Christmas is almost here, but we’re not quite there yet. We are still in that time of waiting, watching, praying, hoping that what is to come will be just what we need.

I don’t know about you, but my sense and reception of Christmas doesn’t necessarily coincide with the calendar. I never know exactly when Christmas will come for me. Like many people, I start decorating for the Christmas season almost as soon as Thanksgiving is over. I change the wreath on my door from Autumn to one festooned with evergreen fronds, bows and poinsettias. I change my tablecloths, runners and settings to be more appropriate for the coming season. I get out my Nativity set and put it in its honored place. Finally, I drag out my Christmas tree and set it up, hang the ornaments in all the right places, and turn on the lights. You would think all of that would put me in the Christmas spirit, but it rarely if ever does. Its just what I do in preparation for the season.

There’s a lot going on this year as we wait for Christmas to come. Wars are being fought. Children are starving to death somewhere on the earth. Children are being shot and killed in schools. Political chaos seems to threaten the stability of many places around the globe. All this, and more, is going on during this season. Maybe its too much to be looking for Christmas to come. Maybe it won’t come at all. These are the thoughts that creep into my mind, and possibly into the minds and hearts of others.

I have a lot on my heart right now during this time when we are singing the joyous songs, buying presents, and making merry. But somehow my heart isn’t there yet. I have a friend who is in the last stages of their life. I have another friend who is struggling in a personal way. And I have the one closest to me who is in another part of the world seeking spiritual and mental wellness. All of this and more is weighing me down at the moment.

But let me tell you what is also happening right now. I’m witnessing a community coming together to surround a beloved member. To surround that person with love and light. I’m witnessing a mother who cares deeply for her child and the struggles they are going through. I’m witnessing the one I love who has his own demons to battle, still reaching out to express his love for me.

The theme for this coming Sunday in Advent is Love. We celebrate God’s love being poured out and into a world that is sorely in need of that love. We celebrate how we can see and experience that love if we look hard enough, and are open to what God is doing in our midst. You see, we can let the cares of the world own us and drag us down. The media helps to foster the sense of pain, melancholy, fear that grip us so tightly. But if we look with an open spirit, we will see the truest love in so much of what at first glance weighs so heavily on us. We will find, all along, God IS with us. God’s love comes to make us know we are never alone.

Maybe, just maybe, I’m feeling Christmas is really, really, really, almost here. For all that is going in the wrong direction right now, what matters most is desperately pointing in the direction of what is true, and bright, and filled with love. May God’s love shine in all the places each of us may have been feeling weighed down. May that love, the greatest love, be mine and yours now, on Christmas Day, and on into the coming year.

Your companion on the Way,

Pastor Tom