Endow the king with your justice, O God, the royal son with Your righteousness. He will judge Your people in righteousness, Your afflicted ones with justice. The mountains will bring prosperity to the people, the hills the fruit of righteousness. He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; He will crush the oppressor. He will endure as long as the sun, as long as the moon, through all generations. He will be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth. In His days the righteous will flourish; prosperity will abound till the moon is no more. … The kings of Tarshish and of distant shores will bring tribute to Him; the kings of Sheba and Seba will present Him gifts. All kings will bow down to Him and all nations will serve Him. For He will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help. He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death. He will rescue them from oppression and violence, for precious is their blood in His sight. (Psalm 72:1-7 & 10-14)

     So, I wonder what's going to happen this year? Every January people begin to speculate on that question. As much of a non-event as it is (because, after all, January 1 isn't really all that different from December 31) we make a big deal about the coming of a new year, even though in practical terms it means not much more than that we all have to spend a few bucks to buy some new calendars! But though it may be a non-event, a new year brings out the curiosity of wondering what's going to happen. That's why psychics are often big news this time of year. I reviewed a few psychic predictions made a year ago about 2010. Not many of them came true, and my favourite of those I came across was that at some point during the year 2010 Barack Obama was going to go on NBC and announce to the world that aliens really do exist – and then he was then going to introduce an alien who would make a speech to the world. I must have dozed off that night, because I don't remember that happening. Anyway, I checked out some psychic predictions for 2011, so to give you some advance notice to make whatever preparations you feel inclined to make: World War III is going to start in November and Donald Trump is going to start a new beauty pageant for women 60 years of age and older. (I'm unclear whether those two things are related!) A psychic named Da Juana Byrd has really gone out on a limb and predicted that two people with “A” in their names will experience mourning (I think there will be more than two!) and that a basketball player with “C” in his name will suffer a leg injury, which narrows it down to about half of the players in the NBA who might suffer an injury that someone in the NBA probably suffers at least every week. In any event, it's clear that she has an alphabet fetish. This one lacks letters, but she also says, somewhat inexplicably, that two people will get divorced. Again – probably more, unfortunately! I also came across a British psychic who believes that Liverpool will win the FA Cup this year, but I've come across no psychic from any country who thinks the Toronto Maple Leafs will win the Stanley Cup this year. Go figure! As for my own predictions? Let me go out on a limb. In 2011, it will snow in Port Colborne – at least twice, and possibly more than that!

     I've never quite understood the fascination with psychics myself. The Old Testament actually has some pretty harsh things to say about “soothsayers” - which was the term used for people who predict the future. Why? Because the idea that we need to know what's going to happen in the future is directly related to a lack of trust in God to take care of the future. The truth is – with apologies to Da Juana Byrd and others – that we don't know with any certainty what the year 2011 is going to hold, except for one thing – God will be a part of it. “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever,” is how the prophet Isaiah put it. Or, to put it another way: the years come and go, the seasons change, the sun rises and sets, empires rise and fall and entire generations pass away – but God is always present, and God is always consistent.

     Last week, I took a few moments to remind you that Christmas isn't just a day on the church calendar – it's a season. Today is Day 8 - but I haven't yet seen the eight maids-a-milking! - but I wonder if even the “season of Christmas” is enough. It seems to me that perhaps we need more than just a “season of Christmas” to honour the birth of Jesus; perhaps we need a “spirit of Christmas” to honour His birth; to encourage us and empower us to live in the light of Jesus. What is the message of Christmas, after all, but the message of peace and goodwill? And was that message shared only at Jesus' birth? Was it not shared years later by Jesus Himself when He told His disciples that they were to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself.” Is this not the message of Christmas lived out in the life of Jesus? Is this not the message of Christmas that can be lived out in our lives? Are we as Christians called to mark a season of Christmas or are we called to live each day by the spirit of Christmas?

     The words of Psalm 72 that we heard earlier aren't a typical Christmas reading. They're words that pre-date the coming of Christ by several centuries, but the “royal son” referred to in the Psalm doesn't seem to have been David's son Solomon. Solomon was a man like his father, and Solomon would die like his father, but the Psalm would say about the “royal son” that “He will endure as long as the sun, as long as the moon, through all generations.” So if the “royal son” isn't Solomon, who is it? As Christians we see this as prophecy of a descendant of David who would live eternally and who would be as constant for us as the most constant things we can imagine – the sun and the moon that are with us every day on which we live. The oldest among us today has had God with them every day on which they've lived and on this journey they've traveled, and the youngest among us is just beginning life, and a wonderful journey that God will travel with him every day on which he lives. So, why bother with Psalm 72? We bother with it because it establishes two things that are essential to us: we bother with it because it reminds us of the constancy and dependability of God and we bother with it because it speaks to us of what God desires for His people: “He will judge Your people in righteousness, Your afflicted ones with justice. The mountains will bring prosperity to the people, the hills the fruit of righteousness. He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; He will crush the oppressor.” It goes on to say “He will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help. He will take pity on the weak and the needy and save the needy from death. He will rescue them from oppression and violence ...” This is the work of God – a work God's people are blessed to have the opportunity to share. I choose these words from Psalm 72 today as opposed to a more traditional and familiar Christmas reading because I wanted to drive from our minds the romanticized notions of the Christmas spirit that lasts for a few days or at most a few weeks, and put in its place the idea of the real Christmas spirit that lives forever. It was an addition to the story, because these words didn't appear in Charles Dickens' novel, but in the wonderful 1951 movie version of “A Christmas Carol,” the Ghost of Christmas Past reminds Ebenezer Scrooge that “the child born in Bethlehem doesn't live just one day of the year but all the days of the year.” Indeed, He endures, “as long as the sun, as long as the moon, through all generations.” To adopt a Christmas spirit and to live by a Christmas message that's time limited to the month of December is to follow a false spirit.

     I believe that as Christians we need to guard against the false spirits that can so easily enter our lives and infiltrate our faith and take over our church and convince us that all this stuff about “peace on earth and good will toward all” is something we only need to pay attention to for a few days or weeks. I believe that if we as Christians could live by that spirit – the real spirit of Christmas – all the days that we live then we would impact the world in a powerful way, and I believe that part of the reason we don't impact the world as powerfully as we should is because we don't allow this spirit to control us. What is the spirit of Christmas? If it's the message of peace and good will, then surely the spirit of Christmas is nothing less than the Holy Spirit – the Spirit of Christ Himself – Who moves us to the realization that the message of Christmas is supposed to be a never ending message.