Merry Christmas to one and all!
There are some great Christmas scenes in the movies. You think of It’s A Wonderful Life, with George Bailey running through the snow, waving his arms around, broke and happy as a clam. Or there’s that marvelous moment in A Christmas Story (which is shown for 24 straight hours on TBS every year) where the dogs break into the house, steal the holiday turkey, and the whole family goes out for Chinese!
But my favorite (and since I’m an old softie I get a catch in my throat each time I see it) comes in the cartoon where Charlie Brown cries aloud for someone to tell him what Christmas is all about, and Linus takes center stage and recites the story from the Gospel of Luke by heart. How’s that for Christmas?
You know, folks talk about how important it is to have a white Christmas (and I kind of like it myself), but the real question is whether we’re going to have a Jesus Christmas. The gifts, the music, the tree, the decorations, the big dinner, the fruitcake and all the other things that make this such a fun time are good things. But they all must point, in one way or the other, to the one thing: Jesus. Just like the angels, we come “to bring good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11).
Now that’s a scene worth remembering.
