Sunday thoughts: packing away the Christmas decorations

Earlier this week my four-year-old and I put away our Christmas Tree and it's decorations.  We carefully took off the numerous figures, baubles, stars and snowflakes and packed them carefully away, ready for next year.  Our Christmas Tree is neither fashionable nor themed.  It contains a colourful array of ornaments from my childhood, things handed down from grandparents, things we've bought over the course of our marriage, things given to the children as presents and things the children have made.  Some show exquisite craftsmanship, others feature the cutting and sticking skills of a pre-schooler.

But my Christmas decorations are a small harbour in a storm of consumerism, and Christmas is often a time when consumerism hits us in the face more than ever.

Because our society has a problem - it is generally cheaper and easier to replace something than to repair it.  This is at first driven by the fact that local time and labour are vastly more expensive than the materials, and most of our goods are produced by those in other countries paid a pittance.  Without this economic structure we would not be able to have the fast-changing trends in clothing, technology, homewares and toys.  But the constant need to be 'up-to-date' fuels the throwaway society even more.  Who wants to spend a lot of money on something that will last them for life when it will go out of fashion in a few years?

But believe it or not, this is not actually a post about consumerism (although it's a bugbear of mine!).  As I applied some glue to a loose part of clay star my daughter had made at school, I reflected that just as it is often easier and cheaper for us to replace than repair, the same is true for God.

God could have destroyed sin by destroying humanity.  He could have thrown us out and started again.  But he chose the far costlier option.  He chose to restore and redeem us, and paid for us in the blood of Jesus.  Jesus sweated drops of blood in anxiety when faced with the trials he had to endure.  The Son of 
God cried out "Eloi Eloi, lema sabachthani?" (My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?) (Matthew 27:46). The perfect love and unity of the Trinity was ripped apart and darkness covered the earth. It is impossible for us to fully comprehend.

And why? Because A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out (Isaiah 42:3). Not only that, but He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17). God delights in us - we are his handiwork. We have wondered away, are broken and corrupt, and yet God in his great love restores us.

All this says something about us - that we are unique and valuable to God - but it says even more about Him: the depths of his love, patience, mercy and sacrifice to restore us. Because he says: "Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed” (Isaiah 54:10).

As I looked at our decorations, I realised I was seeing something of a picture of what God's church should look like.  People who are broken but restored, and treasured; all different, and each with their own story.  At the top of our Christmas Tree there is not a star or an angel, but a cross.  It's made from two rolled-up and stapled bits of paper and I made it in our first year of marriage to stick on top of the tiny Christmas Tree we had in our first flat.  At the head of the Church is Christ, and from him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Ephesians 4:16)

My daughter's clay star is restored and held together with strong clue, enabling it to shine in all it's glory. but God's church, and the people that make it up, are restored and held together by Jesus, as a community of individuals.  Each has an innate beauty (for when God created humanity he declared it 'very good' (Genesis 1:31)), but this is fully realised when restored through God's love and when taking it's place in the body of Christ.

How do we view our brothers and sisters in Christ?  Do we view them like a treasured handmade Christmas decoration that we are willing to sit down and mend, or do we view them as disposable should they become broken, less useful, or no longer in fashion, to be tossed out in favour of something new?  Jesus tells us to love one another as he has loved us (John 13:34), We must cherish each member of his body, helping them to be restored and for God's light to be reflected in them.  Sometimes that's painful, sometimes it requires sacrifice, but Jesus has gone before us and made the greatest sacrifice of all.