Shall we just skip Christmas??

Hey friends…
 
Many of you find my suggestion appalling. Skip our favorite holiday?!?! Unconscionable. But I bet there are a few of you who find this idea rather appealing. Skip all the hype and the rat race of an overwhelming holiday schedule?? Fantastic. But before you cancel me for such a ludicrous suggestion, can I plant the idea that a mountain of people are already skipping Christmas without even realizing it? Might you be one of them? I’ll tell you more in Deeper Thoughts below…
 
But first… just a few important items:
 
·      LAST CHANCE to take a quick survey for us if you’ve not done so already! We are looking to understand what you most want us to focus on to help you grow in Jesus. The survey is only 6 quick questions… click here. Many thanks in advance!


·      Candlelight Christmas Eve!! Two services: 5:00 and 6:30 p.m. Invite your family and friends!
 
o   If you would like to participate in our Christmas Eve choir, click here to connect with Ryan Sauder!
 
o   Childcare will be available at 5:00 p.m. or only by special reservation at 6:30. Please click here to let us know you need childcare!
 
·      Teens – no Youth Group this Sunday! Contact Jess Sauder for updates throughout the holidays: [email protected].
 
·      New small groups are starting this January! Among them, David and Lynn Eisele are kicking off a new small group called “You and Me Together,” a study in Christ-centered marriage. This is for marrieds and singles, young and old! Use your marriage and life to show others what love is, to build each other up, support one another in your callings, and keep one another spiritually on-track. Click here to let us know you’re interested!
 
OK…that’s it today for you email skimmers and those who have decided I’m an unforgivable grinch. BUT…
 
 
Some Deeper Thoughts…
 
Thank God for Amazon. Click, click, and the package is shipped. Order your Christmas gift on Monday; you’ll have it under the tree by Tuesday. (And no, please don’t ask me if I’ve recently been rescued by this brilliant invention!)
 
I imagine you’ve either heard or expressed this sentiment before: “All the commercialization of Christmas misses the entire point of Christmas.”
 
You feel it don’t you? Holiday parties tying up every night in December; uncooperative decorations revealing your evil inner-Clark Griswald; crazy schedules to get to and from the in-laws; shopping for presents no one really wants… how is any of this related to Jesus Christ being born in a Middle Eastern stable some 2,030 years ago?
 
While certainly a bit cliché, in this sense many of us skip out on the real meaning of Christmas by being so distracted by all the commercial and social expectations of the holiday.
 
But this isn’t what I’m talking about when I tell you more people are skipping Christmas than realize it.
 
Skipping Christmas started in 6 B.C. It’s been going on in droves ever since.
 
Most scholars agree that Jesus was not born on December 25, 0 B.C. / A.D., based on a whole host of historic and astronomical details we don’t have time for here. The best guess of when Jesus was actually born lands somewhere around March of the year 6.B.C. (ping me by email if you’d like the details… sorry if I just wrecked your holiday!).
 
Nearly everyone missed the first Christmas out of simple ignorance that a baby of divine conception was just born to an out-of-town couple holding up in a borrowed stable while all the local hotels were sold out. His mom’s unusual labor and delivery room wasn’t the big story—a poorly organized census demanded by an inefficient government bureaucracy displaced a whole host of travelers that weekend. That someone would end up giving birth while in town and not have anywhere to go was inevitable.
 
The big story was who this baby was. Almost no one could comprehend it.
 
Not even you and me.
 
It would be several decades later when an uneducated fisherman finally connected all the dots. When John Bar Zebedee got to know that stable-born baby all grown up, he saw the light. Literally.
 
Here’s how John described it: “In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it… The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him” (John 1:4-11).
 
Did you catch the tragedy of John’s words?
 
The world was languishing in darkness. Our world is languishing in darkness today. And we skip Christmas entirely unawares. We don’t even recognize it.
 
Sure, we Christians generally know the basics of the story. Jesus came to die for our sins. He traded his holiness for our sinfulness.  Because of this, we can love God and live eternally when we believe him for our salvation. End of story, right?
 
Or is it?
 
What about our immediate life today? Don’t get me wrong: Eternal life matters, especially when you die. But between now and then--smack dab in the middle of your precious life—are you skipping out on what this stable-born baby and his ultimate crucifixion can change about you?
 
We certainly aren’t skipping the celebration of Christmas. We’ve got that one down pat. What we are skipping is the light. We don’t even see it. Just like John said: “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.”
 
Darkness surrounds us all. Attitudes. Anger. Resentment. Unforgiveness. Lust. Greed. Gossip. Jealousy. Materialism. Self-hatred. Dishonesty. Medicating addictions. Doubt. Fear. Despair. (I could go on… you get the point). This darkness is inside us all.
 
Jesus came to eradicate that darkness by being the purest, brightest, boldest light ever known to man. (Clark Griswald, eat your heart out!) He came to show us the way. To change our broken hearts. To reveal the path of righteousness. To illuminate a better life.
 
But we miss it. We skip it.
 
How? By not investing every ounce of our energy to know this Jesus in every possible way. By not creating room in our hectic holiday schedules to fall on our knees before God and seek Him for revolutionary solutions to that darkness. By not devoting ourselves to the scriptures. By not pouring ourselves out before Him and asking Him to pour out His Holy Spirit upon us.
 
Friends, please don’t hear this as shame. We are all doing this. Me included. To borrow the words of the famed Lon Solomon: “Not a sermon. Just a thought.”
 
But maybe this Christmas we should sit for a minute (or two, or ten, or twenty…) and contemplate the light. He came to us. Let’s allow Him to shine into our darkness and lead us somewhere entirely new.
 
Much love to you all… and Merry Christmas… or shall we say, Merry “Light-mas?”
 
Chris Eads
Mt. Hope Pastor
Friend