Instant Christmas

This fall, for the first time I can remember, my wife and I completely forgot about the daylight savings time change. We showed up at church in time for Sunday School, which starts at 9:45. Little did we know, since our clocks did not "fall back" an hour we were actually about a half-hour "late" for the 8:15 service. Once we realized our mistake, we snuck into church as the offering plates made their pilgrimage through the last row. We sung the doxology and then pulled out our Bibles in preparation for the sermon. The sermon was, I suppose, just as "good" as any other week, but for some reason I felt very disengaged as Stu preached from the Word. Having given this some thought, I realized what the problem was.

Most Sundays we hear God's "Call to Worship," we worship through singing, we worship through corporate and personal confession of our sins, we worship by hearing the assurance of pardon, and we worship through giving. Only after all of this preparation do we worship through the ministry of the Word. Because we showed up late, we jumped straight into the sermon without any preparation of our hearts or minds for hearing the Word of God. It did not "return void," but we were ill prepared to receive it.

I fear that many of us (myself included) approach Christmas this same way. Our culture has conditioned us for convenience and "just in time" shopping, eating, recreation, and everything else. Continue reading this post »