I saw Santa up the street this morning along with one of his elves and a real life reindeer. It didn't have horns so maybe it was a female. I guess that makes the Preston S.A. Band a male band as we have 2 horns! (boom boom). (Actually they would be antlers rather than horns but that would ruin the story. And I think the reindeer is not a reindeer but another type of deer but that would ruin the story too.)
It's interesting watching the reaction of people to this unusual sight. It brings a smile to almost everyone's face and especially the children. There are cars pulling over to the side of the road so that the kids can get out, meet Santa and have their photo taken with him, his helper and the reindeer with no horns.
Just a metre or so away is another kind of horn. A car horn. I wonder if anyone has ever done a study on whether car horns are used more at Christmas than at other times of the year. I'm sure that you could get a government grant to do one. Just say that you are studying global warming and you will instantly get $100,000-.
In that one or two metre space between Santa & the road there is a major difference in attitude. On the footpath there are smiles and joy. On the road there is road rage.
When Jesus was walking the road he managed to extract wildly different reactions from people too. On the one hand he was swamped with people looking for healing. There must have been a lot of joy and smiles as lepers were healed, as blind people saw again. And just a couple of metres away were the religious leaders seething with rage, looking for a way of killing him.
As we play carols at Christmas we get all sorts of reactions. Some people are thrilled to hear us. Others ask us to move on!
People's reactions to Jesus today are varied too. Some will embrace him with joy. Others will react with rage and want to shoot the messengers. We need to remember that as we minister to people. Not everyone appreciates God and won't appreciate us but the message has to get out there whatever the reaction.
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