judge and king at the end of history.\u00a0 Preparing for this is slightly more difficult than preparing for a Christmas celebration; \u201cthe end of history\u201d has a date and is therefore a deadline every bit as definite as \u201cChristmas Day\u201d, but nobody actually knows what that date is.<\/p>\n

For most people, this uncertainty tends to result in an understanding that \u201cthe end of history\u201d is a long way in the future \u2013 so far, in fact, that it is of very little relevance.\u00a0 And because it is so far in the future, most people \u2013 even the super-organised ones \u2013 put the task of preparing for it a long way down their list of priorities.\u00a0 Indeed, I would venture to suggest that very few people give it much thought at all.\u00a0 Now you might think that it is a bit bold of me to make such a sweeping claim, but I do so on the basis of surveys that have been conducted recently into people\u2019s attitudes to Christmas itself.\u00a0 Apparently, in the UK, just 12 per cent of adults know the nativity story, and more than one-third of children don\u2019t know whose birthday we are celebrating at Christmas. \u00a0In what many still like to regard as a Christian country, a staggering 51 per cent of people now say the birth of Jesus is irrelevant to their Christmas.\u00a0 I reason that if people are not including Christ in their Christmas despite the Christian heritage of our nation, they almost certainly aren\u2019t thinking about his return.<\/p>\n

Jesus himself advises that this is a terrible mistake.\u00a0 He describes the day of his return as coming \u201clike a thief in the night.\u201d\u00a0 The image he uses is deliberately shocking in order to wake us up and make us take notice.\u00a0 He will come suddenly, without further warning \u2013 we are already on notice.\u00a0 On this basis, the sensible thing to do is to put the task of preparing for his return at the top of our priorities so that we are ready when he comes, whenever that is.\u00a0 So, will you spend the next hour searching the internet for the perfect Christmas gift-wrap, or would it be worth spending some time reflecting on your relationship with God?<\/p>\n

Christmas is coming, and so is Christ \u2013 may you all be ready!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, here we are, half way through Exploretumn and the nights have really drawn in.\u00a0 I guess it\u2019s round about now that most people start thinking more seriously about Christmas.\u00a0 Office parties are being booked, town-centre lights are being erected, and we\u2019re conscious that time is pressing on \u2013 if we don\u2019t get the cards […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,18],"tags":[20,21],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-comment","category-gospel","tag-advent","tag-christmas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72,"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hwwchurch.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}