Phil Swann has been listening to neige-folle and writing to his church.

Just today I was reading the weblog of a good friend of mine who is doing missionary work in France. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, a weblog is a kind of diary that is kept on the internet. In my friend’s blog as well as writing about what he is doing, he often includes interesting things about the French and their culture. Today he wrote about an interesting website that was playing French carols, twenty four hours a day. Out of curiosity I decided to visit this sight and sure enough it was playing the most delightful French carols, many of which were instantly recognisable by their tunes. They were beautifully sung and had the right mix of the simple, sober and jolly that you would expect at this time of year.

After a while it dawned on me that though I was enjoying listening to these carols I did not have a clue what they were actually singing about. Sure I could understand, ‘O Holy Night’ and ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ but only because I recognised the tunes. The ones with unfamiliar tunes were complete mysteries to me for the simple reason I don’t speak French.

In those moments I caught a glimpse of what Christmas must feel like for many people who are not Christians. It’s that time of year when they enjoy the experience, get into the festive mood but don’t really understand or care what’s behind it all. As I thought about this it occurred to me how sad this was. The sad fact is though as a nation, we spend millions of pounds celebrating Christmas, few actually understand the significance of the birth of Jesus Christ. It is easy to get despondent about this or even worse start pointing a critical finger and blaming our unbelieving, secular culture for being so ignorant of Christianity.

I do actually think that blaming people for not knowing the significance of the Christmas story is a bad thing to do. Whose fault is it that people don’t know the facts or their significance? The short answer is it is the Church’s fault or to put it bluntly, our fault. Are people born with an innate knowledge of the Christian gospel? Is it something that goes along with a British passport or a British education? No. The Bible itself makes it clear, the ‘good news’ needs to be explained regardless of culture or education. It tells us that remarkable life changing things can happen when the story is explained. (“Faith comes through hearing the message” Romans 10v17.) It goes on to tell us that it is the Church’s unique work to tell the message of Christ to the world. No one else is going to do it, if the Church does not do it.

This is both highly challenging and very exciting at the same time. You see, we have our work cut out this Christmas when it comes to telling our society about Jesus Christ. We live in a culture that made Richard Dawkins’ ‘The God Delusion’ a best seller last Christmas and is likely to take to its heart Philip Pullman’s ‘The Golden Compass’ with its atheistic sub plot, this Christmas. It’s also a culture where many seem to think that life’s very best times are when our bodies are filled to capacity with food, drink and laughs. It’s a tough call to go to this culture with a two thousand year old message that calls for humility and self sacrifice in us. A message that though beginning with the mystery of a virgin birth will have its ultimate focus in a brutal death by crucifixion.

But as tough as it is, as Christians we have one great comfort. This is not our message or even ‘the message of the Church’, it’s God’s message. For two thousand years he has been using the message of His Son Jesus Christ to draw ordinary people like you and me to Himself. So as you give hospitality and gifts this Christmas, make sure you give the good news about Jesus away to as many people as possible. We all have something we can say about how wonderful Jesus Christ is – lets say it.

And just in case you are really not sure what to say let me leave you with this lovely little thought provoking quote from C S Lewis’ The Last Battle, ‘In our world, too, a stable once held something that was bigger than the whole world’. Maybe that will get the conversation started.

May God bless you all this Christmas, in a very special and personal way. May you feel the reality of His love towards you and the unique joy that comes from believing in Jesus.