The final Sunday before Christmas, the last week of preparations, and our destination of Christmas night will have arrived. It is shaping up to be a hectic week, with many last minute errands and festivities.
There can be schedule conflicts, a feeling that not everything or everyone can be fitted into a timeframe suddenly grown too small.
But the theme of love, as we light the Candle of Love, has the power to pare us down to the essentials, if we only will allow it to have first place in our thinking.
There is a Proverb that describes this, and one that always seemed to cause me to give pause. A kind of “Selah” or “rest sign” when an overwhelm of planned feasting and fun threatened to turn into a fiasco.
When we are angry and overwrought, it might feel like resentment is being served along with a side dish of strife. It is the far opposite of what we wish to provide for our loved ones at Christmas.
So as we look around our table, is it the elements of the lights and baubles, ribbons and wrapped presents that bring us the joy of good cheer? Or is the sight of the faces we love, some which we have not seen for far too long, and the warmth of enjoying each others company?
Better a simple snack of veggies and enjoyment of this rare time of shared love, than the inner emptiness that no feast of expensive meats and complicated desserts could possibly fill.
Feasting With Love
Of course, it doesn’t need to be “either /or”, and I hope that our Christmas week will be filled with both expressed love, kindness, and plenty of special goodies that cheer both heart and soul.
It is just that the love is the main dish at our table, and I hope at yours, too.
Decide on one loving thing you plan to do for a person at your own table this week. Offer this secretly, for the sheer joy of knowing that it is something that you wanted to give freely without thought of anything in return.
I wonder what effect this would have by the time we all celebrate Christmas night this year?
Scripture:
1 John 4:9-10
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Carols
Silent Night
Good King Wenceslas
