May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

So, the countdown is well advanced, Christmas is now just a week away.   Everything is ready, cards are sent, presents bought and wrapped, shopping finished and we can all wind down for the next seven days with a small glass of sherry and a mince pie!   Well, maybe not just yet.   Maybe the less well organised among us still have one or two things to do, or as in my case, maybe you are thinking you’d better make a start!

One sure sign of the impending festivities is the growing pile of Christmas cards on the mat each morning and I have been taking a more detailed interest in the cards that we’ve been receiving to see what they might reveal about Christmas in this millennium year.  I’ve done a little statistical survey and I thought I might share it with you as a completely unscientific and statistically inaccurate reflection of the importance of the word of God in the UK at Christmas time.  

As of yesterday, we had received 55 cards, or to be more precise, I could find 55 of the cards that we have received, I suspect there are a few undiscovered piles under last weeks Daily Telegraphs and next weeks shopping.   But, anyway, my survey base was 55 cards.  Of that 55, 15 (or 27%) were religious in nature, that is, they had some form of image on the front that was vaguely related to the Nativity.   Of those 15, the most popular image was still the classic crib scene of some sort or other accounting for 6.   The kings are popular this year.   We had three with pictures of them and also 3 with pictures of churches.   Angels not doing quite so well, only 2 and the shepherds down in the relegation zone with only 1 card.

The other interesting thing was then to see, of these religious cards, how many had any vaguely biblical text attached and the answer is, not very many.    The one and only shepherds card had the first line of the hymn “While Shepherds Watched” on the front and one of the others had a greeting which read “Peace and Joy to you this Christmas”.   And that was it.    All of the others contented themselves with the usual “Merry Christmas” or “ Seasons Greetings” and I find this fascinating.  

Our increasingly secular society continues to push the message of God into the background and even at this time of Advent as we prepare for that most wondrous of things, God becoming man, we don’t want too many direct reminders of just what it is we’re celebrating.   A nice crib scene is OK, but not if it is accompanied by words, which might just remind us that the season is about more than mince pies, presents and turkey.   Now this got me thinking about Christmas cards and about what they would be like if we really did want them to contain the message of scripture at this time of year.

If we’re looking for someone to write more meaningful greetings than “Merry Christmas” how about John the Baptist?   We could have a nice crib scene on the front and inside the verse taken from today’s appointed gospel could read “You brood of vipers, who told you to flee from God’s wrath. Repent and have Merry Christmas”.    Or to accompany a seasonal picture of a yule log, “The axe is already at the root of the trees and every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown on the fire”.   There’s no messing with John.

If that’s a bit strong for you, then we could always go to today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Philippians.  This might be more appropriate as John’s audience would not be that different from ours.   Remember Philippi was a pretty affluent and comfortable Roman dependency and Paul was trying to shake his audience from their apathy – not dissimilar to our task here in Bunbury.    So what does Paul say?   Well in this very short extract we have a massive amount that is vital to our understanding and the development of our faith.

“Rejoice in the Lord always, I say again Rejoice!”   “The Lord is near, do not be anxious about anything”.   “The peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus”.   Now that’s better, we could almost see some of those phrases getting onto a Christmas card.   But don’t let the language fool you.  Paul’s message is just as difficult and just as uncompromising as John’s.   You could almost see Paul using the carrot, where John uses the stick.   

Paul tells us not to be anxious about anything and we read that and say, “Well it’s all right for you but we’ve got lots to be anxious about.   We’ve got houses and cars and mortgages and wayward children who won’t do what they’re told.   There’s plenty to be anxious about!   And if that weren’t enough – we’ve got Christmas!    Aunty Vera’s coming and she doesn’t get on with Cousin Bob and granny can’t eat turkey because her new teeth don’t fit and baby Gemma’s allergic to pine needles, and I’m sure that cardigan I bought for Bill won’t fit him.    Anxious – you don’t know the meaning of the word!

Now Christmas is a stressful time of the year.   Not only do we have all the preparation to do in our otherwise busy lives but we also have the prospect of spending 2 or 3 days in close proximity with some of our family that we rarely see.   In 1967, two psychologists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe created a do it yourself stress test.  They created what they called Life Changes Values that attached a score to various events in your life.  

You add up all your scores and if you get over 150, then there is a 50% chance that you will suffer from some stress related illness or accident in the next 2 years.   Over 300 and that percentage rises to 80%.    The big scores come from big events.   Divorce scores 73 and going to jail, 63.    Further down the list, moving house scores 20 and a speeding ticket gets 11.   Christmas itself rates a score of 12 – that’s just for the stress of experiencing Christmas.

