Christmas Repost

Last Christmas, I posted a blog post for Christmas. Today, I am in the same situation as last year. Thousands of miles away from my family, and this year my roommates are gone. Once again from 6 pm Christmas Eve (oops, I'm running a bit late) to sometime Christmas night, I have somewhere to be, people to hang out with, games to play, and amazing food to eat. However, this year my thoughts about Christmas being away from family are much different. I am much more content. Last year when I made this blog post, I felt like everyone got caught up on the fact that I was admitting that I felt depressed and lonely, but they missed the main point of the post. Therefore, I am posting it again.

It becomes so easy for us at Christmas time to do what we always do: spend time with family, eat yummy food, exchange gifts, read the Christmas story, and sing carols. These are not bad things, but I want Christmas to be more than just a tradition that we always do. I want to let the story of Christmas to penetrate my heart. One carol, "Joy to the World," has done just that. Check out the third verse: 

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

The words to this verse struck me because it explains that Christmas is about bringing all of creation in to right relationship with the Father.  We minimize it by making it merely about the birth of Jesus. It seems to me that we, as modern day believers, do a good job of saying that Christmas is all about the birth of our Savior, but do we really act like it is. Do our hearts truly acknowledge it? How I can better show that Christmas is about the redemption of mankind? In fact the entire bible is about the redemption of mankind. The following video does a good job of telling a more complete Christmas story. However, I still believe that it is lacking because it ends at the manger. The manger is not the end. Rather it is still part of the rising action. The cross and the resurrection are the climax, the turning point in the story. We are still waiting for the final resolution. For this reason, we still sing "Come thou long expected Jesus." 

 While I love the skit guys video, this one tells the end of the story.