Good morning and happy Saturday. Can you believe we are only one week away from Christmas? For some of you, panic just set in. You need to get a lot of stuff done in a short amount of time. Hopefully, most of you are in a position that you can enjoy this week and spend some time reflecting on our Savior. If you can, join us for our Christmas eve service on Friday at 5:00 pm. We will have some great music, share communion together, hear a message from God’s Word and conclude with the lighting of the candles. It is always a special service.
Last Saturday we had our community Christmas parties at 3 and 5. They went really well again this year, and we were blessed to see people indicating decisions for Christ at each service. Please pray that they would come to understand more fully what it means to follow Christ and that they would be committed to growing in their faith.
At each of the services I used a nativity scene to talk about Christmas. At the first one I talked about how that particular nativity set had the wise men included with the shepherds, the angel, the animals and of course Mary, Joseph and Jesus. I shared how the wise men or Magi would have come up to two years after the birth in the manger and that there wasn’t any mention that the animals were there. The point was that we sometimes we add to or don’t quite get our facts straight when talking about Christmas. The same is true about the rest of Jesus’ life and the purpose for which He came. At the second service I changed it up a bit. I decided to update the nativity to reflect the things we tend to focus on in our modern version of Christmas. In the nativity I placed a small present, a Christmas ornament, a can of Dr. Pepper and some food. Really, it was a couple of pizza rolls and a taquito, but that is what we were serving so I went with it. Anyway, I talked about how our focus at Christmas is sometimes not on Jesus but on the other things that have become tradition at Christmas time. The present represented the inordinate amount of focus on giving and getting gifts. The ornament stood for the countless hours and obsession to decorate everything so that you could rival Clark W. Griswold. The Dr. Pepper and the food represented the holiday parties and misplaced notion that Christmas is about feasting or drinking (Dr. Pepper or otherwise). After talking about these things, I asked someone to tell me what was missing from our nativity scene. Once all that other stuff was out of the way it became apparent that Jesus was missing. We had spent our time so focused on all the other things added to the Christmas story that we didn’t notice Jesus wasn’t there. Sadly, if we are not careful, that might describe Christmas for many people. Let’s do what we can to keep Jesus as the focus of our Christmas this year.
8 In the same region, shepherds were staying out in the fields and keeping watch at night over their flock. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, for look, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people: 11 Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be the sign for you: You will find a baby wrapped tightly in cloth and lying in a manger.” (Luke 2:8-12)
From our neighborhoods to the nations,
Pastor Larry
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