'Tis The Season

It's the most wonderful time of the year
With the kids jingle belling
And everyone telling you "Be of good cheer"
It's the most wonderful time of the year
It's the hap-happiest season of all
With those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings
When friends come to call
It's the hap- happiest season of all........

Christmas is season with many facets. For some it's a joyful and loving time when family and friends get together, old relations are rekindled, gifts are given and received and children look forward to seeing what Santa left under the tree.
For others it's a lonely, stressful and depressing time. Job loss, foreclosures, family issues, no close relationships are a few of the contributors that make this a less than desirable time of the year.

More importantly, the reason we celebrate Christmas is not the reason we should celebrate Christmas. It's all about the 'Stuff' and when we are in the center of either of the extremes of having all or nothing, the significance of Christ is diminished. And, there is a growing group of people that just don't like Jesus.

When we look at Jesus' it is amazing to realize that many people want to remove Him from Christmas. In fact they want to eliminate from society the One who gives them every breath, who keeps their heart beating, who created the world in which they live. Why would they want the Creator of the universe purged from their midst?
Jesus often represents everything they despise: morality holiness, decency, and the authority He has to tell them what to do. They miss the part about the joy and peace that could be theirs in abundance or want. They choose instead to rebel against the God who loves them. This behavior indicates how blind people can be, and how unwise it is not to investigate Scripture to learn who Christ is.

My hope is that we break the cycle of dismissal....don't miss the time of your visitation.

saying, "If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. "For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, "and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation." (Luke 19:42-44)