Christmas Time

 

Merry Christmas!

Christmas, Christmas, Christmas! Nothing consumes our lives and thoughts more. We may shop for ghoulish costumes before Halloween, and cook for what seems like days on thanksgiving but the entire month of December (and parts of November and January) are taken up with thoughts of the Holy holly jollies. We have countless movies reminding us the true meaning of Christmas, unfortunately they are interrupted by commercial breaks distracting us from it once again. We get mass emails reminding us once again of its meaning but web advertisements asking us to buy more stuff (sometimes included on the same email). Caught in this pull between the possibility of greater things (GIFTS!!) and the reflection of glorious things (Christ) the mass find themselves torn apart. 

    

      Who would have guessed that those wise kings two thousand years ago would of caused such a stir? There is a dark illusion about Christmas, a false hope of toys and family. We expect that we will be surrounded by a perfect loving family who will just for this one day, not fight, or argue, but sing fahoo fores, dahoo dores, welcome Christmas around a tree. Even in the Grinch a story about how Christmas comes without ribbons! without tags! without packages, boxes or bags, they end up celebrating with all those presents! 

        Maybe that is why people too often end up more depressed on Christmas. They feel like if they don’t have the presents, or the family to share it with they are missing out on Christmas. I have some shocking news for you. Christmas is not about presents, nor is it about FAMILY (at least not your earthly family). Sure we all tend to gather as a family to celebrate and its a great time to express our love for each other, but Christmas is NOT about family. It IS in fact about Jesus. It is a celebration of not only the fact that He was born, but a celebration of why He was born, and what that means for us.

    

        Christmas shockingly is about Christ, and He is there just the same for every man women and Child. We do not have to be good or “nice” to earn his love, and we do not have to be rich to celebrate it. We do not have to have either a perfect family or one at all. We are NOT celebrating the fact that we were born to the man we call father and the woman we call mother. We ARE celebrating the fact that a baby was born and they call him Emanuel which means “God with us”.

    Now we have a family, that we can celebrate this glorious event with. They have almost as many buildings as Starbucks. There is one on almost every church corner, and there is type built for every kind of man, woman, and child. It’s church, and not just the building but the gathering of those who celebrate Christ wherever they may be. My family celebrates Christmas in our home by reading the incredible story of our Lord and singing songs to honor Him. However you choose to celebrate, remember that it isn’t only not about presents, it’s also not about family. It’s about Jesus. It’s about a love story. A love that was so strong for each one of us, that a savior was born. A little baby, a king, a warrior, God with us, and time has never been the same.

Free Falling

       Working in Youth Ministry is more than a job, it's a life, head ache, a heart ache, and about the best job that anyone can have. When I decided to make the uncommon move from working in "adult" ministry to "youth" ministry it was in some ways like jumping from the edge of a cliff, once you jump there is little control left over the direction you choose.

        In some degree I feel like Steve McQueen in Magnificent Seven, when sharing about a guy falling from a ten story building. Each floor the guy passed people could hear him saying "So far so good". So far so good.

       I have unfortunately never been skydiving but I already know the feeling. The feeling of letting go control, giving yourself to the air, and feeling more alive than you have before. I know the feeling because that is exactly how walking with God feels.

      It really doesn't feel like a walk most days it feels like a flight. Or even more accurately it feels like a pattern of flying and falling. At moments you feel on top of the world, gazing at the wonder beneath, and moments later you are plummeting back to earth. The thing that only experience with God can teach you, the thing I didn't understand 100 battles or so ago, is that we can enjoy even the falling.

    Even speeding towards the ground at a mile a minute we can breath deep, and enjoy, cause God is gonna catch us every time. He always does, and always has, always will. Some people try to fight the fall when things start to go wrong. They stay crashing toward earth like before but now they are flapping their arms wildly as if they may be able to reverse the gravitational pull of the earth. All that happens instead is they start spinning out of control like someone who jumped out of a plane but forgot a parachute.

     God is our parachute. He is our safety net, keeping us assured we won't hit the ground. There is nothing more beautiful then a skydiver  who knows what he's doing. He is like a ballerina of the air, enjoying the decent. Why wouldn't we be just as confident in our parachute? After all, there is no margin of error when it comes to God's faithfulness.

- R. Daniel Demsick