Christmas 2020

 

Christmas 2020

By John W. Vander Velden

 

We have endured a year like none we have ever experienced before. COVID has had an effect on nearly every aspect of our lives. Now, as the numbers of those that suffer from the disease rise to new heights, we understand the need to gather differently this year. For most of us the season normally offers opportunities we can share with the special people of our lives. Often those who live miles away and make the effort to travel to join in the festivities.

Saddened that many of us will not be able to take part in activities that have long been part of our lives, we may feel that Christmas isn’t what it was...or what it should be. And I can tell you that, this year, we will be missing many opportunities to gather as family and friends. Yet it does not feel, in this household in any case, a burden beyond our abilities to bear. For our view is broader than the brief disappointment of crushed plans. We understand that these are difficult times and the needs of the world far outweigh our own personal desires.

For Jackie and I, it has long been our aspiration to understand what our household can do to be helpful to others. To see a broader observation of reality than our own pinhole prick view. A willingness to care about others as well as ourselves.

Isn’t this the perfect season for us to do just a little more...care a bit deeper. For wasn’t Christ sent to live among humanity, not for his own benefit but ours. Didn’t HE at last give up his life...a sacrifice for the very people that drove the nails into his precious body?

So as we dwell on what will not be part of Christmas 2020, let us not forget what the season means. For Christmas comes, COVID or not! Christmas is so much more than shared meals, more than gifts given and received, more than parties, more than ugly sweaters. It is the joyous celebration that reminds us that GOD so loved the world (us) that HE sent HIS SON to be born. To be born in the most humble places, to become human in the same way that you and I began our lives. That GOD revealed HIS SON to the humble shepherds and later to grand kings. These are the things that make up Jackie’s and my Christmas. It is our hope that it is the very foundation stones of your Christmas as well.

So we wish you a very Merry Christmas!

For Christmas comes...no matter what!

Blessings,

John

 

(434 Words) 12-18-2020