Well, it’s that time of year when you can’t escape the Christmas songs in the shops wherever you go. I have a certain sympathy for those shop workers who are subjected to the same songs all day long on an hourly basis. Maybe they think that by the time they’ve heard Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody for the eighth time that day, it must be close to the end of their shift.
And I grew up, surrounded by those songs. I remember the Slade record coming out, just as I also remember Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday being released, along with Elton John’s Step Into Christmas and many others. Goodness knows, I was an adult by the time Wham’s Last Christmas and Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas found their way into the world.
But if I were to confess a soft spot for one Christmas single, no, it’s not Mariah or Cliff, but it might be Driving Home For Christmas by Chris Rea. I wonder how many of you will be driving home for Christmas. Or perhaps you are at home and other family members are driving home to you?
Do you look forward to seeing family at Christmas? I do. That sense of the wider family gathering is important to me.
But what we often miss is that Christmas is about family in another sense. John tells us the purpose of Jesus coming is to invite us into the family of God.
Yet many of us missed our own Creator coming into the world (verses 9-10). Even a lot of those who should have known better ignored him or rejected him (verse 11).
12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
So what does it take to become a child of God? Let me recount a story that appears in my book ‘Odd One Out’:
Many years ago, I used to meet a friend in central London and we would go to see movies together. We would always find somewhere to eat first and catch up with each other over a meal before heading for the cinema.
On one of these occasions, my friend suddenly said during the meal, “I’ve got something to tell you.” Putting on my best pastoral expression, I listened carefully.
What my friend said was this: “I was adopted as a child.”
Seeing the look of concern on my face, my friend continued, “Don’t worry, it’s all right, I rather like the fact that I know I was adopted. It means I was wanted.”
And that’s how we come into God’s family. We are not naturally children of God, as John says. So God adopts us as his children. And like my friend, he adopts us because he wants us.
In fact, he so wants us in his family that he sent his Son Jesus to bring the invitation personally to Earth. And when Jesus came, he knew that we had barriers we had erected between ourselves and God.
So Jesus took down those barriers. The shame we feel, rightly or wrongly, over our lives: nailed to the Cross. Our wrongdoing, when we do the opposite of what God loves: nailed to the Cross. Our weakness in the face of the forces of evil: nailed to the Cross.
What is there left for us to do? John tells us it takes two responses: receive Jesus, and believe in Jesus.
To receive Jesus is to receive him and all the gifts he has given us, including what I’ve just described, where he has taken away all the barriers between us and God.
To believe in Jesus is not simply to believe in his existence, but to trust in him. In fact, it is to trust our lives into his hands. Not only does he know what is best for us, he also enrols us on his adventure of making all things new. He has a purpose for our lives when we believe in him.
So this is God’s invitation to us at Christmas: to understand that Jesus has come with God’s invitation to join his family, because he wants us and loves us. And to respond by receiving all that Jesus gives us, and by entrusting our lives to him.
These things bring us into the family of God, and we join our brothers and sisters in the family who support us in our new journey.
Big Circumstance 