Anyway, this family gathered for their annual Christmas Eve tradition: reading Clement Moore's 'Twas The Night Before Christmas'. "Oh, wonderful!" I said. "So this is what Christmas is all about."
And so it is—in TV land and for millions: Santa Claus, parties, family gatherings, gifts, and no more. Mind you, I'm not one to despise jolly Saint Nick and all the wonderful family gatherings. What saddens me is the shallowness, the emptiness of this understanding if that's all there is.
When I served as a pastor and Christian counselor I always knew that the month after Christmas was when congregation members and others would come to me with stories of loneliness, pain, despair and depression. Christmas had been for them that worst of all times in the year. And so it remains, despite our many attempts to cover it over with songs about Rudolph, sleigh bells and white Christmas and unwanted gifts.
I awoke this morning with the words of the ancient hymn ringing in my heart. I recited them to myself and I invite you to do the same, because they remind us all that true joy, true happiness and true excitement are to be found only in the celebration of the Savior's birth.
O come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem.
Come and behold Him,
Born the King of Angels;
O come let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.
And then remember that he who came once is coming again, as the apostle wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:21-28. William Cullen Bryant, that great 19th century poet put it this way:
O North, with all thy vales of green!
O South, with all thy palms!
From peopled towns and fields between
Uplift the voice of psalms;
Raise, ancient East, the anthem high,
And let the youthful West reply.
Lo! in the clouds of heaven appears
God's well-beloved Son;
He brings a train of brighter years:
His kingdom is begun.
He comes, a guilty world to bless
With mercy, truth, and righteousness.
Oh, Father! haste the promised hour
When, at His feet, shall lie
All rule, authority, and power,
Beneath the ample sky;
When He shall reign from pole to pole,
The lord of every human soul;
When all shall heed the words He said
Amid their daily cares,
And, by the loving life He led,
Shall seek to pattern theirs;
And He, who conquered Death, shall win
The nobler conquest over Sin.
