The Real Fairytale of New York

I've got a feeling

This year's for me and you

So happy Christmas

I love you baby

I can see a better time

When all our dreams come true

When you first took my hand

On a cold Christmas Eve

You promised me

Broadway was waiting for me

You were handsome

You were pretty

Queen of New York City

When the band finished playing

They howled out for more

Sinatra was swinging

All the drunks they were singing

We kissed on the corner

Then danced through the night

When the Pogues belt out this uplifting Irishy number you can't help but go with it. The fairytale of New York tells the story of a couple at Christmas and looks at how in love they seem. They look hopefully in the future knowing that now they are together all their dreams will come true. He's handsome, she's pretty, they kiss and all is magical. But we all know what's coming.

You're a bum

You're a punk

You're an old slut on junk

Living there almost dead

On a drip in that bed

You scum bag

You maggot

You cheap lousy faggot

Happy Christmas your arse

I pray God

It's our last

How did it go so wrong? What happened? In the time it took them to sing 'and the boys of the NYPD choir...' it's gone from them dancing through the night to abusing each other.

I did a quick poll in my office and discovered that the only two choices for favourite Christmas songs were 'Last Christmas' and this one. Both of which talk of dreaming of something magical only for it to disappoint. Now maybe I'm surrounded by cynics but the truth is we like these songs because we know that they speak some truth. In our world good things go bad. That's what happens. We get fed up of songs that are simply just 'isn't everything great' because they make us feel even more crappy about all the hopes and dreams which we have had which have disappointed.

The question is why do good things go bad? Why can't good things just stay good? Why can't they get better? Why for thousands of years of human history have good things continued to go bad? The Bible's answer is that our world has rejected the God who made it and as such we have messed ourselves up. The planet suffers from decay and death and as in this song so do our relationships. We know they should be good but they so often go bad. So we live in this weird world. The world of the fairytale of New York. A world of incredible joys, really good things to be enjoyed but also incredible sorrows and bad things we wish would go away.

However good your Christmas is it cannot alter this fact.

But at Christmas we remember the one great act that promises to alter this. Christmas is the account of a God who lives in a world with no badness, no decay and no suffering, coming to this world and experiencing all of the joys and sorrows which we battle with. We see him ultimately taking those sorrows on himself as through his life he is rejected and ultimately tortured and killed all so that in exchange he can offer us a future in a world where good things stay good, where good things get better and where the second half of fairytale of New York is not a reality we all have to face up to.

guest post by Ben Parker

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Christmas can be better than you think

Genesis 3: 8–19

⁸And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. ⁹But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?" ¹⁰And he said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself." ¹¹He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" ¹²The man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate." ¹³Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." ¹⁴The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. ¹⁵I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." ¹⁶To the woman he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." ¹⁷And to Adam he said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; ¹⁸thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. ¹⁹By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Isn't this a bit of a depressing reading for Christmas? Surely we want to be hearing something about the goodness of humanity, the brotherhood of man, something that fits in with the idea that Christmas brings out the best in us. That's what we want to hear at Christmas because Christmas has become about pretending things are better than they are. This is exactly what Ben Preston, editor of the Radio Times, says in the Christmas issue of his magazine:
  

"Sometimes we really need a good Christmas. Time to hunker down with friends and family - to indulge ourselves and keep troubled times at bay. This is such a Christmas."

We imagine and plan for the ideal time with friends and family, trying to ignore that there's something wrong with the world. But there is something wrong, and even if we can push it to the back of our mind for a day or two, it's still there.

This reading diagnoses that problem. Like Adam and Eve, we try to become like God, we try to make the world revolve around us and it doesn't work. We are not keen on the idea that the problem is down to us so, again, we follow the pattern set by Adam and Eve and we shift the blame. It's my partner/parent/kid/boss/friend/government's fault, if they would change, the problems would go away. Except it can't change anything - we toil and then die, and God says that is because of our rebellion against him.

