How to Do Christmas (From The Guys Who Did it First)

I have discovered the goal of Christmas! 

It's in Luke 2:20!

"The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told."

The aim of Christmas is to go home happy!

During the Christmas season, everyone wants you to do something.

Come to our pageant! Hurry in for the best sales!  Don't miss this event!  Buy now! 

This usually leaves us tired, frazzled and broke!  Or worse...in deep debt!

How is that a good thing?

From the story of the nativity in the bible, we see a very different celebration of the birth of Jesus.

The shepherds got word of the blessed event from a spectacular angelic host and went to see.

They observed the baby, and then the scripture goes on to say<sup>;

17</sup> When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.

They started to tell everyone about what they had seen!  The Savior! 

The story wraps up with the shepherds heading back to their jobs, but now it was DIFFERENT!

They were glorifying and praising God for all they had seen!

THAT'S the goal of Christmas, to walk away happy and amazed at what God has done!

Do you limp out of the Christmas season, exhausted?

Try doing what the shepherds did...come, see, rejoice...and go home happy!

Life on the Edges.

We like life in neat little boxes.

We want a clear definition between right and wrong, good and evil, for and against.

That perfect world does not exist.

For example...

I have been watching a bit of football lately.  It's cool when the quarterback makes a pass and the receiver is wide open and it's a clear touchdown.  That's nice.  The officials have no problem calling that play.

But what happens a lot is that catches are made on the edges of the goal line and it's not always clear if it's a touchdown or not.  The officials have to go to the video review and have a discussion with a number of other people as to exactly what happened.

This was the case in September of 2012...

The Green Bay Packers lost to the Seattle Seahawks, 14–12, in controversial fashion.

On the final play of the game, Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson threw a Hail Mary pass into the end zone intended for wide receiver Golden Tate. Both Tate and Packers defender M. D. Jennings got their hands on the ball while both players were still in the air and attempting to gain possession.

The two officials near the play initially gave separate signals of touchdown and touchback, before ruling the players had simultaneous possession, resulting in a Seahawks game-winning touchdown. (Wikipedia summary)

The officials on the field disagree on what happened.

This is SO MUCH like life...

It would be so convenient to be able to make clear rulings on situations that fall into those "gray" areas.

Different perspectives, alternate views and contrasting life experience all come into play, and the final decision is anything but definitive.

In the news we hear of religious groups who say they have a lock on what's "right and wrong" and do not take kindly to anyone who opposes what they have to say.  There is no room for discussion, no laying out of the facts and circumstances and no compassion.

It's our way or the highway.

Not to say we should not hold some individual beliefs.  That's very important.  But if you feel at all threatened by hearing what someone else believes, then what you hold to may not very well grounded or you just may have a difficult time expressing it.

Like it or not, different opinions and controversial views are here to stay.

Here are some bible passages that go along with this topic:  Acts 15 - The Council at Jerusalem, Luke 2:41-52 - Jesus asking questions in the temple.

Myths and Mrs.

What a cool weekend.

My wife got me tickets for the Mythbusters, Behind the Myths show at the Sony Centre in Toronto on Saturday, so we made a weekend out of the event.

We did some Christmas shopping at Vaughn Mills and then caught the show.

Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman of the Mythbusters!

We relaxed at the hotel that night then off to IKEA to drool over all the great furniture!

Rosr dropped some big hints about wanting this island!

We capped off the weekend with another outstanding concert with Ken Whiteley and his amazingly talented friends at Hugh's Room on Dundas.

The music is always outstanding and the food is delicious!

Rose was moved to tears a few times during the evening by the singers, Sharon Riley, Michelle Willis, and Mati Haskell

Could this be an event that could fly in Barrie?