CHRISTMAS IN PEACE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 24 December 1945, Page 4

CHRISTMAS IN PEACE

“GOD BLESS [)7 EVERY ONE” BISHOP STEPHENSON’S MESSAGE A FAMILY FESTIVAL “And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us every one.” With these words Dickens ends one of the most charming Christmas tales written. It is a fitting opening for a Christmas message, “God bless us every one,” writes the Bishop of Nelson, the Rt. Rev., P. W. Stephenson. Most who write or speak about Christmas this year will make reference to the fact that this is the first war-free Christmas since 1938. Although war has left its deep scars and although co many will be still out of their homelands on service elsewhere, the apprehension and uncertainty that was the lot of all of us has given place to an atmosphere in which we can enter more fully into the social side of the Christmas festivities. It is a time of many reunions; it is essentially a family festival and the social aspect of it brings to most a pleasure that is enjoyed, both by anticipation for weeks before hand and by realisation when work closes down and the holiday season commences. In this new atmosphere then, let us repeat, “God bless us every one.” There arc many homes where the family circle has been broken by the war. There are others where suffering is the lo‘ of some members —suffering brought about through war service or in other w-ys. But none of these things can shut out from the willing heart God’s blessing. The violinist who was able to finish the piece he was playing although a string snapped during its performance could be said to have br »ught music out of what was left. One of the outward signs of great living, Oi Christian courage, is this ability to get music out of life’s remainders. The way of God’s blessing for all such is not the way of resentment or complaining at what is looked upon perhaps as unjust treatment and undeserved suffering; but rather the way of accepting the circumstances and bringing them willingly as an offering to God. The spirit is then cleansed and ennobled and what was a burden and a disability becomes a channel of God’s blessing. BLESSING COMES THROUGH CHRIST For although the social side is emphasised on all hands it cannot be too often proclaimed that Christmas is a religious, a Christian occasion, and that it is through Christ that blessing comes. It is on Christmas Day that we commemorate the birth of a babe at Bethlehem, a babe of whom a writer in the same century could say “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The Christmas message is all concerned with that event. But the event is not an isolated one. It derives its meaning from the purpose of God in it all, from that lowly origin in the babe’s human existence, from the life lived down the succeeding years, from the public life as He moved amongst men, healed their diseases, and bor£ their sorrows and encouraged them and their children along the road of ]jfe. It derives its meaning from the end of His life on earth, the Cross on Calvary’s Hill, and the consequent resurrection. And what meaning does it derive? Surely just this, that through this Man, God wants to bless us every one. This is A.D. 1945. We call it “the year of our Lord.” We l call it “this year of grace.” He is our Lord. God’s greatest self giving, His greatest demonstration of grace is seen in Him, at whose birth the angelic song proclaimed “Peace on Earth, goodwill towards men.”

St. Paul puts his finger on the nature of this peace when he says of the Lord Jesus Christ, “He is our peace.” We move then from the vagueness of peace in general to the concrete, personal discovery of peace in the knowledge of a fellowship with Christ. For this peace is not just an absence of strife or turmoil. It is a deep down experience of poise and contentment and assur. nce that persists through all surface upheaval and worldly tension. It is the outcome of the Lirth of Jesus Christ in the human heart. And Christmas reminds us of this as we think of His birth at Bethlehem.

This then is the message of Christmas. It brings home afresh to us that God’s blessing is not unconditional. It has to be related to our attitude towards Him, and His provision for the needs of the human race. This provision is seen at its highest in Christ. That we should ask ourselves at this Christmas time what we have done about His supreme act in history that is known as the birth oi' Christ is surely God’s will and the way to blessing. In this deepest and most real sense therefore may “God bless us every one.”