B is for BIRTHDAY

We have hit a few birthday milestones in our house in the past five or six years, two eighteenths, one twenty first, a fortieth and a fiftieth. I'll leave you to work out which was my milestone or was it a millstone? I'm not sure. A friend of mine was still trying to come to terms with turning thirty, when his fortieth rolled up with all guns blazing and by his fiftieth he still hadn't got over the event ten years earlier. He's just over sixty now and can't understand how he's got that far so quickly. I empathise with him, secure in the knowledge that I am a good few years younger but concerned that I still considered him to be 'getting on' when he reached the age I am presently encamped at.

I don't have too many recollections of birthdays but I have noted that, through the years, by the mysteries and coincidences of the calendar, my father, my eldest son and yours truly always had our birthdays on the same day of the week. I suppose this is really quite a useless piece of information, but for some reason, I find it quite satisfying! Most of my birthday memories , like the majority of parents, are of special anniversaries for our children. I have fond memories of each reaching the grand old age of one and how we usually celebrated the events with mum and dad because they were looking after the boys at that particular moment. One is a spring birthday and the other falls in the autumn so we're either leaving the dark evenings behind or just about to plunge into them. In either case, both birthdays always light up out lives, for we are able to thank God for giving us another year of health and happiness as a family.

But birthdays bring changes, many of which are unavoidable. Most parents will tell you that after an eleventh birthday, as children leave primary school, they become more independent and often less communicative, a response to growing up and all the outside pressures that begin to come into play. By the time of their eighteenth, much of their future is beginning to be mapped out, but they are no longer children as we have known and desire the respect if not always the company of adults. Their twenty first signals that the teenage years are long gone and they often face the first crisis of age, realising that possibly a quarter of their lives has passed and that there is almost a new generation on the rung below them. And while every birthday has been an important milestone to this point, from now on, birthdays become less significant, presents more simplified, less elaborate and often just less and celebratory moments now only come in ten year intervals.

As we approach the festive season, and celebrate the birth of a baby in a manger over two thousand years ago, I am struck by the fact that Jesus is the only person who ever lived whose birth we still celebrate every year. We don't celebrate Him being one year old, there is no record of his eighteenth or twenty first and by His fortieth, He had returned to His Father in Heaven. So why do we continue to celebrate His birth? Is it because it is such a nice story that gives us this warm feeling inside? Is it because of the shepherds seeing angels on a starry night? Is it the truly miraculous scene of a young girl giving birth to the God who had created her in the first place? Is it the thought that God became like us so that He could save us? Is it because His Son is a greater gift than anything we can give at Christmas? Is it because it marked the fulfillment of a promise that God had made centuries before? Is it because it fills us with goodwill for a few weeks? Is it because it's nice to hear carols in church and see the lights in our towns? Is it because of Santa Claus?

And beyond the carols, the manger, the gifts, the goodwill, what do we actually give to Jesus on His birth day. For many, it's a quick carol or two at a shortened Christmas morning service, for others, that's too much of an ordeal, interfering with our already packed Christmas Day. If we can't give Him time on His birth day, we're unlikely to give Him time the rest of the year. I would be disappointed if everyone came to my birthday party and ignored me. I guess you'd be the same. The gospel records that 'Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.' Let's all do the same this Christmas.