I don’t know how it happens, but it always does. Christmas is here. I know it was in all the papers. The stores certainly wanted me to know that the day was at hand. The number of catalogues should have been a tip off for sure. But still, here it is and I am somehow surprised. So soon it has arrived.
That was probably the way it was on the first Christmas. People had been waiting for years, centuries even. Suddenly, there in their midst was the child, the promise fulfilled. Many, in fact most, were not ready. Despite all the prophecies the child came and caught the world unaware.
Many tell us that people missed the messiah because their expectations were misplaced. They were looking for someone else, someone a bit more grand perhaps. Maybe that is the case with us. Maybe we keep waiting for something else and thus miss the child born into our midst. Maybe in the midst of the business of the season we get distracted from what is truly taking place among us. If that is the case, then great is our loss.
Into our world the light has come, the light that promises to illuminate our darknesses, to help us see our choices for what they are and what they should be. We can see the world for what it might become, for what it was intended to be rather than that with which we have become comfortable.
Open your eyes. I will open mine. The day has come. The Child is born. The light has shown. Christmas is here.
Monday, December 24, 2007
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2 comments:
One of my favorite things to do at Christmas is to drive around the neighborhood and look at the Christmas lights. But people are beginning to take them down now and soon the neighborhood will look just like it did before. But there’s that few rare people who keep their lights up all year long, but we all know they are really different. I wonder how long we can keep the Christmas Spirit shining in us this year and will our actions be more like what Christ would call us to do? Perhaps, the question should be - “Are your Christmas Lights still shining?” Maybe, I’ll keep mine up a little longer this year.
John,
You are definitely right that the year 2008 is our time. We hurry to buy new calendars and day planners so that we can divide up our time into years, months, days, workdays with afternoon appointments and morning appointments and finally weekends.
This year I’m having trouble finding a day planner that the first day of the week is Sunday, most of them seem to start with Monday instead of Sunday. Looks like we are losing the concept that we give the first day of the week to God. In “olden times” (like the last century) some church traditions would fast on Sunday mornings so that they could begin their week in worship and the first nourishment of their bodies would be Holy Communion. That’s one of the reasons I like the 8:30 church service with communion.
PS - I hope we move it to 9:00 o’clock, but that’s my time.
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