I Wish You a Merry Christmas

More importantly, I wish you a HOPE -FILLED Christmas.

You'll have to forgive me for blogging about Christmas in November, but I've been preparing for it since August, and I'll be too busy to blog about it at the time.

It's so easy for anyone who helps run or lead services around Christmas to busy themselves out of it. Take me for example, I'm playing at our Christmas production "Celebrate Christmas" (at St. Andrews Hall, 10th December, get your tickets from the Oak Grove office now!) which includes several practices, I'm playing most weeks at church for normal services, plus the usual extra services for Christingle and Midnight on Christmas eve. Oh, and I'm also dep'ing at the December Fridays, which is a pleasure and a privilege.

That's not to mention Father/Husband/work responsibilities.

So, if I'm not careful I could easily miss an real reason for celebrating Christmas, while at the same celebrating Christmas like mad.

Which is why we took the time, as a band, to meet and meditate on Christmas and see what God was saying.

You wanna know what he said, right?

Hope; It's missing.

Why are we all so angry in this country? Because we're hope-less. Thank God we're not really hopeless.

It seems so obvious to someone like me, who's been a Christian for so long, but if you don't know the 'good news' (which we're always singing about) then you really don't have hope.

It's struck me that I rely on the hope I have in Christ everyday, in so many ways. It's a hope that's invasive and persuasive. It's reliable and reassuring. It holds me and it helps me. Hope is a consequence of Love.

So, this year, let's not wish people just a 'Happy Christmas', let's wish them a Hope-filled Christmas (maybe even going so far as to share the 'good news' with them...?)

PS If you don't think you're angry, great. If you drive, how easily do you blame the other driver? Did you shout/swear/gesture when you last got cut up? What if someone sounds their horn at you? Seeing red yet?