A Prayer For Christmas

   I remembered the title to a song this morning as I walked, Everything Old is New Again. Why I thought of this, I don't know, but it fits in with what was running through my mind as I sat and read earlier.

   I thought of Christmas, past and present and what might be in the future. I thought of how this one particular one could be, and should be, different from all the rest, in some ways at least.

   All around are the trappings of the Holiday. There are the lights, the figures in yards, the bows and ribbons everywhere. Even the lighthouse down by the ocean is decorated.

   Parties are held, people are shopping, stores are selling, advertisers are happy, songs are sung, bells are ringing, and I look back and see the past in all of this.

   The past is good, and it is fun to remember Christmas times from earlier years, but we don't dwell there right now. There is a danger of living there.

   How many times have I heard the Christmas Story read from Luke 2? How many times have I loved to sing the carols of the Season? How many times have I sat in a candle filled church and worshipped with a grateful heart?

   Plenty, I can tell you!

   But there is a need to return to the Story and read it one more time. So I do, and read Luke 2 again this morning. It is a familiar story, maybe too familiar.

   My prayer is that I will not let this Christmas be ordinary, just to be added to the stack of those of the past, but that it will be fresh, living again in my heart and life, that the words of the Scripture and the carols will not just be nostalgic, but alive.

   Christmas is a Holy Day, not just a holiday.

   Let it be so in my life this time around.

   Let everything old become new again.