Prepare and Celebrate

Who doesn’t love A Charlie Brown’s Christmas? Earlier this month we hosted a women’s Christmas event and watch a Charlie Brown’s Christmas. Our hope was to give the ladies some Christmas nostalgia and fun, but I had not watched the movie in many years, and I was struck by how close to home the message of the movie felt. I was able to share a bit of an encouragement afterward and had many thoughts for us to ponder this holiday season.

I am sure we all have felt similarly to Charlie Brown at times. Everything around us is holly jolly and we just can’t quite get there. We might all have moments of feeling a bit more un jolly. “Charlie Brown, you are the only person I know that can take a wonderful time like Christmas and turn it into a problem.”

At the beginning of the movie, Charlie Brown is sharing with Lucy his frustration with the season. Her response was that he needed to get involved. He needed more Christmas things to do to get into the Holiday Spirit. He should be the director of the Christmas play! We can easily fall into this thinking. Or at least I can. What I need to do this year is to add more festivities. Watch more Christmas movies. Make more cookies. More things will help me get into the Christmas spirit. But then the to-do list gets long and our time and energy runs short. It can leave us all feeling overwhelmed.

This actually brings to mind Mary from the Bible. Not Jesus’ mother, but another Mary and her sister Martha. In the movie, Linus quoted the scripture in the book of Luke chapter 2. Later on in the Book of Luke in chapter 10 we meet another Mary and her sister Martha. They also are celebrating the coming of Jesus to their home. The sisters are preparing for the festivities. They were getting ready for Jesus’ arrival. Scripture doesn’t say how long they had preparing or how big of a party it was, but it does say that once Jesus arrived Martha still had many things to do. Her sister Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet, and Martha asked Jesus to tell her that she needed help with the preparations.

And what was Jesus’ response. “Martha, Martha… Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Notice that it says Mary chose. It was a decision to stop what she was doing and come sit with Jesus. It doesn’t mean she necessarily accomplished everything on her list, but it means that she willingly put things aside to be with Jesus. There are times that will feel hectic. There is so much to do, but we do have a choice. We can choose to set aside the busyness and set our eyes on Jesus.

What I am not saying is that we have to clear our schedule and sacrifice all our festive traditions.

Not at all! the Bible talks often of the value of preparation and celebration. The Old Testament is full of descriptions of festivals and Holy days, feast days! And it is also full of descriptions of how the Israelites were to prepare themselves for these special days, to prepare their homes, their bodies, and their hearts. Then He tells them to feast and celebrate and pause from their everyday routines. We prepare well so we can celebrate well. The Lord is honored in our celebrating, as long as our celebration remembers and honors Him and doesn’t crowd Him out.

And what about those of us who are not finding joy in the celebrating this year. When grief or loneliness or financial struggles, even fear of the future, make the joyous celebrating feel too far to grasp.

We can still celebrate even in circumstances that are hard. Even if our celebrating doesn’t appear holly jolly.

Why do we celebrate? Because Christ came to earth as a human. He left Heaven to come and experience everything we experience. The stress and overwhelm disappointment and grief, as well as the joy and all the good and beautiful things this life has to offer. Then He died on the cross, taking on Him the penalty for all the sin in the world and in our hearts. He conquered death. And the real reason to celebrate is that not that He came once as a baby, but is coming again. He has already accomplished everything for us on the cross. We celebrate because all our preparation can be done from a heart of rest. He is with us now. And He is coming back so that our joy will be complete in Heaven with Him for eternity.

Hebrews 9

But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

For the next few minutes, there are discussion questions on your table and I would love for you to discuss these as we think about ways to prepare our hearts for Jesus this season.