Thought for the Week

In Cambuslang Parish Church every month we hold church unplugged, together with our friends from Flemington Hallside Church, which explores the meaning of the Christian faith in contemporary ways.

This month, for Christmas, we were asking the question “what is at the heart of Christmas for you?” In a country where there is an increasing number of people who claim that they have no religious belief, it is interesting that Christmas is still widely celebrated.

It’s easy to be cynical, and to think that the way we celebrate Christmas is directed by those whose concern is to make money. We watched the advert for a department store chain which tells the story of a little girl becoming aware there is a man on the moon.

At the end of the advert the girl sends him a present of a telescope, which means that he is no longer isolated – he is now part of what he has been cut off from for a long time. What the advert is saying is that if Christmas is only about the decorations and the presents and the parties then something is missing. All the things we do at Christmas are good, but they become special when they help us draw in again those who have been left out.

The Christian Church celebrates its faith that God became an outsider, a child born in a stable to a very young mother, and even for those who do not share this faith, that spirit of including the outsider is part of the spirit of Christmas.

I want to wish all the readers of the Reformer a very happy Christmas, and to send a challenge to each of us to do something that will bring the spirit of Christmas close to someone who finds this a difficult time of year. Leslie Milton Cambuslang Parish Church