Essentials and Optionals

What essential for your Christmas? Is it the "Merry Christmas" greetings you give and receive to each other? The lights on the house? A tree, either cut or manufactured? How about the Creche? Does yours have the baby Jesus in it or is it hidden until Christmas? How about the music? Do you have some special cd's you put on or concerts you regularly attend? Do you wait for that one song that strikes you deep down and makes you well up with tears?

Being in a new sanctuary this Christmas means that we are importing old traditions and making our own new ones, like "Christmas in the Field" that was held in the sanctuary last Sunday night. What a delightful night to see the wandering sheep and the regal wise men being born to the front on litters carried by modern-day "servants." I especially enjoyed seeing Baby Jesus' "brother" peeking out from behind the Creche, neither wanting to dress up in costume or be left out of the whole thing.

A unique ornament out on the market is of a bald and cap-less Santa kneeling in prayer over the Baby Jesus. Does that help your Christmas theoloy or confuse it? This year, as Christmas falls on Sunday and a great debate goes on around the country whether to cancel Sunday services and stay home with families in quiet worship or to go ahead and gather as a church, take a look at what is really essential for your faith at Christmas? What kind of place does Christmas play in your own discipleship? How do special days and seasons impact your faith? Hmmm.