The Day After Christmas

It's the day after Christmas.

The presents have been unwrapped... the fridge is overflowing with leftovers...

And as you sit there in your house this morning, you may have already begun thinking about your plan to put away all of the decorations.

Or  (if you are like me) you might actually be thinking about how long you can leave all of the lights outside up without raising the eyebrows of your neighbors.

You may also be tired of Christmas music, too---especially that awful song by Mariah Carey (shudder).

This is what we do, isn't it?  We move on quickly---ready to put the holidays behind us, and to marvel at how fast the retail stores can shift from Christmas to Valentine's Day with their decor and candy.

Stop for a moment.  

Think about what we just celebrated.

We celebrated the most incredible act of love imaginable.  

God became one of us.  The eternal, universal, Creative Word of God became one of us.  The Christ, the Rescuer, the Redeemer became one of us.

The birth of Jesus marks the moment when God demonstrated to us all just how far God is willing to go in order to show us how much God loves.

We can't move on from this.  We can't just start packing up our lights, and putting them away as quickly as we can.  We need to sit with this incredible news for a bit. 

And then we need to do something about it.  

It's time for those of us who claim that we follow Jesus to begin doing just that.  The world needs a new word of hope, and we have that word of hope embedded in our hearts.

So don't be so quick to move on from Christmas.  

Sit with it for a while---leave your lights up for a little longer.  And share your words of hope, your light of joy, the gift of grace that you've been given, and given, and given again.  

And may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always. Amen.