The Second Day of Christmas
Date: 26 December 2014
Original Gift: Two Turtle
Doves
South African Gift: A turtle
magnet from Mauritius. Turtle because it’s a turtle. And the doves - the two lovebirds
that went to Mauritius for their honeymoon.
Price: An odd R17000 – a trip to Mauritius.
Price: An odd R17000 – a trip to Mauritius.
Food: Chicken Pie. Dove…
chicken… close enough.
Saint: Stephen
Scripture: Acts 7:51-60 (you can get a free copy of the
English Standard Version Bible on Kindle)
Activity: Hand out leftovers
On the second day of Christmas my
true love gave to me, a Two Turtle Doves.
Boxing Day. The day
after the 25th of December wasn't lucky enough to share in the
charm and magic of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day when it came to naming. I
used to greatly dislike the name (it must have made me think of a boxing match
and I suspect it got mixed up with Guy Fawkes Day somewhere in the wonderland
which is a child’s mind), but I recently realised why it is called that and I
must say, the day has greatly redeemed itself in my eyes. I’d like to share
some of that Christmas Spirit…
According
to legend of the song, the two turtle doves represent the Old and New
Testament of the bible – that which happened before and after the birth of
Jesus. With that came a big change in how we experience God and subsequently
started practicing the Christian faith, as a massive amount of grace entered the picture with Christ. Christians no
longer had to be completely perfect and make all kinds of offers to stand a
chance to enter the eternal life, but could simply accept their forgiveness. As
a way of showing thanks for this grace, probably one of the most important of
the Christian principles is charity – unconditionally and gladly giving of whatever you
have to both those who deserve it and those who don’t – just like Jesus.
The
first martyr, St Stephen, understood this
principle of grace. He got stoned to death for speaking out against dead
religion and as he died, asked God to forgive his murderers.
“54 When the council members heard Stephen’s speech, they were angry… shouted and covered their ears. At once they all attacked Stephen 58 and dragged him out of the city. Then they started throwing stones at him… 59 As Stephen was being stoned to death…60 He knelt down and shouted, ‘Lord, don’t blame them for what they have done.’ Then he died.”Acts 7:54-60
So,
in steps Boxing Day as one opportunity for charity – especially in the light of
all the excess that accompanies modern Christmas. The exact origins of Boxing Day
are unclear, but the long and the short of it is this: There were countries.
There were collection boxes. They were for the poor. There was Boxing
Day.
This is also why we
often give domestic staff boxes of goodies just before or after Christmas. So
in the charitable spirit of the day, packing Christmas lunch leftovers into
disposable lunch tins (try saving the ones you buy food in for a month before
Christmas) and distributing to the less fortunately sounds like a marvelous
idea! (Careful with that chicken pie, as it’s dodgy business when it gets
reheated and left for days and you’re not sure whether the recipient will eat
it immediately.)
Upon consideration of
everything that accompanies the day after Christmas, it’s oddly fitting that
the South African government decided to rename Boxing Day to Day of Goodwill in
1994. Go SA! Certainly more charitable than the Scandinavians and Dutch who
plainly decided to have Second Christmas Day. Nice.
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