After Christmas eve... now what?

 After Christmas eve...Now what?

Well the presents are all open. The cards have been read. The leftovers are slowly disappearing. Life is returning to normal. Soon the school buses will be running again and the yellow flashing lights warning us to slow down as we drive by school grounds will again reflect off the snow and ice on these dark winter mornings.

Soon the Christmas lights will go away for another year. 

Soon the manger will disappear along with the poinsettias. 

...Now what?

As I wrote in my last blog, I love the song Silent Night. It just would not seem to be Christmas without the singing of the song. I think part of the reason I like that song so much is because it is my dream and maybe yours to truly have a Silent Night! 

But that is not the world we live in. I left the last worship on Christmas Eve and as the snow was coming straight down with big heavy snow flakes that is so common for the Anchorage bowl area I stopped under the light post in the parking lot and looked around. As I stood in the empty parking lot for a moment, I broke the silence of the evening by shouting at the top of my lungs- 

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

But...

it really was not a Silent Night. The evening Christmas carols were replaced with the wail of sirens some where off in the distance. I imagined for a moment a house fire, a car wreck, a child in the hospital, a person sitting alone weeping over a photo of someone they can no longer see or talk too. 

My point is simple. Life never stops. Life keeps moving and this is what was happening on the night that Jesus was born. People on the night He was born were living and experiencing death. There were likely other births somewhere else that night. The shepherds were doing what they did every night- tending to their sheep. People's lived were disrupted as the populations was forced to move about the country to their ancestral homes for a Roman imposed census. Magi were traveling from the east and would not arrive for sometime to worship the new born king. 

Did you know that? We often time put the Magi in the manger scene and think they arrived on the night Jesus was born but Scripture paints a different picture. In the Gospel account of Matthew in Chapter 2, we see that Mary and Joseph have settled into a house. We see Jesus is referred to not as a baby but a child! Jesus could have been as old as 2 by the time the Magi made their appearance. After the Magi visit Mary and Joseph were told in a dream to flee to Egypt that this young family would avoid King Herod's wrath!  

Life went on as it always does. Even Jesus said people were eating and drinking, marring and being given in marriage right up to the day the flood waters came upon the earth in Noah's day. (Matthew 24: 37-39)

The important thing for you and I to focus on as life continues and we wish and pray for a truly Silent Night is that Jesus is the one who will one day provided that Silent Night upon His return.  He is also the one who gives us a glimpse of that now as we live out our life. 

When I broke the seeming silence of Christmas eve by shouting MERRY CHRISTMAS to the neighborhood I had a sense of peace and quietness in my soul that night. I hope you did too! We all know the world continues to suffer from our sins but that is what Jesus came to take away and what He does take away. 

My soul is at peace with that. I miss my dad who is not here to see our children gather about the Christmas tree. I am sad that my mom is sick and her mind struggles with anxiety and disorientation. I feel my youth each year being sapped away by age and a body that is not able to do what it did 20 years ago. I hurt for the countless children who suffer with not enough food to eat. My heart breaks for the teenage boys and girls who do not know what unconditional love is. I pray for those struggling with addictions of all kinds. I know you all too can add to this list of things that God has laid upon your heart as you read these words.

Yet together we have peace in Jesus who is the Prince of Peace. Together we can address in the name of Jesus the hurts, sadness, pain, illnesses of heart, body and mind so others can get a glimpse of what Jesus will one day bring into fullness- PEACE!

In this new year, it is my prayer we continue to focus our eyes outside the walls of the church and become even more the HANDS of JESUS into the community we live and the world we inhabit.

MERRY CHRISTMAS 

to you all my brothers and sisters in CHRIST! Let the Holy Spirit be our guide this coming year and every day of every year!! 

Pastor Andy