Christmas joy

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

People are buying gifts; making special dishes: fruitcake, hot chocolate, special salads, hams or turkeys; planning parties.

Mary was growing more pregnant day by day.  (Luke 2:5)

Joseph was leading the donkey and negotiating a place to stay for himself and Mary.

The shepherds were watching over their flocks by night.  The wise men were watching the star and pursuing it.

Later on, John the Baptist prepared the people to hear what Jesus had to say telling them to repent, change their minds, realize they had been missing the mark.  (Matthew 3:1-11, Luke 3:2-16)

How do we prepare our hearts today?  Do we think about where we have missed the mark? Or confess our sins (1 John 1:9) to relieve the pressure of our sins and remember the one who was born to bear the penalty for our sins and redeem our lives from destruction? Or are we so filled with snowmen, Santa Claus, reindeer, Rudolph, Grinch, Thomas Marley, “Bah Humbug,” “Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings,” “A Christmas Story” where a boy gets a Red Ryder BB gun, “Deck the Halls” sung with Rs instead of Ls, that we leave our spiritual lives in the dust?

Preparation (Isaiah 40:3) builds anticipation and excitement for change.  While preparing meals and special dishes, do you find yourself singing Christmas carols or hymns that tell the story of the Messiah? 

To get the most of our efforts, all these things work together to make Christmas special.

Connection to Jesus, the Word made flesh (John 1) changes our lives forever, mending the fabric of our lives, giving us life more abundantly (John 10:10) not for a few days each year but for our daily lives forever.   

Are we the innkeeper in the story who doesn’t have time or room (Luke 2:7) for the homeless people who showed up on his doorstep but managed to share a corner in his stable?  Are we like the shepherds (Luke 2:8) who were just going about their business watching over their flocks when the angels came out of the sky to invite them to the event of time itself? Are we like the wisemen (Matthew 2) who had studied for years until the light shone in the night sky and they followed it bringing gifts?

May we reach out toward the joy of this season unwilling to receive a superficial forgery but desiring the deep cleansing of time spent in the presence of the Lord of all.  Joy, like thanksgiving, is the prelude to the peace which passes all understanding that keeps our hearts and minds through Jesus Christ.  (Philippians 4:7)

(Cathy Bayert is pastor of Greybull First Baptist Church.)