Hans Växby December 2008

Have you seen it before?

I grew up in the southern part of Sweden.

Later I moved to the northern part of Finland. During my first winter there, I noticed a huge pine tree on a schoolyard nearby the church where I served. I noticed it because it had lost all its needles, and I thought it was strange that they left a dead tree standing where the children played every day; it could fall over on them. In the spring, however, I got my big surprise. The pine got its needles back, and turned all green. I was not a pine! It was a larch tree! I had heard about this species in the pine family that sheds its needles annually, and knew that it was common in Northeastern Europe. But I had never seen it before – I thought.
Following summer, we went on holiday to visit my mother in Sweden, and there I got an even bigger surprise. Along a road that I had driven thousands of times before, there was almost a kilometer long row of larch trees! It had been there all the time, only I had not seen it before.

Christmas has been there a long time. It is a celebration of a child, who was born more than 2000 years ago. The traditions around it have varied over time. In the Soviet Union, it was actively hidden under the New Year traditions. The Christmas tree became New Years tree, and Father Frost was picked up from an old Russian fairy tale to replace Saint Nicolas (Santa Claus), the ancient bishop who gave gifts to children. Many thought Christmas was a dead tree, and wanted to cut it down altogether. But the church never stopped to celebrate it. It was there all the time, even if few saw what it was.

In recent years, Christmas has been more visible again. To be honest, this is not entirely positive – there is commercialism around Christmas that could well remain forgotten. But it is truly worth all celebration, and what is especially good about: it provides excellent opportunities to discover realities that have been there all the time.

For there is something very special about this little child that was born in Bethlehem. An angel from God announced: “I am bringing you good news of a great joy for all the people; to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior…This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. (Luke 2:10-12)
Not all realized the importance of this in the beginning either. “He was in the world, … yet the world did not know him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.” (John 1:10 and 12)

This possibility for ordinary people to become children of God, to have Living God as their loving Father, his Son as their never-failing friend, and the Holy Spirit as their support and guide has been there more than 2000 years. Did you know it? Have you seen it before? If not, this is a good time to discover it! It is God’s Christmas gift to the world – to you! 

If you open your heart for it, you will get your life back and start to grow again – like the larch tree in the schoolyard