We Need a Little Christmas

I love listening to Christmas music and it's a good thing I do. The radio stations start playing Christmas music the month before Christmas and do not stop. How many times have you heard, "O We Need a little Christmas, right this very minute?" So how do we get what we need?

Each year we pull out manger scenes, decorate trees, buy presents, surf the channels looking for those Christmas specials, and long to "feel" something that we felt before. We need the sweetness of Tiny Tim blessing us with those innocent words, "God bless us everyone." We want the Grinch's small heart to grow three sizes. We long for the scene when Jimmy Stewart discovers that bump on his head and finds out each year how an angel gets his wings. And we count the number of years we've heard the news of a dreaded decree that "went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled."

We still "need a little Christmas." This week I found out why "again." I spent the night at our church's Room in the Inn ministry with 12 guys who were "on the street." They all had stories and most of them were looking for jobs that they could not find. One fella asked me if he could take some extra bananas that were on the table for breakfast the next morning. "These could come in handy," he said. He told me the night before that he used to "be in real estate."

Yesterday I visited the jail to see someone who was locked up for doing some really bad stuff. A few days before I listened to the hopes of a young mother struggling with cancer and watched a 7 year old child struggling with that same disease sing with the children's choir. And...I made the mistake of watching the evening news.

We need a little Christmas. Why do we love and need that decree for Caesar Augustus each year? It is because the "good news" came in the midst of the bad news. There was a big time "recession" going on in the land when the government announced yet another taxation. A young teenager named Mary barely escaped being stoned to death for adultery only because of the kindness and hope of a man named Joseph who was willing to step out in faith and give Mary's baby a last name.

And yes, "there was no room in the inn" for a homeless couple who probably wondered what in the world God was doing if they could not even find a descent place for the child to be born. We need a little Christmas because the original story tells us of a God who comes in the midst of all the darkness and the questions. This is not a dramatic presentation with stage lights and a church choir in the background. This is the light shinning in the darkness reminding us of the darkness and the hope that the darkness cannot overcome the light.

O yes, we need a little Christmas right this very minute. As a Christmas card I received years ago stated, "Unto you this day is born a savior....but it was night." May the star of Bethlehem shine into your darkness this year. May you have what is there to receive: a little Christmas.
jody