One of the things I love about Christmas is the way that we love to decorate our homes with tinsel, trees and lights. Like many of you, one of our favourite family traditions is an evening walk around to see the different light displays. Some people go to quite an effort such as the family who put up a 25 foot Santa Clause much to the delight of our family.as we drove past.
Why do we do this? Well, I think that one reason is because we want our homes to be filled with warmth and light at Christmas because the world outside feels dark. The other Sunday, in fact as we were preparing for a carol service where I first gave this talk, we were setting up candles whilst the news was coming through of the evil terrorist attack against Jews, also celebrating light and lighting candles that day, came through. The world around us feels dark, whether its terrorist attacks abroad of a sense of violence and intimidation on our streets. We are looking for light, warmth, safety. And there is something heart warming about the baby born in Bethlehem.
However, for many of us, home is not always an easy place to be at Christmas. Sometimes it is because of a sense of loss. I associate Christmas at home with either being down in Kent, attempting to make my way through Everest levels of Turkey dinner prepared by my father-in-law or back home in Bradford, not just celebrating Christmas but my mum’s birthday on Christmas Eve. The tradition was that so that mum didn’t cook on her birthday, we had fish and chips, then in later years that morphed into a meal out at a restaurant and we still try to do that with Dad when we are up but there is a sense that with those two people having died three years ago that something is missing. Perhaps for you, Christmas will be a hard time, home will feel a little more empty and for some it will actually be Christmas Day alone with no one to share home with at all.
Some of you may find that home is the last place you want to be at Christmas because of the painful memories you carry, memories of things you saw and heard done to others, memories of things that people did to you. And those memories may include your own failings, the things you have said, done and thought that have caused hurt to the very people you are meant to love, the things you have said, done and thought that you know go against God’s commands. We call those things “sin”. Sin causes guilt and shame. The Bible says that the penalty for sin is death. This means physical death, alienation from God and living under what the carol “Joy to the World” calls “the curse”.
We make paper chains as part of our Christmas decorations but the guilt and shame we carry, the weight of the curse we carry is more like the real metal chains that they used to make in the Black Country, chains that shackle and bind us. One of the uses of chains was to shackle slaves and the carol “Oh Holy Night” talks about these. It says
“Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother.”
Jesus came into the world to set captives free and that means he came to break your chains too. Jesus came to break the chains of sin, addiction, hurt, shame and guilt.
One of the famous Bible passages read at Christmas is John 1. In verse 14 it says
“The word (Jesus) was made flesh (human) and dwelt (made his home) among us.”
Jesus came to make his home with us so that we could be set free from those chains in our homes and in order that we might find a home with him.
Faithroots 