Draft script for a Christmas talk involving 30 separate items of fruit and veg. If you have any other suggestions or suggested edits then please pop them in the comments, this is a work in progress!
Fruit and veg
Christmas story
Do you eat healthily at Christmas? Yes me too. (not!)
But Christmas really is good for you.
So here’s a healthy Christmas message.
The bible starts with a garden full of good things. And just
one fruit that the man and the woman weren’t supposed to eat. One apple, one small thing, but they
thought they knew better than God and took it. Then they hid. Where did the
woman go? Where did the Mango? And
we’ve been hiding from God ever since
So God came to seek us. It starts with Mary, a young woman
who loved God, meeting a messenger. An angel. It’s an amazing thing to meet an
angel
Mary was a bit worried – well you would be - but the angel said Peas be with you. God has chosen you, you’re to have a child, the
promised saviour. God is coming to find you.
Cool as a cucumber,
Mary said ‘yes’ to God’s will, because she trusted God.
Now Mary was engaged to Joseph, and God had bean speaking to him too. In a dream he
was told that this child was Gods, and that he was to look after Mary and the
baby.
Soon after, everyone had to go to their home town to pay a
tax. Joseph wasn’t very wealthy, he didn’t have a big celery, but the pear of
them set off for Bethlehem. A journey of 80 miles or so. They didn’t avocado (have a car though), maybe not
even a donkey – the bible doesn’t mention one. So just imagine on foot, Mary
pregnant, walking at 1 melon hour,
maybe two. A long, tough journey, it took plenty of thyme to get there.
They got to Bethlehem, but it was full. It was a really bad
time to turnip. There wasn't mushroom at the inn.
People used to keep their animals indoors in winter, in a section of the house,
so maybe instead of staying in a guestroom, the innkeeper actually had Mary and
Joseph into his own home. And there Jesus was born, and placed in a feeding
trough, with animals around him, some sat,
suma asleep. They were too poor to have a blanket, so they wrapped Jesus in
strips of cloth to stop him getting chilli.
On the hillside outside Bethelehem were shepherds, night
security guarding the flocks. Suddenly, more angels! “Peas be with you. To you the saviour is born at last, down there,
in Bethlehem”. When the angels had gone the shepherds said to each other: Lettuce go and see this thing the
angels have told us about. So they left the sheep and sprinted down to
Bethelehem. It must have been a bit of a squash
when they all arrived
The Bible also tells of Sages
from the East, who followed signs in the sky to find a newborn king, bringing herbs and spices. They first came to the king in Jerusalem, Herod, who was a
bit of a bad apple. Herod had a
complete ban on another person
taking over from him. When Herod heard of the newborn king, he had a bad case
of sour grapes, and turned orange, or maybe peach, or even radish
(reddish) with rage. Go and find him, then come back and tell me where he is.
The wise men weren’t called wise men for nothing. They went
straight to see Jesus to offer their gifts: incense, myrrh, 24 carrot gold – gifts to Jesus for a true
king. But they didn’t want the news to Leek
out back to Herod, Butternut tell him, so they took another route home.
Mary, Joseph, shepherds, innkeeper, kings, wise men. But the
main person in this story is Jesus.
However you slice
it, at the core of all this, is God
in human skin, a segment of heaven
come down to earth, God’s appeal to
everyone, Whether you’re a kiwi, a mandarin or made in Britain, Jesus was
born for you. Jesus pips every other
Christmas present going. Jesus loves me from my head to-ma-toes, and he loves you too.
The only person who comes out of this story the same as they
went in is Herod: he is angry, violent, proud and scary before Jesus is born,
and he’s angry, violent, proud and scary after. Everyone else is changed –
Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the wise men. God even changes, becoming one of
us, becoming human, to sow a seed of
new life into your heart and mine.
God made us to bear fruit, not to be a vegetable. We can be
a couch potato, taking life in like
we take in all the presents and the food and the tinsel and everything else,
but never changing, never growing, never going deeper into love and joy and why
we’re here. Or we can let this Christmas, this child, this God, sows a seed in my
heart that will bear fruit.
So make Jesus one of your 5 a day, every day, and have a
happy, healthy and joyful Christmas.