What’s happening in your backyard this Christmas? Christmas in Australia coincides with friendly barbecues, time spent lazing around the pool, backyard Boxing Day test matches and plenty of lawn maintenance. Backyards seem to be the place where people feel relaxed, totally themselves and to some degree in control of their own environment. Add to that the excitement, activity and celebration of Christmas and it is easy to see why this time of year is long anticipated and remembered.

The first Christmas took place in a backyard of sorts. Mary and Joseph forced to spend their first night in Bethlehem in a stable might not have understood the romance with which we visualise that night today. They more than anyone, however, knew the significance of that night. While Bethlehem slept, their greatest king was born in their very backyard.

Don’t you hate finding out something after everybody else when you’re the one that it concerns the most? There is a song often sung by holiday makers on long car trips that has the words “Don’t throw your junk in my backyard, my backyard’s full!” Sadly we can feel that our lives are so jam packed and busy that we haven’t room for anything else. Sometimes there can be important things we can miss though, like Bethlehem missing the birth of her king.

As we celebrate Christmas this year, enjoying the time we have with family and friends or just being ourselves in our own backyards, let us also remember the significance of Christmas, the power it holds to change our lives and to bring us into relationship with a personal God who has created the entire universe as a backyard for us.

Luke Hester, Associate Pastor, Gloucester Baptist Church