Well it's Christmas eve tonight. The stockings have been hung, the letter and plate of cookies left out for Santa, the presents put under the tree, and the little ones tucked in bed. It should be the most magical evening of the year. But this year, for me, my usual excitement and anticipation of the season and the "big day" tomorrow is missing.
I don't know why, but this year everything just seems so...so hollow. I find myself noticing less and less the stockings hanging from the mantle, and more and more the exhaustion of my parents who have worked so hard to make everything just right. The beautiful Christmas decorations seem to have faded, and the people spending Christmas alone have become much more apparent. The presents under the tree are not nearly so important now, but the people who have nothing are infinitely more so.
Perhaps we have all been focusing on the wrong story. Most people focus simply on the presents and food and family that everyone associates with Christmas. If we focus on Jesus at all, it is on the baby Jesus, the little helpless child who was laid in a manger in Bethlehem so many years ago. But the story that we should be focusing on is not Jesus the baby, but Jesus the conqueror, Jesus the savior, who came to rescue a world sorely in need of His help.
Perhaps if we remembered the right story, the story of Jesus' triumph, we wouldn't focus on the silly things of Christmas, but rather the things that matter. It is, after all, the greatest story ever told.
I don't know why, but this year everything just seems so...so hollow. I find myself noticing less and less the stockings hanging from the mantle, and more and more the exhaustion of my parents who have worked so hard to make everything just right. The beautiful Christmas decorations seem to have faded, and the people spending Christmas alone have become much more apparent. The presents under the tree are not nearly so important now, but the people who have nothing are infinitely more so.
Perhaps we have all been focusing on the wrong story. Most people focus simply on the presents and food and family that everyone associates with Christmas. If we focus on Jesus at all, it is on the baby Jesus, the little helpless child who was laid in a manger in Bethlehem so many years ago. But the story that we should be focusing on is not Jesus the baby, but Jesus the conqueror, Jesus the savior, who came to rescue a world sorely in need of His help.
Perhaps if we remembered the right story, the story of Jesus' triumph, we wouldn't focus on the silly things of Christmas, but rather the things that matter. It is, after all, the greatest story ever told.
John 21:25
25 Jesus did many
other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose
that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would
be written.
Amazing. The end.
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