by Rev Dr Bill Barnes
Thanksgiving is a time when we pause to remind ourselves and one another of all the things and people we are grateful for in our lives, and we also take a breath in and breathe out our thankfulness to God who not only set creation in motion, but crowned it with the presence of Adam and Eve (our ancestors) and later visited the planet He created in the same human form (he had created), to save the very species he had created.
I hope for you that this Christmas is not simply the inconvenience of shopping for gifts for all your relatives and friends, but rather the experience of having family and friends to be
celebrated.
Isn’t it interesting that thankfulness precedes our experience of the human- like visit of our God in the fleshly form of a human? Salvation comes to a thankful people.
In a “Dennis the Menace” cartoon, Dennis is talking to one of his little friends, as they peer into a department store window that is decorated for Christmas: “Last month was our giving thanks holiday, an’ Christmas is God’s ‘You’re Welcome.'”
The following is a writing from one of my favorite Pastors, who was serving a Presbyterian Church in Houston, when my father suffered a breakdown from the loss of his wife, followed by a hospitalized months-long illness and his eventual death. It’s title is “A Psalm For Christmas Eve.”
Praise God for Christmas. Praise Him for the Incarnation for Word made flesh.
I will not sing of shepherds watching flocks on frosty night or angel choristers.
I will not sing of stable bare in Bethlehem or lowing oxen,
wise men trailing distant star with gold and frankincense and myrrh.
Tonight I will sing praise to the Father, who stood on heaven’s threshold and said farewell to His Son as He stepped across the stars to Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
And I will sing praise to the infinite eternal Son who became most finite a Baby who would one day be executed for my crimes.
Praise Him in the heavens Praise Him in the stable, Praise Him in my heart.
Presbyterian Pastor and author, Joseph Bayly in Psalms of My Life
‘TIS THE SEASON TO BE GRATEFUL
In an episode of the comic strip “For Better or For Worse,” it is Christmas morning and Elizabeth, the daughter in the family, is sitting in front of the Christmas tree and all the as-yet-unopened gifts. She is obviously thinking about something. Her father enters the living room and says, “Elizabeth, it’s too early to open anything yet.”
“I know,” she says, “I was just thinking. I was just thinking about the kids who don’t have presents to wake up to. I was thinking about kids in the hospital, kids who are lonely — I was just thinking how lucky I am.”
Then she asks, “Christmas is Jesus’ birthday, isn’t it, Daddy?”
“Yes, it is,” replies the father.
Elizabeth continues: “I wish I could give Him something.”
The father, obviously moved by what Elizabeth had just told him, takes her in his arms and says, “Honey, you already have!”
I like this message. Here we have a reminder: we are very fortunate, very lucky in so many ways. I am sure each of us could write a big list of the blessings God has given us. Christmas is a good time to thank God for His goodness to us. Covid may have taken us down a peg or two, but Christmas, with the right frame of mind, can lift us up. One of the best gifts we could give Jesus is the gift of gratitude.