Pastor's Weekly Word

 

What does Christmas mean to you? I sometimes find myself asking that question. So much of the season is filled with activities that all try to pull you in, promising to point to the meaning of Christmas. Come be wowed at this megachurch over the top Christmas extravaganza. Soothe your eyes with a tour of lights in the great neighborhoods of the city. Laugh with Scrooge and see the Christmas trains at NorthPark Mall. Take a walk through the ice sculptures at the Gaylord. Don't miss this. Be sure to attend that. It's all great fun. You can fill your whole Advent calendar with attraction after attraction to your heart's content. And yet, what does Christmas mean to you? The meaning can easily get lost in the shuffle.

 

One of the things the psalms do so well is re-frame our focus. They turn our attention away from the ways in which we parade meaning in front of each other toward the ways in which we can open ourselves up to what God means to us. "Our heart is glad," says the psalmist, not because of some extravagant thing we have put together to wow an audience, but because we trust in God's holy name. At the end of the day, Christmas is a spirit that fills us with the promise that God will dwell with us. In the midst of all the activity and the attempts to garner our attention, God will come and dwell with us in the Christ child. That is the meaning of Christmas, and our hearts will be glad.