We wish you a merry Christmas!

"We wish you a merry Christmas,
we wish you a merry Christmas,
we wish you a merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year!"

The old familiar Christmas carols and new ones as well fill the air, along with ads reminding us there are only X number of days until Christmas. Hurry, snap up those deals, fill up the space under the Christmas tree and the stockings with as many gifts as you can! I don't know about you, but I find that I need to stop, take a deep breath, and listen to the words of the songs and remember why I celebrate at this time of year.

"Glad tidings we bring,
to you and your kin,
glad tidings for Christmas
and a Happy New Year!"

The glad tidings are that Jesus was born as an innocent baby of an unwed teenage mother, to bring light and life and hope to everyone. He was born in a dirty, smelly stable, not the sort of place we would expect God to show up. His first visitors were probably poor shepherds, who heard about his birth from heavenly messengers, and they surely marveled that this ordinary little baby was what all the fuss was about. Did his mother, Mary, understand fully who this baby was and what a difference he would make to the whole world? Was she surprised by the visits from shepherds and kings? It was probably a little too much for her to grasp at first, but the Bible says she treasured all these things in her heart, no doubt turning them over and over in her mind, wondering what it all meant.

We burn candles and put lights on our houses and trees to light up the darkness this time of year. Jesus came to bring light to the darkness of the world. He did it in an unconventional and unexpected way, by being born as a fragile, vulnerable child, and then lived and died and rose from the dead so that we could step out of the darkness into the light of relationship with God.

The best gifts of Christmas are not found under a tree or in a stocking. They are the ones we love and the one who loves us most, Jesus. Our prayer for you this Christmas is that you will know his love more deeply in the year ahead. Merry Christmas and God bless you! 

December 23, 2007