I hope you are having a blessed Christmas Day despite the restrictions and divisions this year has brought.

I was looking back on previous Christmases and came across the following post from 2014:

Does your Christmas honor Christ, or is the focus nostalgia for your own childhood?

I heard of a church where the worship service on the third Sunday of Advent was a performance of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” based upon that classic television  special. The sanctuary was full of the family and friends of the cast members and everyone had a rollicking good time.

I suppose the Linus character’s scripture reading of the Christmas narrative was what made the pastor and worship committee of this congregation feel this was appropriate for the worship service, rather than presenting it as an entertainment at a separate time. I don’t know what prompted this particular church to substitute an exercise in nostalgia for a time spent worshiping the Savior, but it fits with the current trends in our culture.

We’ve all bemoaned the commercialization of the Christmas observance, but beyond that there is a growing trivialization of this Holy Day, even among believers. Too often the focus of the Yuletide celebration is romantic sentimentality or a nostalgic yearning for the “magical” feelings from childhood. Both of these responses are a form of self-worship.

The Christian church has two supreme holy days set apart for us to recognize God’s sacrificial gift when He stepped into the confines of our human experience and  took on the sins of us all by dying an excruciating death for our salvation; two days dedicated to giving thanks for His great mercy and His amazing grace.

Always on the lookout to find the blessings in even the most uncomfortable situations, I wonder if being kept from our usual celebrations of the season this year might possibly cause us to focus on the One whom we are celebrating.

My prayer is for each of us to find a deeper joy in this Christmas and that we may carry it forward into a spirit-filled New Year.