Finding Your Quiet

The Christmas season can be an overwhelming sensory experience.  Many of the houses on my street have decorative lights (including mine).  The main drag through Spring Lake is awash in multi-colored lights.  Saturday night in Grand Haven featured the annual Jingle Bell parade that included marching bands, holiday floats, and flying candy canes.  The scent of Christmas cookies and evergreen fill our homes.  Every sense is flooded during the month of December.  There’s biblical precedent for all of this in the chorus of angels that serenaded the shepherds on Christmas night.

The irony is that the celebration of Christmas can distract us from the reason for Christmas.  The lights of Christmas can draw our eyes away from the Light of the World.  The sounds of Christmas can drown out the Word of God that became flesh.  The tastes of the season can distract us from the Bread of Life lying in a manger.  While I wish you much joy and celebration this Christmas, I also wish you a quiet place to reflect in reverence on the miracle of miracles: the Creator of the universe became a creature like us.