Jesus said, ‘Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ (Matt 6:21) He warned us about placing value on possessions, saying, ‘Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.’ (Luke 12:15) In our Western society, it’s definitely easy to equate value with possessions or ‘things’, to view life from a materialistic point of view, and Christmas can easily become a time of celebrating and valuing possessions. If we do this, we will fail to see the treasure of the kingdom of heaven and fail to understand the real meaning of Christmas.
Life can’t simply be defined by material things. We are made in God’s image and therefore are spiritual beings as well as physical ones. We were made for relationships – relationship with God and relationship with other people. Any value in life has to take this into account for it to be meaningful and true. Jesus repeatedly taught his followers to look beyond the material to see the spiritual. Will we let this Advent-time re-focus our eyes on what really matters?
