Let's Hear It For Materialism At Christmas!

 Sometimes I reckon we Christians are just a bit too po-faced in our celebration of Christmas.  Too restrained. Overly refined.  Way too whispy.  We spend so long slagging off commercialism and excess that we forget that Christmas is the feast of materialism.

We have a God who was podgy, a God who was pimply, a God who savoured the salty sweat of his labour and relished the smell of resin as he ripped into a lump of wood.  We have a God who when the wine ran out supplied enough to swim in,  who went fishing and got more than a little carried away.  We have a God who promised the thirsty not just a sip, oh no, not even a slug, no way; he promised way more than a bottle; get this, he said we could each have our own river!  A Humber for me, a Thames for you and an entire Mersey for every single Scouser.  We have a God who when he wanted us to remember him suggested we chew on a hunk of bread and swill it down with a mouthful of vino. Little glasses?  Tiny, neat cubes of Nimble?  Perlease!  This is the God who played in the mud and squidged a man into life.

So let’s hear it for materialism! Three cheers for gravy and Xboxes, Laphraoig and Lynx (well, maybe not Lynx) and let's thicken out our all too flimsy Christmases.  Thank God for Holy flesh.  ‘Tis the season to celebrate the sacredness of stuff.  Let’s party like Jesus! Eat! Drink! Be Merry! For today we live.