Make room for others

Christmas movie catalogues are filled with heart-warming stories of families getting together at Christmas time. Sometimes the sub-plot is around a challenge to be overcome or a relationship to be repaired, but as the final scene fades out the group sits happily together around the Christmas lunch table.

Over the years, we’ve enjoyed many Christmases when we’ve had the joy of meeting around the dinner table with family and friends—what you might call ‘the ideal Christmas’.

As children, we enjoyed a variety of family Christmases with immediate family, with grandparents, at home, at a holiday house or in the caravan, and at lots of spots around the country. Since becoming parents, we’ve enjoyed the delights of the range of childlike responses to the celebrations. On a couple of occasions when serving in Zambia and South Africa, we enjoyed the visits of family for Christmas. Such Christmases were heralded by months of wonderful anticipation of being together again.

But we’ve also known Christmas Days in which we’ve felt distant, disconnected and lonely. In fact, in February this year as we landed in Johannesburg after spending holidays and Christmas with family in New Zealand and Australia, Janine quietly said, ‘I’m not looking forward to Christmas this year.’ God must have chuckled, knowing that by this Christmas we would be back in New Zealand. It is wonderful to be home for Christmas this year!

During those Christmases when we were on our own and far from family, how we have appreciated those who reached out and opened their homes and hearts to us—including us in their own ideal Christmas gatherings.

It has been a privilege over the years to reciprocate such hospitality, inviting those who were struggling with distance, loss or loneliness to be part of our celebrations. This has included people from our corps (churches), from the community, friends of our children and those on international service for The Salvation Army. Each person contributed their uniqueness to the gathering and celebration of Christmas, making it ‘ideal’.

The first Christmas was a rather strange mix: people far from home, a family, a baby, shepherds, wise men, a stable, animals, a bright star, prophesies fulfilled, friends, strangers, an unmarried teenager, political opposition … hardly an ideal Christmas gathering. Or was it?

We warmly encourage Salvationists to pause and think about those who might be struggling with distance, loss or loneliness this Christmas. Is there a way you can you make room for them in your own Christmas? You may like to invite them to accompany you to a carol service, Christmas party or Christmas Day service. You may like to cater for a couple of extras on Christmas Day … just in case.

1 John 5:9–11 (CEV, emphasis added) reminds us that Christmas is a celebration we are meant to share with others: ‘God showed his love for us when he sent his only Son into the world to give us life.

Real love isn’t our love for God, but his love for us. God sent his Son to be the sacrifice by which our sins are forgiven. Dear friends, since God loved us this much, we must love each other.’  

God’s love has no limits and no boundaries. Right from the beginning, Christmas gatherings have included the unexpected extras whose presence made it truly ideal.