Merry Christmas
Wishing everyone a merry Christmas (I hope I can get this post done before midnight to make it legitimate… stupid WordPress bug making some posts with a particular combination of characters not post properly making me lose everything I had typed…)
What’s the reason for the season? What is Christmas all about? Contrary to popular belief it’s not about Santa or snowmen or reindeer or gifts, just like Easter isn’t about chocolate bunnies. Pastor Andrew has written something on his blog about this which I think is pretty useful. Christmas is all about the dude whose name gets abbreviated to the X in Xmas - that is, Christ. Christmas is about the most thoughtfun, necessary and undeserved gift that was ever given and ever will be given in human history. Christmas is Jesus Christ’s birthday - the day that God sent his only Son down to earth, setting in motion a 33-year course of events that would end in the execution of a Jewish carpenter, the miraculous, historically-documented resurrection of this man, and the salvation of humanity.
Pastor Andrew gave us a good sermon today about Christmas. Santa apparently knows if kids have been bad or good, and the good kids receive the presents. I reckon God also knows about this, but the difference between Santa and God (apart from the red costume) is that God gives presents to the bad kids. By this I mean that even though people are fundamentally godless and sometimes downright ‘bad’ (come on, admit it, you’ve known this all along), God loves us so much that he looks past our rejection of him, and sends his Son to deliver us from evil and to bring us back to him. It’s like Ground Force doing a garden makeover on a terrorist’s backyard. The undeserving (i.e. humanity) get the free gift (i.e. Christ). Do you know the reason for the season?
In other news, I’ve eaten way too much over the last few days. Chris’ Christmas party was, as usual with anything he hosts, full of tasty food and I basically had two servings (there was more than enough to go around). The food was great, the fellowship was fantastic, and I was beaten at effectively every game we played like poker, ping pong and SingStar.
And then last night Sara’s family got together with a few family friends from church (the Wu’s, Lai’s, Chu’s) to have a nice Christmas eve dinner at her place. I was invited as well which was nice of them. We had great food (again), which I can’t describe because my culinary vocabulary is severely lacking. Apart from the tasty sausages, the seaweed, oysters (which I normally don’t like but the ones they had were okay), sashimi, squid, etc, the best part of the night was undoubtedly the people. I never realised how great these family friend get-togethers really were. Even though I was the odd one out (being the only representative from my family), the vibe of the night was fantastic - parents chatting together over food, wine and some pool, and the kids hanging out playing foosball, mahjong, chatting and watching an interesting honkie romantic comedy about a sadistic girl. I re-learnt how to play mahjong, which must have been a frustrating experience for my tutor, Sara. But the whole night was great, such a good feel to it - I wonder if everyone being Christian had anything to do with it. It just felt like we were all one big family - and I guess we are. Thanks be to God for providing us with so much.
Today (Sunday) after church we wanted to go to Macquarie to watch a movie. But being Christmas, and being Sunday, we should have figured that everything was closed. Literally everything. Most of the entries/exits at Macquarie were securely sealed, including ramps to/from the carparks. This made for interesting driving because we went down the exit ramp to Waterloo Rd only to find out that it was shut, and had to reverse all the way back up, and drive into a few no-entry areas to get out again, passing a metal gate that looked like it had been rammed open. We ended up eating at Eastwood (which was alive with Asians, surprise surprise) and then bumming at Sara’s place. Another fun day.
Tomorrow need to do some preparation for biology olympiad teaching. I need to re-learn basic biology like what covalent bonds and cells are. Proves to be interesting. Looking forward to a day of ‘bludging’ at home though.
So to all, season’s greetings! Hope you’ve all had a safe, enjoyable and meaningful Christmas.