Now if I go back to my Christmas cards and those peaceful nativity scenes, I keep thinking about Mary and how peaceful she looks and I wonder how she would rate on her Life Changes Value.    The answer is, not too well.   If I go down the list, this is how I score her:-

         Marriage                                                50

         Pregnancy                                             40

         Extra Marital Pregnancy                          40

         Childbirth                                               30

         In law troubles                                       29

Can’t imagine Joseph’s parents were happy!

         Major change in living conditions             25

         Change in amount/type of recreation     19

         Change in church activities                     19

         Change in social activities                       18

         Change in sleeping habits                       16

Well I make that 286 – without adding on the stress of entertaining the local agricultural community and visiting royalty which I’m sure must tip her over the 300 mark and yet we are presented with an image of perfect peace – not stressed turmoil.    So what’s Mary’s secret?   Well let’s go back to Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi.

Paul tells us very clearly to do three things and that if we do them then the peace of God, which passes all understanding will be ours.   Mary’s peace comes from her ability to do these three things and thereby earn that inner peace that can only come from God.   What are those three things?   Well they’re in the reading but let me remind you of them.  They are:-

1)                To be anxious in nothing

2)                To be prayerful in everything

3)                To be thankful in anything

The reward for these is peace.   Sounds nice and simple.  We could almost put it into our Christmas card greetings but whilst it is easy to say, it is harder to do.   Let us look at each of Paul’s exhortations in turn, firstly to be anxious in nothing.    How often do we fail to trust God in this one?   How often do we find ourselves worrying about things over which we have no control? 

We worry about our health and that of our children.   We worry about our jobs, our homes maybe even our church.   But if we let these anxieties overwhelm us then we become incapable of becoming agents of God’s spirit here on earth.    How can we “Rejoice in the Lord Always” as Paul urges us and witness to others about the wonder of that joy if we are riven with worry and anxiety.    If we can’t trust God then who can we trust?   Be anxious in nothing because God is God, today, tomorrow and always.

And the second message from Paul?   Be prayerful in everything.   How often do we honestly turn to God in prayer?    When we are in need?    When we are blessed and want to say Thankyou?   God wants our prayers, supplications and requests.   He wants us to be prayerful in everything.

And how about the last of Paul’s three-some – to be thankful in anything.   Being thankful in everything does not mean being irrepressibly cheerful no matter what our mood or circumstance.    It seems unlikely that Noah went out on the deck of the Ark on the 39^th solid day of rain and thanked God for the freshness of it on his face.  I think we’ve all had a sense of what Noah must have felt over the course of this so-called summer.   

Being thankful in everything does mean that we recognise God’s guiding hand in everything.  Once we have taken Christ into our lives, we can never again be abandoned children.   Our thankfulness is not a matter of surface smiles but is based on the confident knowledge that whatever comes our way, our life is built on the ultimate power, the power of the resurrected Christ.

And the reward for all of this?   The peace of God, which passes all understanding.    As long as we are in Christ, the peace of God will guard our hearts and guide our minds.

So there we have it, the ultimate Christmas present, ready and waiting for all of us and announced by Paul in this season of Advent.    But do we want it?    It seems a nice present, the prospect that for the rest of your life you could experience God’s perfect peace.    But if it’s so nice, why don’t more people take it?   After all, it’s been on offer for 2,000 years.    All of us here have known about for a long time but do we really want it?   

The problem, the catch with this perfect gift lies in the fact that we find those three simple exhortations from Paul so difficult.   We just don’t seem to be able to truly offer up our lives to God and place our trust in Him alone.   Occasionally we do and on those occasions maybe we catch a fleeting feeling of that perfect peace but then it’s gone as we lose our trust in God and revert to our normal position of trusting our own judgement.  So whilst Paul’s messages to be anxious in nothing, prayerful in everything and thankful in anything seem easy they appear to be almost impossible for us to follow.

So this Christmas as we are flooded with more and more cards with the meaningless mottos of Christmas, let’s see if we can keep bringing Paul’s simple motto to mind.    Let’s dismiss the tinsel and tawdry trimmings of a modern Christmas and dwell on the astonishing fact that 2,000 years ago God so loved the world that he became man in a smelly, dirty stable in Bethlehem.    He did this so we might see the way to salvation; through trust, through prayer and through thanksgiving.   May you all have a trusting, prayerful and thankful Christmas and so experience the peace of God which passes all understanding.   Amen.