Across the Pastor’s Desk by Don Rose

Don Rose is the pastor of Mansfield Lutheran Church in Alden and United Lutheran Church in Walters.

Believe it or not, it is still the season of Christmas.

Despite the flood of advertisements announcing post-Christmas sales and the cultural rush to the celebration of a calendar new year, people of faith continue to focus upon the birth of a savior and the light that has been brought into the world through the incarnation of God’s love and grace.

There is still time for carols to be sung and gifts to be exchanged, all as a part of the broader season of celebrating the first appearing of the messiah, God’s promised one.

Even the church runs the risk of being assimilated by the culture when it comes to these times of year that seem to blend both religious and secular components.

Though people of faith are to be in the world but not of it, as the Apostle Paul encourages, it might be noted that people in general like to blend in to their surroundings. Few appreciate the experience of standing out from others or of being identified as different from the norm.

As a result, even the children of God can all too often find themselves conforming to the patterns of the world rather than living according to the patterns of God.

As a result, even the season of Christmas can for many become just a day or two of celebration before the serious work of thinking about how to bring in a new calendar year.

This is not to say that there is nothing beneficial in letting go a past year as one hopes for and anticipates the possibilities of a new year. Such hope can be the fuel for continuing on with the important tasks of life.

However, for people of faith such hope is not tied to a calendar and dates, but rather to the gift of promise revealed in the free gift of God’s incarnation. It is because God loved the world so much to be one with humanity that humanity might better perceive the God it cannot see. Hope then rests not in one’s own efforts or resolutions, but rather hope is received in that which God has done already, given salvation that all life might be changed.

Twelve days is hardly too much to expect for God’s people to keep in their hearts and minds the blessed gift of the savior and to keep those days in celebration, despite the messages of the world at large and the rush to another secular celebration that cannot either give or sustain the hope for which the world longs.

To be sure, it would be best to keep the spirit of Christmas in one’s heart every day of every year. Perhaps keeping the 12 days of Christmas would be a worthy place to begin.