A Word of Hope

Dear Family and Friends,

Christmas is for the children!  Or, so it seems.  Certainly, the proliferation of ads for toys, games and electronic devices would indicate as much.

However, there are just as many, if not more, ads for us big kids, including promotions for expensive jewelry, cars, plasma TVs and so on.  We too get a kick out of opening those special gifts on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It is an expensive and extravagant time of year.  Good for the retail and online stores but maybe not so good for us.

We unwittingly participate in the keep Christ out of Christmas campaign by putting undue emphasis on the secular gift giving part of the holiday.  Sure, the three Magi brought expensive gifts to the King of Kings but Mary probably regifted them for lodging or food.  Really, when you think about it, what did Jesus Christs life have to do with expensive gifts anyway?  The only extravagance Our Lord displayed was in His love for us.  Reflect on His life and ask yourself, Is all this opulence necessary?

I don't want to sound like the Grinch who stole Christmas, but perhaps the best gifts we could give our children and our loved ones this Christmas are more of our time and attention.  We work so hard to earn money and wind up not having the time to enjoy it.  I dont think its always a matter of choosing between having money and no time or having time and no money.  Its a matter spending our time more wisely.

Jesus remedies our busyness. When the disciples began to seem busy, wrote Soren Kierkegaard, the great Danish philosopher and theologian "Christ set a child in their midst."

We do not know what the disciples were doing when this happened.  Perhaps they were restructuring their committees, setting up new task forces, or studying their public relations image.  Whatever they were doing, Jesus said to them by His action that they should make room for the revelation of God in their midst.  God's kingdom was not to be found in the overly busy activities of the disciples.  Nowhere did Jesus say that blessed are the work-obsessed, the corporate martyrs whose hours are overlong and tedious because their gospel is work.

While Jesus is dealing with conditions for entering the kingdom of heaven, some mothers bring children to him for His blessing.  In their pride and impatience, the disciples rebuke the children, but Jesus tells the disciples they must become as little children or they will miss the kingdom of God altogether. And what are little children noted for? They are imaginative, sensitive to what is going on about them, frank, humble.  They live in an atmosphere of trust, wonder, enchantment, openness, adventure.  In such an environment, God's kingdom comes.

Let us say this little prayer together this Christmas, O God, who came to us as child and teacher our example and Savior help us to become as little children, that we may not miss your kingdom.  Amen.
        

Merry Christmas to all,
Pastor Jack