Every year Christmas seems to come earlier and earlier. Stores start playing Christmas music and the classic Christmas movies are aired on TV as soon as Thanksgiving is over. Most neighborhoods glow at night with the collected light from houses decorated for the holiday, and carols drift on the cold wind. Christmas just feels different than the rest of the year.

There is something else that makes Christmas unique: it is possibly the biggest time of the year when people’s hearts are softened, just a bit, toward the things of God.

Every year, Christmas reminds us of one of the most important events in all of history, the birth of Jesus. Christmas is a time to celebrate and remember God coming near to us. And this reminder and celebration is not limited to people who call themselves Christian.

Christmas has, undoubtedly, become a commercial phenomenon in the US. It is the time of year when businesses boost their sales and people pack the malls doing their holiday shopping. We have even created a new holiday, Black Friday, just to mark when this shopping season begins.

Yet, in spite of all of this, Christmas still stands as a reminder of something more, something transcendent. People cluster together with their families and the people they love as they celebrate Christmas, knowing in those moments that all the gifts don’t really matter. People turn their attention outward during Christmas and serve others more willingly and help the less fortunate. Christmas is when the world lowers its guard. The stones and the walls that are often built up to keep God out start to crack.

In the end, every Christmas season serves the same purpose that the first Christmas served: bringing God near us. While many people look at Christmas as a time to buy gifts and sit on Santa’s knee, others feel their hearts open to the things of God.

Here at Community Christian Church, our mission is to help people find their way back to God. During Christmas, our family, friends, and neighbors are much more open to beginning this journey for themselves. This Christmas, start a conversation about God with someone you know, and like that first Christmas over two thousand years ago, you might just help usher God into the heart and life of someone in your life.

As we celebrate Christmas and remember God coming near to us in the person of Jesus, let us never forget that God is still near us and longs to come nearer still.

Merry Christmas,

Nic Cox