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Greeting cards have all been sent
The Christmas rush is through
But I still have one wish to make
A special one for you     Lyrics from ‘Merry Christmas Darling’ – The Carpenters

During my caffeinated quiet time today I reflected on the odd way we celebrate Christmas. We rush pell mell to Christmas Day with intensity that would make a football coach proud. The build up to Christmas goes on for weeks and then, almost before you can file a Nativity lawsuit, it is over.

I felt a little melancholy. Somehow I managed to let another Christmas sneak up on me and pass me by while I was busy getting “ready” for the day. I have a calendar. I know from the Beach Boys helpful lyrics that Christmas comes this time each year. How does this happen?

Maybe the idea of the Twelve Days of Christmas is a good one if we can pare down the odd and sometimes messy gift list. That would give me some time to settle in a bit before the holiday goes whizzing by. The 12 days of Christmas were traditionally the 12 days that separate December 25 from Epiphany, which is celebrated January 6.  Traditionally there has been the custom of giving gifts throughout the 12 days, rather than the frenetic frenzy on the morning of December 25. That tradition has never really caught on in instant gratification America. The most difficult fruit of the spirit to successfully cultivate in this culture is patience.

Perhaps thoughtful Christians could co-opt the 12 Days of Christmas until Epiphany and make it a time of reflection on the incarnation of a Savior.

Epiphany is defined at dictionary.com as  “a sudden manifestation of the meaning of something.” How appropriate that by reflecting for the next few days on the arrival of Jesus you could have an epiphany just in time for Epiphany! The original Christmas epiphany happened in the fields outside of Bethlehem.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in clothes and lying in a manger.”

 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 

Rewind to the beginning of this blog with the Carpenters. I do have one wish…make that prayer…for you during this Christmas season. I pray that you have found the One that the shepherds hurried to see.

Merry Seventh Day of Christmas! (Seven swans a-swimming…if you are keeping score)

Amy Grant recorded “My Grown-up Christmas List” for her “Home For Christmas” album. The lyrics imagine an adult going back to Santa with a different perspective on what matters most in life. Instead of material things the writer now asks for good things for others. I love the sentiment of the song.

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
Everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end
This is my grown-up Christmas list

I thought about my “grown-up” Christmas list this week. I would love for all of the things in the lyric above to come true. But I have lived enough to know they will not. Everyday lives are torn apart. Wars start too frequently. Time does not heal every heart. Some who are reading this are lonely. Right seems to lose way too often and love ends for many.

So what could I wish for that would be available for all? My grown-up Christmas list would have one simple wish. That every person would truly understand the outrageous grace gift that God offers to each one of us. All we have to do is open that gift in faith. Christmas is when the gift came to earth wrapped in swaddling clothes.

I wish that everyone who hears the Gospel message would comprehend the one way love that God demonstrated. Instead of turning His back on sinners who deserved just that God chose to reach out to His creation with a radical plan for forgiveness. A plan that is unlike any other religion in history. Man made religion always demands something to earn salvation. God’s plan for redemption requires the lost to bring nothing to the table other than their sin and the need for salvation. Nothing.

God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. (Ephesians 2:8-9, NLT)

Not a single requirement other than believing. A gift of grace. Grace that is so vast and inexhaustible that no sin or sinner can exceed the scope of this amazing grace to cover their sin and redeem them. I coined an acronym for grace that only partially captures the enormity of God’s love.

God’s Radical And Complete Embrace.

God initiates salvation. The plan is so radical that it feels otherworldly. Salvation is complete and God’s embrace shows His desire to know us as His beloved children.

I wish that everyone who believes the Gospel would truly believe that they are a brand new creation. Recreated as a saint with complete freedom in Christ. Adopted as a child of God. Forgiven forever. And that all of those things are completely true because of Jesus.

I wish I could give those things to everyone on my list. Life will give us sadness, loss and loneliness but trust in Jesus gives us hope in the darkest storm. It started with the baby we celebrate today.

Merry Christmas.

