"Love the Guest"
“People, look east.
The time is near.
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look East and sing today:
Love the Guest is on the way.”
Words: Eleanor Farjeon
“Love the Guest”
That’s what Christmas is all about
even though 99% of our time
is spent on other Christmas things.
This very old traditional anthem
sung on Advent Sunday.
All part of the preparation
for the Christmas season.
It’s a bit like a birthday really –
Like a birthday,
you remember it,
celebrate it,
send a card,
make a cake,
have a drink,
get the family and friends together for ‘something’.
And the chief guest is the person whose birthday it is.
Of course Christmas is a birthday!
The birthday of love,
the birthday of
‘love come down!’
the birthday of perfect love!
The birthday of God saying
“I love you”
so I will send a little present.
So as we sing the traditional Carols
and have a sing-a-long-birthday-party-or two-------
---------let’s thank God for love.
The love we have experienced in our lives.
The love we have yet to experience.
The love that will not let me go – too!
Amazing too –
that this love gift is free to all.
No conditions.
It is free to enjoy
and also respond to,
if we wish.
What response
(if we want to)
is the best from God’s point of view?
Some options
1. Clock the love coming in and send it back and say “I love you too”
2. Clock the love and ‘party’. Let’s celebrate life – dance- sing – drink – celebrate ‘full on’.
3. Clock the love and go quiet for a while. Turn the TV off and, when ready, just ponder, reflect, soak in the bath of love, love poured lavishly upon you. Soak it in. Breathe it in
“Breathe on me breath of God”.
4. Clock the love and then make a ‘Christmas resolution’ to love someone in some way who you don’t normally reach out to, yes – love the unlovely.
5. Clock the love and read a bit. The first part of Matthew, (not Mark), Luke (not John) write bits on the Christmas story.
6. Clock the love and then decide how you want to live your life in the light of love.
7. Clock the love and hang up some Christmas lights, to remind you of the light that came to light the world.
I have decided to make my life an act of love.
Have a fantastic – full on - full love – full on Christmas.
