Christmas Program

This morning I attended a small church where they were performing their annual Christmas program recounting  the Christmas story. I’m quite sure every child in the church had a part – there’s always room for one more angel or one more shepherd. It brought back a lot of memories. There are memories of when I was one of those children ,wearing of course, an angel costume.(Well, I think so…that was a long time ago.) Then their were memories of my two boys playing their parts as shepherds and wise men.

Today, I had no reason to be nervous – I wasn’t performing and didn’t know anyone that was. In fact, I was just visiting this church and knew no one. It was the first time I had gone to a Christmas church program and didn’t know a single person on stage. This put me in a unique position. My eyes weren’t focused on any one person. I had no reason to care if the wiseman’s crown was crooked, or if the angel was holding the hem of her white gown above her head, or if the shepherd boy was poking his shepherd friend in hopes of making him squeal, or if Joseph was sticking his tongue out at Mary. Knowing no one was delightful!

I had time to observe the observers as well. All those children in the front, had parents in the pews. Well, not so much in the pews – most were up and out of their seats with their cameras pointed to their special actors on stage. I noticed that many of the fathers were assigned this duty while the mothers were trying to get their child’s attention with various hand signals. I’m sure it is just our human nature to want our children to be perfect little angels while they are up on stage. Wouldn’t it be boring if they really were? The best part of Christmas programs are when we are reminded through these little children that none of us are perfect. And I enjoy being reminded that we don’t have to be perfect because Jesus took all our sins to the cross with Him. This is a season to spread hope to those that might not have much hope. I challenge you to pick out someone every day that looks like they could use a little hope and give them a good dose of it.  God created each one of us and He loves each one of us as if we were the only one to love. Now, that’s a message everyone would love to hear.