Merry Christmas!
Knock, knock!
Who's there?
Holly.
Holly who?
Holly-days are here again!
Isn’t that that the truth. I told someone the other day that it is like life went on pause in March and then suddenly it is December and the holidays more importantly the Holy day where we celebrate the birth of Jesus is here.
Are you ready? Have you bought your gifts and wrapped them for under the tree? Have you finalized your plans for Christmas day? Will there be a gathering with family? Or is Christmas going to be another casualty of the epidemic? I know from talking with many of you and listening to my own family members in Canada that this will be a different Christmas.
Is that a bad thing? Christmas in many ways has become so much more than what it really is. Consider the things that you look forward to during this season: Christmas Music, Hallmark Movies, Christmas goodies and candy, family gatherings and gift exchanges, a Christmas bonus from work, dressing up for a Christmas eve service. I am sure I missed a few. While we will enjoy most of those favorite things of Christmas it will be tempered by this pandemic. Yes, your gatherings are going to be smaller. More specifically they will be limited to your family pod however you want to define the term family pod.
What an opportunity to simplify Christmas. To make it more about the ones you love and even more about the one who first loved you! After all was not that first Christmas a simple Christmas under a forced government mandate. Under those circumstances the most epic event in human history occurred. Jesus came into this world and took on the form of a human being fully human and fully God. He was not born in a palace. Jesus was not born in the presence of other kings and royalty. He was born in the humblest of places, a manger. The announcement of His birth was to the humblest of people, the shepherds. He was surrounded by barn animals and Mary and Joseph. Luke tells us that Mary did not bemoan what she lost by not having family present at the birth but rather she treasured and pondered them in her heart. She focused not on the loss but on the present. She treasured that the Messiah had been born.
This year, this unusual COVID Christmas, don’t focus on the loss but celebrate the present, Jesus Christ has been born, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Nothing can separate us from that truth. Have a Merry Christmas! Celebrate that your savior Jesus Christ was born!
