Walking the Way

The Christmas Service December 25, 2008

I guess it’s been a while since my last post, but I figured today of all days was as good as any to post something that hit me today. Today I attended one of the Christmas Eve services my church held for the night. Everybody can relate to the setting, the choir singing on key, the people selected to light the candles, and the elders reading the nativity story. I do enjoy our reflection on the birth of Christ Jesus. The songs we sing such as O Holy Night, Silent Night, and O Come all Ye Faithful have excellent imagery that let’s us reflect on the birth. There’s nothing like hearing the congregation sing and worship God together as one. Yet there was one thing that bothered me…

As I looked around the room, I began thinking about the time and effort put into the service. I’m not ungrateful about the people that came together to create a service that reflects on Christ, not at all. But I’m concerned about the time they put into it. I know that the month of December is the busiest month of the year for our church. And isn’t that a problem? I mean, it should be the opposite shouldn’t it? The music director for my church is just overwhelmed with concert after concert and requests for several sound equipment. This is what we’re warned not to do, to add fluff to Christmas. I mean with all these concerts and events, are the leaders of our church really getting the time with their family that they need? All these things that happen, it doesn’t really helps us focus on Christ. A lot of times I feel like we do them just to feel nice.

I think it would be wild for a church to just not do anything with the exception of a service. I think the members themselves would take the duty of organizing these kind of events. In addition, on Christmas, we need to include the miracle of Zachariah and Elizabeth and the birth of John. We never put the two together, and they are a part of the nativity. We don’t need the concerts or the teas, we only need the reminder of the miracle of Christ. John 1:1 tells of the Word became and verse 14 of that Word came and “tabernacled” amongst us. God, Christ, in all His glory, majesty, and power, came and became a baby! The God of the universe, was a wailing and screaming baby… and that’s the miracle of Christmas.