Christmas is ComingWe are in Advent, moving toward the Christmas season. Christmas is coming! The time when we begin to start feeling a little nervous. Nervous about how much we have to do and how much time there is left to do it. Nervous about the people we are bound to run into during the Christmas season as families gather. A time when we receive cards from everyone — from long-lost relatives. It is the season when we spend like we are rich. Party like we are young. Smile like we have no cares. Christmas comes! I confess that I feel at times like a pastor friend of mine who told of the time going to Christmas Eve services and his young children asking him on the way, "Dad, are you going to let us enjoy this Christmas or are you going to try to explain it to everybody?" At times it does seem that in our efforts to capture the true spirit of Christmas, we dampen so much of the joy that is there. But perhaps understanding joy is where it begins. One particular story that I read recently illustrates it so well. In "An Autobiography: Act I," Moss Hart describes a particular Christmas Eve at the turn of the century when he was 10 and his family was living in New York City. Because of their poverty he was surprised when one night his father said, "Let’s go downtown." They set out on a walk, down to 149th Street where push carts full of toys were lined up for shoppers. Moss knew his dad was going to try to buy him a Christmas present, but he also knew that his dad had very little money. He figured his dad had about 75¢ in his pocket. They walked by all these cars. Hart said that he saw all sorts of toys he wanted. But, after his father would ask the price the two of them would move quietly to the next cart, his father putting his hand into his pocket and fingering the coins. So it went from one cart to another. Nothing the youngster wanted could be purchased for what his father had been able to save. This is how Moss Hart remembered his feeling that night — "As I looked up at him and I saw a look of despair and disappointment in his eyes, that brought me closer to him than I had ever been in my life. I wanted to throw my arms around him and say: It doesn’t matter … I understand … this is better than a chemistry set or a printing press … I love you.""But, instead we stood shivering beside each other for a moment, then turned away from the last two push carts and started silently back home. I don’t know why the words remained choked up within me. I didn’t even take his hand on the way home nor did he take mine. We were not on that basis. Nor did I ever tell him how close I felt that night — that for a little while the concrete wall between father and son had crumbled away and I knew that we were two lonely people struggling to reach each other."Christmas, it seems, is more about that joy than the frivolity with which we surround ourselves. It is about each of us struggling to reach for significance in our lives, to be a part of and to touch God, who does not want us to be hurt. A God who must watch us at war with ourselves and others, but comes to us nonetheless, with a message of love, joy and peace. That’s why it seems so remarkable to me that when God comes to speak God’s Word to us, that word becomes a child. This child who is announced by singing, not by thunder. A child born by lamplight on a silent night rather than a word which shakes mountains, a word that becomes a child, which can be received and cannot hurt us. A word which does not make us afraid.My prayer is that this season will be one filled with the joy of HIM. That you will go to your church to sing the songs of his praise and joy to our world. That you will hold the candle and be light to the world. That you will worship and bow down. That you will not only know joy, but bring joy wherever your life may find you. Christmas comes!