Coming home from Midweek service last night, I passed by the Podium to grab a take-out turkey sandwich for dinner at Subway's. The Podium is a mall that is relatively more expensive fashionable than the rest of the other malls around the area; and yet, at 8:45PM, there were still a great number of people shopping! The Christmas air has been blowing over Metro Manila since around September, but shopping, merry-making among other stuff related to the season had just begun happening around late November!
At Faith Bible College today, while having banana split with the students during fellowship time, we found ourselves complaining about how some of us not receiving gifts from our kris kringle or Secret Santas. In another conversation with a girl from church, I told her that I have been invited to 11 more Christmas parties within the next 15 days, and how I am so sure that I won't be able to attend every one of them. There's no escaping, the Christmas fever is here. Everybody seems to be extra nicer; people smile more than they did over the last eleven months; people are generous. But in most cases, the fever breaks a day or so after New Year's.
At about the turn of the last century, a well-known clergyman of the day, Henry van Dyke, wrote a short Christmas message he entitled, “Keeping Christmas”. Like all wisdom that weathers well over the years, his was obvious as well as poignant. He made the simple observation that “there is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day, and that is, keeping Christmas.”
I just returned from a Christmas Party for 500 people, most of whom are ministry volunteers at church- ranging from Choir members to ladies who stamp letters to first time guests. All of them bothered to come to celebrate the birth of the Savior. In so doing they have symbolically come to the stable, and knelt on dry straw beside a feeding trough with others who they have mostly never met, peering into the face of a small child.
These are people willing to recognize that their generation is not the last one; that they have received an astonishing inheritance given by the hand of God; that their very next breath of life is pure gift; that all their abilities and capacities were knit together in their mother’s womb and had nothing to do with that yet willing to use it for God's work; that the bounty this planet offers – its beauty and majesty – are both a wondrous blessing and an awesome responsibility; that they have duties to perform as citizens of a nation in a dangerous world; they have experienced grace and are willing to share that experience with others so others too may know God the way they do?
If we have any of this experience or willingness, we will keep Christmas and not simply observe it. Keep it for God’s sake, and your own, and for the sake of the world.
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In other news: (this is with Ely's permission)
It's funny how the Lord sometimes teaches us about discipleship and priority.
Last Sunday was the great match between Oscar dela Hoya and Manny Pacquiao so Ely, our worship band guitarist planned his day in a way that would allow him to watch the bout at the Galleria Cinema live via satellite!
At 7AM, he played during worship and went straight to the mall a block away to buy his ticket. And since there was a movie playing, he sat in and watched a part of the movie. He returned to church at 8:40 and played guitar at the 9AM service. He went back to the theater to wait for the fight. Discovering that the match won't be out 'til around 11:30, he went back to the cinema after he played for our 11AM service.
As he walked back to church after the fight, he realized that his wallet was gone. It contained 9000Pesos which included his tithe, some cash his friend asked him to deposit in the bank the next day, and his cards-- all gone!
He prayed- "Lord, I'm sorry I prioritized something so mundane over YOU. Forgive me. Now, my wallet is gone. But I pray God that You will replace it in some way according to Your will. God, I'm sorry too that I lost my tithe. I should have given it back to You earlier..."
His face downcast, he took one of his two cell phones and dialled the credit card company and had his Visa blocked. After a few minutes, he took his other phone and called his bank to cancel his ATM card. Just as he was speaking to a lady who was about to cancel his Card, his other phone rang. He picked up.
"Is this Norwille Damasin?"
"Yes."
"You lost you wallet."
"Yes, I did. How did you know my number?"
"I found it in your wallet- a Smart money receipt! Do you want to meet up so I can return it to you?"
"I hope I don't sound rude or anything, but I will be busy because I play in a worship band at church so I won't be available til after that."
"Fine with me. I too have to go to church."
"You're a Christian too?"
"Yes, GCF- Greenhills Christian Fellowship."
"So am I!"
Ely got his wallet back--not a dime short! Gave his tithe, deposited his friend's money the next day, and armed with stronger faith in the Lord.
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