Do they know it's Christmas?

I love hearing Christmas songs on the radio in December—Mariah Carey, Jona Lewis, and yes, even Cliff Richard. But there’s one guilty pleasure that’s making me feel increasingly uneasy: Band Aid’s Do they know it’s Christmas? Although it’s still a favourite sing-along in bars and clubs around this time of year, I can’t help but think that describing Africa as “a world of dread and fear”, a continent reverberating with “the clanging chimes of doom”, is a bit patronising.

Thankfully, it’s becoming further and further from the truth, too. In 2000, the UN set eight Millennium Development Goals, with the aim of achieving them by 2015. A report by the Africa Development Bank Group this year, reviewing progress towards the goals, praised “steady economic growth and improvements in poverty reduction”. As development organisations plan targets and strategies for their work after 2015, Band Aid’s annual cater-walling is starting to seem outdated.

There is one line from the song I like though: “The greatest gift they’ll get this year is life”.

At Christmas we celebrate Jesus coming into the world. And Jesus said that “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). He came so that we can have true joy from being at peace with God; our sins forgiven and our slate wiped clean. He gives real satisfaction when we realise that the measure of our worth isn’t in the presents we can afford to buy or how happy we can make our family time, but in how much Jesus sacrificed for us. And he gives us real hope in the knowledge that, as each Christmas rolls round, we’re not just counting down the years until all the celebrations end with our wake.

Let's pray that this year is the Christmas that many, across all continents, come to know this life—life to the full, with Jesus at the centre.