The Reason for the Season

I'm looking forward to leading a Christmas Eve candlelight service again this year, after a two year hiatus. I think this will be my eighth time. After this service was announced last week, I had so many people tell me how excited they are that "our" church will be having such a service. That has been my experience in other churches too. A lot of our members have had to go elsewhere to participate in what for them is a very meaningful time.

Churches of Christ have historically not been very supportive of religious holidays. The idea behind that was if the Bible doesn't tell us to celebrate them, then we shouldn't. But for many of us, our understanding of the Bible has evolved so that we see the value in such free-will offerings of praise. I just don't read anything in the Bible that would lead me to believe God will be upset with us because we, on our own, do some special things to celebrate the arrival of his son into our world.

It is interesting that Christians who are opposed to Christmas as a religious celebration find themselves unwilling partners with those humanist organizations who want to take Jesus out of Christmas, and out of our world altogether. It doesn't seem quite right to me that someone who belongs to Jesus would put up a Christmas tree, give gifts, maybe even say Merry Christmas to others, but then say, "Let's just leave Jesus out of all this." This might fall into the "what were we thinking" category.

So, over the next couple of weeks, I look forward to taking in all of the reminders of the arrival of Jesus into our world. I'll be drinking coffee from my "Jesus is the reason for the season" mugs that we received from some of our campus ministry students several years ago. I will be reading about the birth of Jesus and preaching from those texts. On Christmas Eve, I'll light a candle and join with others in singing, "Silent Night." And I hope those activities will help me grow in my adoration of the one of whom angels sang, "Glory to God in the highest!"