Crazy Christmas Chaos

I pray this finds you all resting in the joy and peace of the Lord. That really is what Christmas should be about, isn't it? Instead we find ourselves exhausted and worn as we hustle from party to party and scurry from store to store. We do this in preparation to celebrate the birth of one who was born in a stable, spent his childhood on the lam, apprenticed as a carpenter, was homeless in his prime and was buried in a borrowed tomb. Seems crazy, doesn't it? Well, we also do it because he was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died a substitutionary death as an atonement for sins, was raised from the grave, sits at the right hand of God, and will return to judge the living and the dead and to take the church as His bride. Still seems crazy, right? Yet we do it, and fight for the right to call it Christmas, because we are in, but not of the world. We do it both because of our cultural Christianity and we are Christians in a pagan culture. It still seems strange that we run past a holiday called Thanksgiving to get to the business of Christmas consumerism as a means of celebrating the birth of an impoverished, crucified man, who reigns as the eternal King of a spiritual kingdom. Oh well, peace on earth, good will to men. I pray we will all find a place beyond the noise to be still and know that He is God.