When someone mentions the Twelve Days of Christmas, most of us think of the song that has nothing to do with Jesus. But here on the Eleventh Day of Christmas, I offer a paragraph from Brett Younger, who tries to teach student preachers (at Mercer University's divinity school) how to preach:
"We cannot make Christmas meaningful, because we are not in charge. The best we can do is take the spotlight off the distractions and look for the star. We stay open to the possibility that God is present. Waiting for a surprise sounds contradictory, but that is how Christmas happens. We give up the lesser expectations of the kind of Christmas we can create and open our hearts to God’s joy.
. . . We join the chorus singing the carols not because everyone expects us to, but because something stirs within us. We give and receive gifts not because it is required, but for the joy of it. We look carefully at the manger and feel what the shepherds felt as earth rose to heaven and heaven stooped to earth."
This is from Dr. Younger's blog at http://peculiarpreacher.com/?p=329
No comments:
Post a Comment