Rev. Graham Crawford’s sermon for Sunday 13 December 2015:
The TV is full of it at the moment.
On the cooking channels and even on some of the more mainstream channels: Nigella’s Christmas Recipes, Jamie Oliver, Heston Blumenthal, River Cottage …
All the celebrity chefs are at it.
Just “do this” and you will have a stress-free Christmas that will be the tastiest ever.
Some of the recipes are simply fabulous, others downright weird, while yet others require ingredients that are just not that easy to find outside of multicultural cities.
But, while these shows and the recipes on them may be good, none of them guarantee you joy at Christmas. None of them guarantee you the real spirit of Christmas.
For that, I think, we need to turn to a minor Old Testament Prophet and a prolific letter writer. For they have the secret to joy at Christmas. And it is not in the way you baste your turkey or in what is lying under the Christmas tree. It is something much cheaper and much simpler. [Read more…]