The First Noel

Christmas is past.  The presents under the tree have disappeared.  While bits of wrapping paper are still stuck to the carpet...while the light still twinkling...while there is still leftover ham in the refrigerator...we have moved on making plans for the New Year.  These dwindling December days. 

It wasn't always this way.

Some of you might remember when you didn't even put up the Christmas tree until Christmas Eve.

Some of you might remember that the twelve days of Christmas isn't just some strange song about the. worst. Christmas. presents. ever.  Seriously, eight maids...ten lords a leaping...and pipers and drummers...who is going to feed all these people? 

Some you might recall, remember that Christmas is not a day...it is a season.  Christmas is...as the song states...twelve days.  Between December 25 and January 6 (Epiphany - when we say the wise ones came to worship Jesus), these twelve days to ponder prayerfully the mystery that words can never confine or define.  Twelve days...we are up to day two...with its turtle doves....so much more peaceful than those pipers who won't quit playing.

There is time right now.  Just as we prayerfully prepared for the birth of Christ...perhaps in these dwindling days of December we might continue to let Christ shine/share with us truths we need as 2018 closes up shop and the 2019 calendar goes up on the wall. Prayerfully keep entering. 

What did you experience on Christmas Eve?  I am not only talking about in church, but on that night you want to hold onto for nights to come.  Which is why I brought back the moon picture from the last post.  The truths of that photo were not just for one blog post...but ones I want to keep simmering on my soul.

The first noel is a continual invitation for us to return in this Christmas-tide season to the manger - no longer empty but filled with a tiny, vulnerable, God-with-us infant because no one night can explore that truth fully. 

May these twelve days continue to bless you.  May these twelve days continue to hold you.  May these twelve days sing to your soul as we continue our Christmas celebration.

May you sense more than a trace of God's grace.