Filling Up Christmas | The Fullness of Family | Galatians 4:4-20; 3:28-29; John 1:12 | Week 2

I love the Christmas season!  One of the things that I think I love most about this time of year is those Christmas movies.  My favorite Christmas movie---judge me if you must---is "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation."  One of my favorite scenes in the entire movie is where Clark W. Griswold has worked for days putting up lights on his house, and he's finally got them working.  [The camera] pans to the scene where Cousin Eddy is unexpectedly there.  He's got his RV and he's staying for an indeterminate amount of time.  One of the things I love about this movie is it points out some of the comedy, and in a very funny way, the pain of family.  We all probably have someone in our family like Cousin Eddy, where we wonder, "Are they coming this year?"  If you don't have a Cousin Eddy....you might BE Cousin Eddy!  

The longer I've pastored, the longer I've worked with people, the longer I've counseled people, I've come to find out that Christmas, and the holiday season in general, is sort of a double-edged sword.  As Dickens writes:  It's the best of times and the worst of times.  For some people, there's joy and elation....oh my goodness, Christmas is coming and it's marked on the calendar.  For others, oh my goodness, Christmas is coming and it's marked on the calendar.....and it's sort of in 'red,' do you know what I mean?  If we went around the room and shared, and if people were bold enough to say, "Hey, this is why Christmas is hard for me," a lot of what we would see if we drilled down deep enough, is a lot of the pain and a lot of the questions and a lot of the angst around the holiday season in general, has to do with family, doesn't it?  For some, maybe there's a fracture in the family, so when people show up, it just reminds you that things aren't what you wish they were or what you think they should be.  For some of us, we have a very empty seat at the dinner table for Christmas dinner, don't we?  Some of you are coming up on that for the very first Christmas and you don't know what it's going to do to you?  For some, it's just man, family's coming!  It raises the level of anxiety because it's sort of a wildcard.  It might be amazing, it might be great, and it might hit the fan!  Who knows?...