Pastoral reflections........... “Christmas Magic!"
On Christmas Eve the magic spreads into almost every home in the land. On Christmas Day it reigns. It isn't just another "holiday feeling."
The Reverend Leslie Weatherhead said that if dwellers from another planet ever come to earth to find out what we are like, he hopes it will be on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. This is when the Christmas magic falls upon us, and we are at our best. It is when our sense of values have been exalted and changed. Kindness is at a maximum, and cruelty is almost extinct.
Charity, goodwill, tolerance, sympathy, all the lovely virtues, seem to rule in our hearts. Selfishness, pride, intolerance and meanness fall away.
Dr. Weatherhead says it is as though a woman has gone to a drawer and lifted a string of lovely jewels, lying dusty from lack of use, and wipes the dust from them and wears them around her neck so that all could rejoice in their beauty and recognize their worth. But in a few days they go back into the drawer and are forgotten. And so, Christmas, after the gifts are exchanged and opened and the
tree comes down and the carols are no longer sung, Scrooge is himself again and once again we yield to our pagan sense of values. How soon the magic passes!
But oh, if the magic which possesses us at Christmas could only be made to last, how different the world picture would look.
The world picture is where we want peace---and prepare for war. It is a world where there is plenty for all to eat, and yet where millions perish with hunger. It is a world which might be as bright as a spring morning, but our hates and fears and suspicions make a bitter winter, heartless and cold.
However, when we come to the Christ Child, humbly bow before Him, and when His spirit really rules in our hearts, then, and only then, can the New Age be born and the Christmas magic last forever! —Blessings! Reverend Cooper Stonestreet