One of my favorite Christmas stories happened during the horrors of war. The Christmas carol “Silent Night” was responsible for a wartime Christmas miracle.

The year was 1914 and soldiers were having to spend Christmas Eve night on the battlefields of France during World War I, the Great War, as it was called. After only four months of fighting, more than a million men had already perished in the bloody conflict. The bodies of dead soldiers were scattered between the trenches. Enemy troops were dug-in so close that they could easily exchange shouts.

On December 24, 1914, in the middle of a freezing battlefield in France, a miracle happened. The British troops watched in amazement as candle-lit Christmas trees began to appear above the German trenches. The glowing trees soon appeared along the length of the German front.  Henry Williamson, a young soldier with the London Regiment wrote in his diary: “From the German parapet, a rich baritone voice had begun to sing a song I remembered my German nurse singing to me…. The grave and tender voice rose out of the frozen mist. It was all so strange… like being in another world — to which one had come through a nightmare.”

Silent Night
Holy Night
All is calm
All is quiet

“They finished their carol and we thought that we ought to retaliate,” another British soldier wrote, “So we sang “The First Noël” and when we finished, they all began clapping. And they struck up “O Tannebaum” and on it went… until we started up “O Come All Ye Faithful” [and] the Germans immediately joined in …. this was really a most extraordinary thing — two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.”It is recorded that enemy soldiers greeted each other in the no man’s land that was a killing zone the day before. The soldiers wished each other Merry Christmas and agreed not to fire their rifles on Christmas Day. The spontaneous cease-fire eventually embraced much of a 500-mile stretch of the Western Front. According to the reports of soldiers at the scene, hundreds of thousands of soldiers celebrated the birth of the Prince of Peace among the bodies of their dead.

Other soldiers told of how the “enemies” exchanged badges and buttons from their uniforms. Others shared photos of wives and children and some even exchanged addresses and promised to write after the war ended. The German troops rolled out barrels of dark beer and the British reciprocated with offerings of plum pudding. Some soldiers produced soccer balls and a spirited match broke out as fellow soldiers shouted encouragement.

At one location along the front the men who just the day before sought to kill one another now gathered together to bury their dead. Together, with heads uncovered, they held a service to memorialize their fallen comrades. A solitary voice began to sing Silent Night, in French. He was joined by another voice — this one singing in German — the words of a Christmas song known and beloved by all.

But the miracle of peace was temporary. Slowly, under threats from their officers, the troops returned to the trenches and the recoils of rifles split the temporary “Silent Night.” Some soldiers admitted aiming so their bullets flew well above the heads of the “enemy.”

Perhaps those of us who celebrate the birth of the Savior could learn a lesson from this Christmas miracle as we engage those who do not share our beliefs and faith in Jesus. Those on the other side of the cultural trenches are not unlike us. The message delivered in Bethlehem was peace and goodwill toward all men. When we fight the cultural war we need remember that the whole purpose of Jesus invading our space and time was to love and ultimately die for those on both sides of the battle.

But perhaps the biggest lesson is how the power of a unified focus on Jesus can unite even bitter enemies. My heart aches as I see Christians splitting ranks over things that don’t amount to a hill of beans on an eternal scale. I picture Jesus weeping over the churches of America like He wept over Jerusalem. I picture Him weeping over how Christians in this country divide over non-essentials and fail to communicate the joy and life-changing power of the good news of the Gospel. Jesus gave this final command to His followers…

“Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.”  (Matthew 28,  The Message)

Pretty straight forward. Nothing in there about personal gain, power, or prestige. The power of what happened on that Silent Night united enemies centuries later on a French battlefield.  My Christmas prayer is that the miracle of God becoming man will unite you and me, His followers, to seek what actually matters. To really make it about Christ and not about us. To model His grace to a culture that desperately needs that grace. While we still have the chance.

(Note: There is a movie (Joyeux Noel), a DVD (The Christmas Truce), a children’s book (Christmas in the Trenches) and a historical book (Silent Night: The Story of the WW I Christmas Truce) about this event if you want to know more about the story.