Signs of the Times

with contributions from Melvin E. Wheatley, Colin Dyster

Rev. Melvin E. Wheatley in The Spire of the Westwood Community Methodist Church Los Angeles, California

Christmas is the season in which we discover how close God has been to us all the rest of the year. It is the period during which we pause long enough ... to listen to the still small voice....

Herein lies the special significance of the season. It is not that God draws closer to us at Christmas than before. He can never come any nearer than He always is.... His love [and] ... His power never cease to support us.

But—at Christmas time—for a few bright intervals, we open the doors of our awareness wide enough to discover the holy nature of the spot on which we have been standing and of the company we have been keeping all the time.

From an article in the Youngstown Vindicator, Ohio reprinted from The London Times England

"My peace," said Jesus, "I give unto you." The lack of it in human experience is due to man's unwillingness or incapacity to receive it, for as with all God's gifts, it must be accepted as well as offered.... Such peace is not the negative peace of stagnation; it is the condition that comes from singleness of mind and purpose, which seeks above all things to put first things first....

The New Testament teaches consistently that it is possible, even in the direct and most unfavorable circumstances, to gain and to maintain that inner harmony, that poise of the soul, which is the essential element of peace, as well as the fruit of it.... It is as the individual enters into its experience that he can best contribute to that wider fellowship among men that is one of the marks of the kingdom of God.

From an article by Colin Dyster in The New South Wales Presbyterian Sydney, Australia

For close on two thousand years folks have been singing about God's great Christmas gift.... That gift ... has, when received, lifted people up from despair and despondency, given them a new sense of worth, new direction, new purpose, new life. Many people would be extremely surprised, if not startled, if this Christmas time you were to offer them Christ....

Let's rethink our giving, shall we? Let's use our Christian imagination. First of all be glad ourselves to receive God's lovely gift: and then, whatever else we give, be sure to see that all whom we lovingly remember this Christmas time receive from us some of His loving, gracious spirit.

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December 22, 1956

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