Alright, so every year since I’ve been here we’ve opened our
Christmas program with a video montage showing most of
the popular Christmas movies and their “version” of what
Christmas really means, or what the Christmas message is, or
what the true meaning of Christmas is, etc. It’s funny that
the only one that gets it right is Charlie Brown’s Christmas,
back from 1965. The reason we use it every year is to serve
as a reminder of that precious focus for the season of Advent.
Advent becomes a refining time for me and the Worship
Ministry. Because of the busyness of the season, it’s so easy
to get distracted, not only BY the commercialization of
Christmas, but also FROM remembering that the frailty and
humility of that night-sleeping in a stable, sharing real estate
with livestock-set forth events that redeemed every bit of our
fallen lives. That focus is what all the distraction takes us
away from. How often do we spend the month dwelling on
our own sins, being plagued by our failures, playing “what
if” games, worrying about the state of our world, its leaders,
its problems-all the while forgetting that our focus should
rest on the fact that 2,000 years ago our King was born in a
stable and was sent by the Father to redeem us from our most
pathetic fallen state? Nothing has escaped His control, nothing
surprises Him-we are only a part of the huge and glorious
picture that He’s painting.
So, as we worship this season – celebrating the Father’s miraculous
gift, born of a Virgin in a cattle stall to redeem those
under the law so that we might live for eternity; what are we
seeing? Hearing? Knowing? May God bring our focus back
to His undeniable Truth, remembering that Christ not only
lived and died to redeem our souls, but to redeem our every
worry, care, thought and “what if”. And if you don’t know what it’s like to be loved unconditionally,
more than you could ever ask or imagine, find
someone TODAY and ask them about the incredible gift of
Jesus Christ.
