By Pastor Jeff Jacobs
Unity Lutheran Parish –
St. Paul, Saetersdal and
St. Matthew’s, Granger
Now we are truly in the Christmas Season …
To many, “Christmas” began weeks ago – perhaps the day after Thanksgiving or when the first decorations and sales appeared in stores (back in August?). And for some the holiday now ends, the music turns off and the tree gets thrown the day after Christmas. Bah, humbug.
But in the Church, Christmas only starts Christmas Eve, and we celebrate it the next 12 days (those Twelve Days of Christmas we sing about are the days AFTER the Nativity through Epiphany Eve, January 5, not a shopping countdown the week before).
The Advent before is a season of yearning and preparing, of anticipating the world Christ comes to bring and opening our hearts again to the new life of peace, faith, justice and love his birth heralds among us. Christmas celebrates his birth, but then points us toward living that life as Christ grows in us.
Consider the birth of any child: During pregnancy, parents make excited preparations, set up a nursery, have showers and do other planning to receive that little one. And finally comes the birth, with attendant stresses and pains, but ultimately joy at welcoming their baby son or daughter.
So do mom or dad then say, “Whew! Glad that’s over – now life can get back to normal around here” – ?!? Of course not. Every parent finds life is quite different now, being entrusted by God with new responsibilities to nurture, protect and teach that little one as it grows and becomes the person God created the child to be.
Likewise for us, Christmas doesn’t “end” with the celebration of Christ’s birth; it has only just begun, and we who bear Christ within us are also to grow and become more and more the children of God we are created to be in peace, faith, justice and love.
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