It is fairly common when one does a Christmas devotion or reflection to ask a Christmas-related question, such as:
- What is your favorite memory of Christmas?
- What is your favorite Christmas food?
- What are you going to do as a family on Christmas?
- Or even--What is the most stressful part of Christmas for you?
But I have another question for you to think about this season:
How will Christmas change you this year?
I believe it will. Whether you call yourself a person of faith, or not—it doesn’t matter. Because Christmas is transcendent. It’s really not about us.
- It’s not about our relentless consumerism.
- It’s not about what we eat or where we go.
- It’s not about our ability to survive relatives, travel, and all the other stress.
Christmas is really not about us. And because of that, I believe there is something about Christmas that has the power to change. I would call that the power of God’s love. You are welcome to frame it differently if you so choose.
But I challenge you to be open to—to be sensitive to how this season changes you.
It will undoubtedly make us tired, grumpy, frustrated, and stressed in its own way at certain points. But I believe that somewhere down deep there will be a different change.
I believe that Christmas can make a change in each of our lives.
- I pray for each of you that it is a new awareness that you are not alone in this world.
- I pray that you feel loved, truly loved.
- I pray that you sense a call from someone or something greater than yourself to show love in your life in a new and special way.
- I pray that you find new meaning in some special moment—some new meaning that goes beyond lights and trees and presents and food—but something that changes you in some special way, some surprising way—large or small—if only for a moment.
That’s the challenge: to be open, be surprised, and be sensitive this year for that moment or moments when Christmas changes you.
Merry Christmas.
Amen.
Mark Grorud
Director, Immanuel Vision Foundation