The message of Christmas is so much more than pretending that everything is better than it is. It is so much more than forgetting about your problems for a few days. It's much more than a bit of a celebration to make us feel better. It's more than reminding us about the importance of family. It's more than a chance to slow down a bit and relax. It's better than all of that because God has a solution to the problem. God reveals His plan in verse 15 - the woman's offspring who would have his heel bruised but would crush Satan's head - Jesus. In response to Adam and Eve's rebellion, and in response to ours, God did not cut us off but sent Jesus - born to a virgin, died on a cross, raised 3 days later conquering Satan, sin and death. That's the good news of Christmas.

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Joy To The World

video - christmas in dark places

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The gift you've spent your life looking for

This is a guest post by Ben Parker

The present you've always wanted? Let's be honest, when it comes to presents there are good years and bad years. I'm very thankful for the bad years of clothes and furniture which, whilst very necessary, fail to thrill the soul. But I love the good years - I love the years of iPads or games or gadgets. They offer such hope.

As a kid I had a game boy - the original black and white grey brick of a game boy. This revolutionised my life. I mean suddenly I could play anywhere. Boredom was a thing of the past. How could I be bored with a game boy there to entertain? As a teenager I got a drum kit. I loved making noise and I thought I was great. Suddenly a world of opportunity arose in front of me. If ever I was at a loss I could just go and play the drums. Boredom was over - I mean they'd always be there. At sixth form I got a decent PC and I got counter strike source. Online computer gaming changed my life. How could I be bored when at any point of the day or night I could get beaten by twelve year olds from all around the world?

As I was growing up presents offered so much. They offered me a happier life and again and again I believed this thing was all that my life was missing. As we get older we increasingly recognise the limitation of this stuff. We look around and we don't see this gadget which is going to solve our problem. But we still do the same thing just with different stuff, time off over Christmas will sort my life out, a holiday will sort my life out, a relationship will complete me, a new house will make life so much easier, kids would make my life so much more rewarding.

We do the same thing we look at these things and we think 'if only I had that then my life would finally work'. The strange thing is all the things we've thought that about in the past haven't done it so why do we think the next thing will? I don't still crack out my game boy for a game of mario every time I get bored (maybe I should), my drums rarely get played (and it turns out I'm not that good) and counter strike source no longer fills the hours of my life. The new job got boring surprisingly quickly, the extra money gets spent without you noticing any improvement, your marriage is great (or not) but it didn't sort out all your problems and despite all the holidays you've had in your life they never have quite sorted your life out like you thought they would.

Bad years of presents may be at times disappointing but it's actually in the good years that we get a glimpse of the real problem. It's in the good years we suddenly realise that this stuff can't deliver all we want it to.

Presents are great and Christmas is great but in some ways it is just the latest in a long string of attempts for us to find what we're missing. The strange thing in all of this is that what we're missing is actually not that hard to find. We're made to exist in loving relationships and this was meant to find its greatest expression in a relationship with God. We rejected this relationship and now find ourselves desperately trying to find a replacement. But replacements or substitutes are not needed because at Christmas we remember that God himself came down and said to us all 'come home and find the thing you've spent your life looking for things to satisfy'.

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Rejecting the greatest gift

This is a guest post by Paul Lintott

After extensive research into the thorny topic of terrible Christmas presents I discovered that there are some truly awful stories out there. Of course we will all have had our own experiences of inappropriate presents we received or presents we gave that we wished sincerely we could take back. But my favourite story was the one of the mother who bought all her children an Eye-pad. Yes of course they all thought they were receiving their dream gift only to find it was actually a piece of first aid kit rather than a technology treat. The worst of it though was the fact that her daughter had actually bought her a real IPad for Christmas. A bit of a poke in the eye if you excuse the pun.

The first Christmas surprisingly saw the greatest gift ever given rejected. Listen to how John speaks about it in his gospel account.

John 1:11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

He came to his own and his own people did not receive him is a comment about the rejection Jesus faced by the Jews. It never ceases to surprise me just how aggressively against Jesus the religious leaders and the powerful rulers of Israel were. Of course some of that is simply the power play of the day, Jesus was a threat and some people didn't want him coming in and spoiling things for them. They had a good thing going and they weren't interested in any jumped up carpenter from Nazareth spoiling things.

But it occurs to me that we can have a similar reaction to Jesus. We like him as the baby, all cuddly and cute surrounded by sheep, shepherds and wise men. But as soon as he grows up and starts talking about putting the kingdom first, loving our enemies and taking up our cross to follow him we are not so keen to receive him as the gift we imagined him to be.

