Counterculture?

Sometimes, as we get towards Advent, it can seem as though we are pulling in the opposite direction to everyone else. After all folks tend to celebrate Christmas before the day whilst we are busy waiting and waiting and waiting.
But instead of getting annoyed at the early celebrations this year I am trying to concentrate on what is behind them. There are already a lot of Christmas commercials on the television - perhaps one of the most commented upon ones is the one for John Lewis, where a little boy is anxiously waiting for Christmas and then wakes up on the big day, only to run past his own stack of presents to retrieve a slightly roughly wrapped gift from its hiding place, this he takes to his parents room - we never find out what it is.
Generosity is something which is valued both inside and outside the Church - it is important to recognize this appetite for good and for hope in the people around us. The message of Christmas - if God entering into the world is all about generosity, about hope and a future for humanity. Those bright lights which seem to festoon the streets earlier and earlier point to a real need in people to come out of the winter gloom.
Is God's Good News at Christmas really so countercultural after all - I think if we look a little harder we might actually find that the people around us and outside our Churches are hungry for all sorts of things which we have ready packaged, not under a tree, but in a manger.