It's Christmas somewhere...

 

It's Christmas Day.  My wife and I have exchanged gifts.  The fire is burning in the wood stove.  We are snug in our home.  Some of our children will arrive in an hour or so. And I am reflecting, yet again, on why Christmas always seems so empty to me.  

I don't recall ever truly enjoying the gift giving.  I do recall sometimes waking up in the middle of the night and going out and just sitting in the living room.  I recall a very specific time when my dad came out and just sat with me in the silence.  It was snowing.  I had turned the Christmas Tree lights on.  I was sad and my dad comforted me. Even then I recalled thinking that there must be more to Christmas than just singing a bunch of songs at church lighting some candles, exchanging gifts. But I never caught the excitement bug.

Later in life, when we entered our child raising years, we would have the children come in on Christmas morning to wake us with a Christmas Hymn.  It had to be a Christian Hymn, because Christmas, irrespective of the social nonsense, is a Christian Holiday. Period.  That was often the highlight of Christmas, the drowsy, raspy early morning voices trying to stay in tune.  I missed that this morning...

Nevertheless Christmas comes each year and each and every year I get caught up in listening to the ne'er do well pundits trying to explain, "the real meaning of Christmas."

But this year it seems seems to have struck an especially sour note.  I hear it in pulpits. I hear it on the radio. I read it on the internet.  Asininity is everywhere.

And yet that is the reality of Christmas! 

Jerusalem was awash with do-gooders and well-intentioned people who didn't have a clue God was amongst them.  Just like today.  Rulers made baseless claims and were fearful to the point of insanity.  And yet in their midst, without their approval, without their opinion on the matter, the Very Begotten of God dwelt amongst them in Glory; not the kind of glory world defines as glorious but the kind, of Glory that belongs only to the King of Kings, which only the broken, repentant, and humble could give.

Amidst all the idiocy of "christmas," - the blasphemous warm fuzzy family, cozy up to the fire, "you'll shoot your eye out nonsense, Christ still dwells among us.  At least for those with eyes to see...not in the decorations, not in the songs, not in the gift-giving or the "twinkling of an eye," not in the cinammon scented pine cones, the  bittersweet branches, the hand carved trees, or the well-wishes of neighbors.  

He dwells in the hovels, rude and bare, amongst the displaced refugees and those on the run in fear for their lives. He visits the grieving, the embittered and distressed. He is near to the broken-hearted and ignores the comfortable and affluent.  He is apparent to those who seek Him, those who dwell in the shadow of the Most High. But He is NOT under a Christmas Tree or in a gift exchange, or in a merry celebration.  

I think I will always dread the nonsense that seems so attractive to so many at Christmas.  But I will seek Him while he may be found.

Maranatha!