Thankfully though John goes on:

John 1:12 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God

And there in one sentence we have the stunning trinitarian truth about Christmas: Jesus came to bring us into the family of God. Christmas is all about love and family and friendship and gifts and sharing time together and perhaps that is so because we are either trying to echo the call of God into his family or supplant it with something else. Either way what an amazing thought that the greatest gift was given and rejected which meant that the greatest relationship, the relationship with God was missed.

Imagine that: Christmas is actually about God calling us into his family rather than simply about him giving a gift that is somehow disconnected from knowing him. God's love can easily be seen as simply God doing nice things for me when actually God's love draws us into a life changing relationship with the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit.

My prayer this Christmas is that I would draw nearer to the Father who sent his Son so that I would know the joy of being a child of God in a richer and fuller way.

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An unimpressive, unwanted gift

Guest post by Andrew Griffiths

This Christmas will be the first Christmas I get to spend with my son. It's really difficult to buy gifts for someone so young. You have this moment where you realise he couldn’t really care less about what you get him, so long as it’s in shiny wrapping paper. And this got me thinking a lot about the gifts we want as we get older. I'm the polar opposite of my son, I don’t care about how it's wrapped, I'm asking myself “is this gift going to be something that I really want.” I don't have as much time and money to spend on cool gifts anymore, so Christmas is open season on all those things I have wanted for myself but haven't gotten.

It occurs to me though, that God doesn't really give gifts for either of these types of people. The 7 month-old wants something that looks good, the 28 year old what something that feels good. But God, in his greatness, gives a gift which is goodness itself, something that may not look pretty, something that may not even be wanted, but something that is desperately needed.

Jesus didn't come in an impressive display. He spent his first evening lying in a trough surrounded by barnyard animals. He wasn't necessarily what people wanted. The people in his time were longing for a warrior king who might burst on the scene and rescue them from the Romans, but this was a weak and vulnerable baby, the son of a carpenter and a young girl.

Jesus might not be the gift that looks the most exciting, nor is he the gift that we might really want, but he is the gift that we need, goodness itself. In Jesus, God is giving us the best he can possibly give, himself.

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I’ve got a sneaky feeling that love actually *is* all around

This is a guest post by Ben Parker

"Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around."

Love Actually appears to have quickly become a Christmas classic for some people. Whilst there is no doubt that it divides opinion (is it simply a feel good reflection of people's Christmases or emotional schmulz?) it does raise a somewhat interesting question and that is do we live in a world dominated by love or something else? What is it which lies at the heart of the world we live in?

For some people there is nothing which lies at the heart of our world. It came from nothing, it will return to nothing and what happens in between is nothing more than what happens. Love happens because some people choose to love but in the same way some choose to hate, some choose to be angry, some choose to use people. Life is a random mix with nothing at its centre.

For others the world is hard and grim. It is survival of the fittest and so life is fundamentally a survival challenge. It is often tough, the world is often hostile and we have to battle through it as best as we can. Find the little pockets of happiness we can whenever and wherever possible. Love may provide some of these pockets but it is equally likely to provide much of the hostility and hurt we so often experience.

Love actually is clear what it thinks. The dominating thing in our world is love. You don't have to look hard to see it and it is that which repeatedly flows out of us. Our natural desire is to love. Now much though it may pain me to say it the Bible agrees. The heart of humanity is love and it is love for one very specific reason. The heart of humanity is love because we were made in the image of a God who is himself love. The Bible could not make it any clearer - People love because God loves. 

Now anyone can say they love someone but God is a God who actively loved us. That is what Jesus coming to earth is all about. It is about a God who loved is enough to come into this messed up world as a baby and ultimately die so that we could be welcomes into God's perfect family of love. Broken though humanity is it keeps reverting back to the image in which it was made. We cannot help but express love and if you look around you I guess Love Actually is right you really do see it all around you. So it is right that at Christmas we repeatedly are surrounded by love - We send messages of love, we watch films about love, we spend time with people we love because as you catch a glimpse of the God who loved you enough to come as a baby it is not surprising that love is at the heart of our celebrations.

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