Indian Run CC
  • HOME
  • About Us
    • WHAT WE BELIEVE
    • OUR STAFF
    • SERVICE TIMES
    • HISTORY
    • Contact
  • YOUTH
    • IRCC KiDs
    • DRIVEN YOUTH
    • Christmas Play 2019
    • Christmas Play 2020
    • Trunk or Treat 2020
    • East Canton Memorial Day Parade 2021
    • East Canton Rotary Festival 2021
    • Bolivar Strawberry Festival 2021
  • Ministries
    • WOMEN'S MINISTRY
    • Community
  • Ministry Videos
    • Terry's Videos >
      • Finding Joy
      • Good Advice for Today
      • Depressing Times
      • What Sort Of People Ought We To Be
      • Advancing in Times Of Trouble
      • Lonely
  • Downloads
  • Blogs
    • Terry's Blog
  • SUPPORTED MISSIONS
  • Summer Events

​

Christmas Timing

12/23/2020

1 Comment

 
​When I was a young child, I would have climbing the walls the past couple weeks WAITING for Christmas to arrive! I do remember once thinking in July that we had gotten over the hump in the long WAIT for Christmas. Then, shortly after Thanksgiving the actual Christmas decorations would start going up. In our house a tree never showed up until about December 15 – 10 days being about the max for keeping a fresh cut tree looking good. Although mom had a box of actual store-bought Christmas tree decorations, we kids loved to string pop corn and paste bright colored construction paper chains together until almost no actual foliage could be seen. Stockings would be hung, somewhere in that last week mom always arranged a telephone call from ‘Santa’. A box of oranges (the only time of year we had oranges) and a dish of vanilla crème drops showed up (always managing to make their mysterious appearance when I wasn’t looking!). All these little markers and progressions finally led to laying awake in bed on Christmas Eve, having set out the milk and cookies and determined to stay awake until….zzzzz.
Then the big day arrived.
Well, things have changed. These days I feel like the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day passes far too quickly. There are so many things to do and so little time to do them that the season is over before I have much got to enjoy it. But there are high lights, markers and progressions: Singing the old Christmas Carols and the new songs the contemporary praise band learns, the Christmas play (the youth of the congregation really knocked our socks off this year – helpful hint: put your socks back on before leaving the church building – Ohio December evenings are cold. The personal Bible studies that inform and build the sermons for the Christmas season. All these things have nothing to do with the glitter and color that so thrilled my childhood days. And the mysteries of Santa have been squeezed aside by a much deeper and more profound mystery – the incarnation of Jesus Christ. The few weeks at our disposal are inadequate for considering such things and suddenly, it is January.
The secret lies in the realization that the blessings of the incarnation are not limited to a season. The big event came – as the Bible says – in the fullness of time: that is, following millennia of preparations that involved whole peoples, cultures, languages, nations, societies, and more. The markers and progressions that led to the Christmas event took in the whole phenomenon of Hebrew prophecy, the entire panoply of Eastern monarchs, the rise and fall of powers, earthly and heavenly, the ministries of men and angels and LOTS MORE. Nor is it only the relative past of all those years BC. The blessings of the incarnation have spanned all the years, languages, peoples and powers since as we mark off the steps along the way to the next phase of God’s REALLY BIG PLAN – in the fullness of time. Suddenly, hanging a stocking seems somewhat trivial and the taste of those crème drops fades.
I am not anti-presents, trees, decorations, etc. – I do believe glitter is immoral and ought to be illegal, but only because it is impossible to contain. But the Christmas season is already short enough and we do have to be careful of distractions from the actual point. I hope you have a blessed Christmas in every possible sense. 
1 Comment
Pearl
12/26/2020 05:11:34 pm

Fun memories, yet such depth of insight. Thanks for the message!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Pastor and Author Terry Bailey, Senior Pastor of Indian Run Christian Church

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    August 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

I NEED PRAYER

Contact Us

Picture

Picture
  • HOME
  • About Us
    • WHAT WE BELIEVE
    • OUR STAFF
    • SERVICE TIMES
    • HISTORY
    • Contact
  • YOUTH
    • IRCC KiDs
    • DRIVEN YOUTH
    • Christmas Play 2019
    • Christmas Play 2020
    • Trunk or Treat 2020
    • East Canton Memorial Day Parade 2021
    • East Canton Rotary Festival 2021
    • Bolivar Strawberry Festival 2021
  • Ministries
    • WOMEN'S MINISTRY
    • Community
  • Ministry Videos
    • Terry's Videos >
      • Finding Joy
      • Good Advice for Today
      • Depressing Times
      • What Sort Of People Ought We To Be
      • Advancing in Times Of Trouble
      • Lonely
  • Downloads
  • Blogs
    • Terry's Blog
  • SUPPORTED MISSIONS
  • Summer Events