Christmas season

I thought I would share what I wrote for our newsletter.  So if you are reading this twice, as a professor once told me, it could be important. Not sure if this is but enjoy anyway.

From the Pastor’s Desk-December

Christmas cards sent-a work in progress. Decorations up-another work in progress. Gifts bought-check. Christmas treats baked-getting there. Dinners planned-when? Services planned-check. Sermon outlines done-check. Holiday cheers-every day.

Does the above sound similar to what you are experiencing this Advent and Christmas season. The pressure to get things done and gifts wrapped and cookies baked. Yes indeed, tis the season of joy and peace on earth. At church we are doing a sermon series that focuses on four aspects for Advent as we come to the celebration of our savior’s birth. The four aspects are expectations, acceptance, family, and finally ourselves and to think outside the box to seek the gift that cannot be contained or gift wrapped this year. We sometimes become so caught up in the other activities of the season we forget the purpose of the season.

From the hectic scheduling of parties, family gatherings, and shopping, we have been focusing on slowing down and taking time to look at the expectations that we carry into the season. Combined with the sermons, we are also studying “The Journey” by Adam Hamilton that focuses on the journeys that took place in scripture with Mary and Joseph. Can you imagine what it might have been like for Mary, Joseph, and the birth of Jesus? We read the stories so often that we may miss the point of the choices that they made and the hardships that they faced. This is the true story of Christmas. A young couple, traveling during her last month of pregnancy, walks 80 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem. And when they arrive they have no place to deliver the baby in a warm, clean, and safe place. Rather they deliver the baby in a barn life environment. Where are the Christmas lights, the feasts, rather the birth is rather stark. Mike Slaughter in his book, “Christmas is Not Your Birthday,” reminds us that these situations continue to exist throughout the world today.

This year when we gather together remembering the birth of our savior, take a moment with your family, tell the story from Luke chapter 2, and offer thanksgiving that God would so love you and I that He would send His Son to be a light unto this world, to show that way, to die for our sins, and to rise up for our redemption. What a gift we have received that cannot be contained in a box.