Ready or not, Christmas is HERE! Just last week I was having a discussion with two young ladies. One of them said, “I sure wish Christmas was always on Sunday like Easter!” I agreed with her but that is just not the way it works out. However, I do like it when Christmas comes on Sunday or like this year, Christmas Eve. To me it just makes it a little more special.
Easter always comes on a Sunday because we know for sure when Jesus died and when he was raised by God from the dead. That most important event was centered around Passover and Passover takes place on the very same Sabbath day that it has for somewhere around 5,000 years! Christmas, however is different! We have not “proof-certain” when Jesus was born. The date of his birth is not mentioned in the Bible at all. We do have two Gospel accounts of his birth (Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke 1:26-56, 2:21) but neither mentions a date. The truth is that the early church did not celebrate the birth of Jesus at all! The first mention of a date for Jesus’ birth appears around 200 ACE and places the date as January 6. There is no plausible explanation for that date unless we take the approximate date of Jesus death as April 6 and couple that with the myth that a prophet always died on the date of their conception! For a long time, the birth of Jesus was celebrated on January 6. By the mid-fourth-century, the date was changed to December 25. Some say it was the Pope who changed the date while others argue it was changed to coincide with the Julian calendar which has the winter solstice as December 25. At that time, the belief was that December 25 was the date of the “nativity of the sun.” It seemed logical then to celebrate the birth of the Son of God who had participated in the creation of the sun on the same day – December 25. Regardless of when Jesus was born, the important thing is we believe his birth was special. We believe that God came in human form; born to poor parents and his first bed was a feeding trough. He came so that you and I can have life eternal. And, just to add some more to this story, January 6 is still an important date in the life of the church. Today, we celebrate January 6 as Epiphany and from December 25 to January 6 we have “the twelve days of Christmas!” Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night… “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing.” Those two short sentences are the opening sentences from our scripture reading for today. Many times these days it is somewhat difficult to “rejoice always!” As I am writing this, news out of New York City is that another suicide bomber as struck. This time, however, they were not very successful! Maybe the bomb went off prematurely or maybe the bomber decided to “chicken out.” At any rate, even the bomber survived! How have we, as people of this world, gone so far down that some will kill innocent people all in the name of their religion? That makes no sense at all to me!
As we bring to a close the third week of Advent (the Sunday of Joy!) there are still many ways we find joy. We find joy in the eyes of a child on Christmas morning as they open presents. We see joy in the face of parents and grandparents as we watch our children and grandchildren opening their presents. My hope is that we pray for our families without ceasing as well! Yes, we live in a troubled world but we must remember that as Christians, this world is not our home! Mary Reeves Davis wrote about this in a song titled “This World is Not My Home.” “This world is not my home, I’m just passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue The angels beckon me from heaven's open door And I can't feel at home in this world anymore.” Those words should be comforting to us as we continue the journey toward the First Advent and the coming of the Christ Child. Amen. How many of you have either children or grandchildren who have a “count-down-to-Christmas” calendar? Our grandchildren living in Derby have one. Each day, they remove a number from the calendar so that they know just how many days it is until Santa comes! My guess is that whoever thought this up had children that were constantly bugging them asking “How many more days?” or “How much longer do we have to wait?”
Patience—is it a virtue or a curse? Actually patience is one of the nine “Fruits of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-23) But let’s face it, we just don’t like to wait! I know I get impatient when the traffic light takes too long to change or McDonald’s drive through takes too long. Why is that? I could say it is because patience is something I lack and that would certainly be true, but is it something deeper? We live in a fast-paced, instant-gratification world. Take coffee for example. When I was a young child, my mom would perk coffee on the stove each morning. Even though I did not like the taste of coffee (and I still don’t) I loved that smell as it brewed. And it took time for the brew process to be complete. Today, we have a Keurig and I can “brew” Trudy a cup of coffee in less than a minute! There is no aroma of brewed coffee to fill the kitchen, but it is fast and she loves their coffee! As we now are in the second week of Advent, I plan to take some time to just slow down and smell the coffee (when I can find it brewing at say Waffle House!). Patience is something each of us should strive to have more of! The scriptures remind us to “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10a) One cannot be still without having patience! Amen. |
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This blog consists of reflections written by the minister each week for the Sunday bulletin. We hope that you enjoy the musings! Archives
January 2020
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