Midweek Carols service

The Christmas Grinch in all of us

I was watching the news last week and they showed CCTV footage of a woman in the Western Suburbs stealing Christmas ornaments from other people’s front yard.

She was labelled the Christmas Grinch

The Grinch is a character created by Dr Seuss who hates the Christmas season and all the festivities and is irritated by the happiness of others and gets much pleasure from spoiling other people's celebrations.

Sometimes it’s easy for us to become Grinches as the Christmas Season brings out the worst in us.

The anger trying to find a car park at Eastland or Knox.

The frustration at writing all those Christmas Cards.

The stress of wondering whether you’ve got enough food for everyone.

The worry about what to buy for each person in the family.

By this time we can’t wait for Christmas to be over.

There’s a Grinch alive and well in each of us just waiting to break out and snap at that person who stole the last parking spot.

We often complain about Governments, Schools and Councils being Grinches by banning Christmas Carols and decorations because of the offence it may cause to people who aren’t Christians.

But in reality the only ones who are Grinches are ourselves when we take away the Christmas joy in our own lives.

They can take away carols and decorations but they cannot take away our own personal joy for Christmas and what it means for us.

Only we can do that when we allow what happens in the world to take away our Christmas Spirit.

And that’s easy to happen so we need to keep in front of us what the true meaning of Christmas is.

Christmas is about gifts – but the focus should be on God’s gift to us:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

Christmas is about celebrating – but we need to celebrate the right reason, just as the angels did when they celebrated the news of Jesus’ birth to the Shepherds:

The whole company of heaven celebrated shouting:

"Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased."

Everything we do to celebrate Christmas is amazing.

But when we lose the focus of what we are celebrating it’s no wonder those things frustrate us.

Let’s enjoy this Christmas and not let the frustrations and hustle and bustle put a damper on it.

It’s the best news that we can ever receive – that God loves us and wants to live with us.

But more importantly, God wants us to live with him and Jesus work at Easter time will assure us of that.