It’s official. Here in North
America we are officially in the Holiday Season. Halloween is over and, if
you’re like me, you have enough candy to last you to Easter of 2016 (except for
the Reese’s Cups, I ate all those from my kids baskets already). Our sights are
set on a Thanksgiving eat-a-thon with all the fixings. We will eat and eat and
eat and then sleep a little until we can eat some more. And then we will shop
and shop and shop and then eat a little until we can shop some more, because we
Christmas is the next Big Thing.
I don’t
mean to sound sarcastic about the holidays. Truth be told I will eat as much as
anybody else, take a tryptophan induced nap in my recliner, and then shop for
Christmas with money we don’t have to spend on new toys and gadgets. So, I am
right here with you.
This has
been a pretty good year for me, so the glee and glad tidings of Thanksgiving
and Christmas will magnify that for me. The holidays tend to do that. They tend
to magnify what is going on in our lives. At this time of the year the happy
get happier and the sad get sadder. There are several reasons for this I think.
One is that when you don’t have much and see the massive spending of others it
can make you feel a little less secure about yourself. Another reason, and one
that seems to be more frequent, is the holidays bring back memories. And if you
have lost a loved one, the memories are in the past, but the present is missing
something…someone.
So the
season seems to magnify what we don’t have.
I don’t
think this is how it should be, though. I believe this time of year, and all
year long honestly, should be a magnification of what we do have.
At the
church where I serve as pastor we are taking the month of November focused on
one verse in the New Testament. It is found in the first book of the New
Testament, the Gospel of Matthew. In this scene the magi (aka wise men) are
coming to see the baby Jesus. They have their gifts of gold, incense, and
myrrh. They go to the king of the area at the time, King Herod, and they say
“Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the
east and we have come to worship him” (Matthew 2:2).
We have
come to worship him. Magnify on that for a minute! Better yet, let that magnify
on you for a minute!
Come to
worship.
I can’t
imagine what all you have been through this year. I can’t imagine the pain you
feel from the job loss, the break-up, the divorce, the diagnosis, the death,
the addiction you can’t kick.
But I do
know one thing. I know that this season is going to magnify something in you.
And I know that oftentimes it seems to be the worst, the most painful, the
scariest, the lonliest, the most depressing things that loom larger under the
magnifier.
And I
know that is not how it is supposed to be. I know that if Jesus can be
magnified, the other areas of loss and pain are not. They don’t disappear this
time of year, but they are put in perspective. When Jesus gets bigger in your
life, I know that everything else has to get smaller.
So, come
to worship. Yes, you will cook before Thanksgiving, you will eat on
Thanksgiving, you will shop before Christmas, you will open a present for
Christmas. And sometime (or several times) throughout you will cry. You will
miss someone that is not here with you. But don’t forget that the One who loves
you more than any other person possibly could love you, is right beside you.
And when you turn your attention to Him, when you wake up everyday with an
attitude that, “Today I have come to worship”, then you will be magnifying
Jesus in the season.
So, come
to worship.
