Chirstmas Happens Each Day - Over and Over Again

Christmas is about incarnation - it is about Emmanuel - God being with us - today - each and every day.
It is not something that comes just once a year - it happens each day over and over again.

And that is something to celebrate!

Oh, sure, we may not always know how to celebrate Emmanuel in our lives each and every day, 

but our task is to keep our eyes open so we recognize it when we see it.

You know, if I heard it once, I heard it a hundred times this year.
Usually it was said in a crowd of people -
sometimes in the check out line,
sometimes in a crowded aisle -
invariably some person with a harried look on their face would turn to me and say, "Thank goodness Christmas comes only once a year!"

I would usually offer a sympathetic smile -
perhaps a manly grunt or two -
but I never thought the setting appropriate for me to launch into a diatribe
about the benefits of considering alternative celebrations more in tune with tenets of our faith.

But, that is where my mind would go.
For Christmas is about incarnation - it is about Emmanuel - God being with us - today - each and every day.
It is not something that comes just once a year - it happens each day over and over
again.

For two or three hundred years, Protestants were so taken by this point that Christmas day was not celebrated at all.

In fact, many American colonies had laws banning the practice.

By putting all of our emphasis on one particular day commemorating a event that happened long ago, we lose an important part of our faith understanding and it is easy to get lost in the hoopla of the culture around us.

It is a little easier to keep a proper perspective by celebrating what the church calls the
Christmas Season - twelve days of Christmas: beginning December 25 and continuing until January 6.

There were periods of time in our family when we found special things to do each day of Christmas to remind us that Emmanuel is about now - not just a story about then.

Folks in some cultures exchange a gift each day during the twelve days of Christmas.

Folks in other cultures spend twelve days visiting friends and family members - ostensibly looking for the Christ child as did those wise men from the East in our sacred story.

Others spend each day during the Christmas season finding things to do for others - remembering Jesus' admonishment that we are to do for the less fortunate among us.

Whatever we do in this time before The Epiphany, we are reminded that Christmas really does not come but once a year -
but, continues to happen again and again now and into all the tomorrows to come.

And that is something to celebrate!

Oh, sure, we may not always know how to celebrate Emmanuel in our lives each and every day, but our task is to keep our eyes open so we recognize it when we see it.

This takes some training and practice, of course.

But, I am convinced, it happens.

Let one of our resolutions for the new year be to live as though Christmas was real and continues every day our lives.

That's worth celebrating, don't you think?

As for me and my house, we will continue to relate to others as though they are Christ incognito.

If you can, join us each Sunday to hone our skills at recognizing the hidden Christ around us.

If you can't join us, pray for us - as we will for you.

See you in church.