Is it About Us?

This past week as a part of my sermon I delivered a monologue on the biblical character, Simeon.  Preparation required hours of getting costume material and working out the final details for the presentation. In doing so, I found myself calling upon my wife often.  The last call came Saturday evening after she had retired for the night.  I walked into the bedroom woke her up and proceeded to ask, “Where did you place the gray hairspray for the wig?” Needless to say she was not at all thrilled that I had interrupted her sleep.” However, she graciously crawled out of bed and helped me find the misplaced item. It was underneath the driver’s seat in the car. How it got there only God knows. Heading to church Sunday morning we discussed the subject of my disturbing her sleep. She has never been one to mince with words, so I braced myself for the lecture. “When you do something special like this at church it becomes all about you.  It doesn’t matter that you inconvenience others in the process.” I laughed while all the time knowing she had nailed me. There was no use arguing with the truth; the only thing that seemed appropriate was my apology.  As I thought about the situation it caused me to ask, “Is Christmas, the birthday of Christ about us?”  I read about one little boy celebrating his birthday. Among his presents was the gift of a dollar bill. He immediately began to make plans to invest in an ice cream sundae with all the trimmings. The party guests were a somewhat pious group, and someone suggested that he give part of the dollar to the poor. “I thought of that,” admitted the birthday boy, “but I think I’ll give it to the ice cream man instead and let him give it to the poor.” I read of another who wrote, “Dear Santa, I’m not going to ask for a lot.  Here’s my list: The Etch-A-Sketch animator, 2 packs of #2 pencils, Crayola fat markers and the big gift…my own color TV! Well, maybe you could drop the pencils; I don’t want to be really selfish.”  While many tend to focus inwardly upon themselves, it could be said that Christmas by definition is an oxymoron.  In one sense of the word this highly celebrated event is and should be all about Christ—His coming to earth in human flesh. On the other hand when we read the writings of Isaiah we learn Christmas is also about us.  “Unto you a child is born, a son is given… Behold a virgin shall conceive and shall bring forth a newborn son and shall call His name Immanuel—(meaning God with us).  In essence we are to worship the Messiah who has come to give us abundant life. Yet in doing so we cannot forget that had it not been for sinful needy humanity, He would never have come.  I guess that means Christmas is really about us!