I’m sitting at my favorite coffee shop enjoying a cup of coffee and appreciating the invention of central heat. A minute ago, Bing Crosby was singing Winter Wonderland, which I had to laugh at. Here in Louisville, I’m looking out at snow and about 1/2 an inch of solid ice on everything. I shoveled it off my driveway and off the family van today just so we could get out. I gotta tell ya, I don’t quite know what to feel about that Winter Wonderland thing – I’m thinking I could do without it to be completely honest.
In spite of the cold, I’m excited about today and this coming weekend. See the Florida-boy may hate the ice and really may hate being cold, but at the same time, I’m also very much looking forward to what’s going to happen this weekend. Sunday night, the Antioch community will celebrate our 3rd annual Blue Christmas night of worship. It has truly become a highlight of my entire year.
Now this Blue Christmas time of worship is no Elvis rip off. It’s something much more than that – much more important than some sentimental song about missing love. Did you know that this time of year, with all it’s glitz, glamour and family friendliness is also the season when treatment and diagnosing of clinical depression is at it’s highest? Christmas, the season when we over eat, over spend and are supposed to make the Merriest, for many is a time of great loneliness and loss.
Imagine that, Christmas as a time of tears and sadness? For many, that’s not as hard to imagine as others might think. In fact, it may be easier to imagine than the warm Norman Rockwell paintings that we’ve grown up imagining and longing for. Not only is it filled with loss for many, but Christmas is also a time when folks are so overbooked and overextended that the season is more of a curse than a blessing.
This is what Blue Christmas is for! It’s a time to acknowledge loss and hurt and pain and exhaustion and our propensity to breathe hurried and shallow. Blue Christmas is the reminder that with the birth of a Baby the entire creation was invited to breathe again – to stop, to find redemption, to find Hope! I’ve mentioned before that Christmas was not celebrated by the early church and that we’ve taken it over, and I’m in total favor of that, but what happens at Christmas should never be taken lightly. This Baby, this little child, that we honor is the one that invites the entire creation to find HOPE again. This baby’s birth is no sentimental “by gosh by golly” moment! This Birth matters and it matters because that baby still offers the chance to begin again anew each year, each month, each week, each day!
If you’re in Louisville, I hope you’ll join us Sunday night. If you can’t be there, I pray that in this next week, you’ll be able to find an opportunity to BREATHE. I pray that you’ll see the baby – hear the cries and see the little hands that formed and sustains the universe. I pray that as you look to this child, you’ll find that HOPE that is so needed and in finding you’ll be able to offer it to others. May you hear the bells of Christmas as they resound out in loud cries of Redemption and may it begin again anew in each of us even now!
Merry Christmas and may you be filled with the HOPE that the Baby offered and is still offering today!
– Grace and Peace!
Location:Java Brewing, Louisville KY
