Site
Contents
 |
General Information about the Area Office
North Indiana Conference Office
South Indiana Conference Office
Prayer Guides
(Courtesy of the NIC Prayer Team)
Area United Methodist
Foundation
For resources to assist your congregation in welcoming guests,
click here
Seashore District Volunteer Center VIM project -- Completed
Hoosier United Methodist News Archives
| Hoosier United Methodist News |
December 2002 |
Christmas is coming … So what?
"Christmas is coming. So what!" I heard the words while seated in a favored restaurant. It was not my intent to listen to the conversation of the couple at a nearby table. However, the man spoke so forcefully and with considerable irritation, I think I was not the only diner who heard.
The gentlemen went on to say with some agitation that all the "fuss" of Christmas resulted in no substantial change in life or circumstances. That's all I remember as my mind set off on its own journey.
Christmas is coming. So what! We seem so divided as a nation. Recent elections and campaigning seemed especially negative. The Church, too, seems too often reflective of divisiveness more than community. It will still be so as we sing, "Joy to the world, the Lord is come!"
Terrorist attacks, the threat of a full scale war in which our nation may be involved concern us all. People die indiscriminately by acts of terrorism or well-planned "strategic strikes." We sing, "Peace on earth, good will toward men," even though peace seems an elusive hope.
|
Christmas always points to what can be, not only what is. It points to change, hope and promise. |
Christmas is coming! So what! The music of Christmas will be prepared and sung in simple, little congregations and mega churches alike. Sanctuaries will come alive with greenery, color and lights.
Yet, these places are often unfriendly, and void of passion to reach the "unchurched," the broken and needy. They remain unchanged in their concern for others and sharing the Gospel, even as they sing, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel."
Could this be what the man at the table in the restaurant meant? Or was it more.
Continued acts of unkindness in church and community too often characterize the nature of both. Yet there seems to be a deeper disunity. Even in the name of God, indescribable deeds are perpetrated against other human beings causing many to turn from belief in any deity who would incite such rage and hatred.
Christmas is coming! So what! There seems a core evil in our midst. Children are abused, maimed and killed -- by parents! Persons are shot and killed as they stop to fill a car up with gas, or shop at a mall, or dine at a restaurant. Or because they own a gold necklace, or a pair of tennis shoes. Or because they are black, or white, homosexual, Jewish, Christian or Muslim. Raw evil!
There is indescribable greed among some corporate executives and nations that result in lost savings, exploitation of workers and utter poverty of a people. While sermons are preached and pageants performed, the hungry will remain hungry, the exploited, exploited, the ignored -- ignored.
Christmas is coming! So what!
A litany of the world's ills seems endless. Indeed it is precisely for these ills that Christmas is coming. God so loved the world that God sent the Son!
In every heart where there is still hatred and malice, it is for this reason Christmas is coming. In every place where there is war, threat and terrorism -- Christmas is coming. For every expectant mother pregnant outside of marriage, every person living and dying with AIDS, every son or daughter estranged from a parent, let the message be heard -- Christmas is coming! For the lonely, forgotten, marginalized, and dispirited, Christmas is coming.
Because Love came down at Christmas, there are peacemakers in the face of war, healers in the midst of pain, hospitality when there is unwelcome, and hope despite despair.
Christmas always points to what can be, not only what is. It points to change, hope and promise. And everywhere there are signs -- in song, sermon, smile and gift -- that a difference already has been made in the world and in the hearts and lives of countless.
Every Christmas we are reminded to look again -- to see what God has done for the human family -- to reach for our core good and to embrace the One who makes life new.
Christmas is coming! So what???
Last updated on 01/14/2004