Wasting Good Intentions
Christmas and New Year resolutions have a great problem in Australia – summer holidays.
Each year we hear again the great news of Jesus’ birth for our salvation and enjoy singing his praise, being with his people, hearing his message and laying our burdens before him in prayer – and then the summer holidays hit. And with the summer holidays comes a disturbance in routine and a forgetfulness of all our resolutions.
We can sing the carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem”, which says
“We hear the Christmas angels
the great glad tidings tell
“O come to us, abide with us,
our Lord Emmanuel” –
But then we forget – our Lord Emmanuel. We do not mean to forget. It is not our intention to forget, but we have the distractions of holiday festivities. It’s the time of year when we travel and catch up with family and friends. The office runs on a skeleton staff and the children are being entertained at home.
In one sense this is the best time to make life-changing decisions. For we are free from the normal busyness to think out again ‘where are we going?’ and ’why are we doing what we do?’ In another sense this is the worst time to effect change because our holidays have already changed everything and we are so removed from the regular routine of life. By the time we return to work we have usually lost the resolve to bring about change as all our old habits return.
It is somewhat akin to the lepers that Jesus healed (Luke 17:11f). There were ten of them, isolated from the rest of the community by their dreadful affliction. They begged for mercy from Jesus and were told to show themselves to the priest in the temple. In obedience to his word, they headed off and as they went they were healed. But only one of them returned to say thank you. Only one of them remembered the man who had mercy upon them. Only one of them turned to praise God. And he was an outsider to Israel for he was a Samaritan; the enemy of the Jews.
It is not hard to imagine the joy and excited busyness of the nine lepers. They had to get to the temple. It was some distance away. And then there were the family to tell and rejoin, and the business or farm to contact to get back their job. It wasn’t necessarily that they were ungrateful but most likely too busy to express their gratitude or to praise God. Too busy to find out who this man was who could cleanse leprosy with a simple command. Too busy to meet the man who was God. Too busy to hear of even greater news that Jesus gave to the Samaritan “Your faith has saved you”.
Christmas is more than the bonhomie of wishing everybody happiness. It confronts us once more with God’s place in our plans and our place in God’s plan. We think for a moment of the God who made us and came to earth to save us. We ponder again our life in the light of his mercy as we sing the wonderful words of the carols. We decide that this year we are going to do something about Him. We will find out more about the Bible, get the kids to church and Sunday school, be more consistent ourselves in coming, join a Bible Study group. But the Christmas sales, the summer holidays, the preparation for ‘back to school’ and the routine of busyness take over again. It is as Jesus says in his parable of the sower: “And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them” (Mark 4:15).
Better to be an outsider who turns back to praise God than one of his people who goes on ignoring or forgetting him.