The first lights are lit, the latest yuletide adverts start to roll, and the hunt is on to spot the first Christmas tree of the season....yes it's October!
It seems that Christmas comes around earlier every year, and even children appear to be questioning why?! Can't we at least get Bonfire night out of the way first?
For so many people Christmas has become the season of the consumer and this year with the credit crunch and recession looming large, no doubt high street retailers will be desperate to exploit the seasonal feeding frenzy to the max. Little wonder then that Christmas is greeted by so many people with more than a little cynicism. The mystery and awe of that first Christmas has been lost amidst all the tinsel and till ringing. Once it was all about the gift to mankind. A tiny new born child, the carrier of hope, born surrounded by the stark realities of stable life. Now it's all about what have you got for me and can I have it, Now!?
Bethlehem Live is our attempt to show what Christmas is all about. I was tempted to say it's our attempt to remind folks what Christmas is all about, but sadly the polsters tell us that today fewer and fewer people know the Christmas story in any meaningful way. So rather than a re-telling of the tale, for many Bethlehem Live will probably be the first telling.
The true Christmas story is the story of the greatest gift ever given, yet it's been eclipsed by the avalanche of consumerism. The most valuable gift EVER swamped by billions of relatively worthless presents, ranging from "it's only a bit of fun" tat, through to the costliest of material baubles. Yet all of these pale into insignificance compared to that baby born 20 centuries ago! It's story that is worth the re-telling, if we take the time to understand it. It's value is plain there can be no doubt of that - yet it's threatened, an endangered species, that is being slowly choked by consumerism, relativism, secularism and even dare I say it political correctness.
So Bethlehem Live is our attempt to draw back veil of time and reveal the story of that first Christmas as it would have happened. A story free from tinsel and till bells, a few precious minutes away from the mayhem of the supermarket and the Christmas crush.
Bethlehem Live is simple in concept, it's a staging of the Christmas story, with all it's sights sounds and smells. It's an attempt to allow people to connect the real world facts of the story with the real world of today. It's a step away from the romanticised view of the Christmas card designer, who all too often show the stable scene in a kind of soft focus sterility. At Bethlehem Live we hope to show things in a more realistic light, a scene where shepherds and doting natal parents have to watch where they tread as the baby Jesus shares his sleeping quarters with real animals!
Please can I encourage you to pray as each of the churches involved begins it's preperations.
Pray for:
- The scenes being prepared that they come together to tell the story well.
- The publicity, that many would hear and come along to see Bethlehem Live.
- The visitors, that they would see the truth and receive the greatest Christmas gift ever!
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