Christmas Benediction

Christmas

Benediction or Invocation?

The Benediction comes at the end of the program.  The Invocation comes as the beginning of the program.  For those of us so highly programmed by the season--which will it be for us?  Does Christmas Day end the hectic shopping days of Advent (Thank God!)--but where are we left and for what end?  
 
Is Christmas the respite we take, 
shortly before we awake and reclaim
the world in the madness of shopping,
and the insane believe we do make
that God's promise is something we
do not deserve, nor cannot receive, but
musty have a hand in ourselves somehow. 

These words came to me this Christmas as the challenge of the Child.
Do we give the Child a token nod at the observance of this annual fete....
Or, do we tell the world where to get off as we seek him in the world that
turns its back on him? 


For the Time Being
Christmas Oratorio

IV
Chorus
He is the Way.
Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.
He is the Truth.
Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.
He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.
-- W. H. Auden

Light a candle it.  Think about it.  Then take your first steps toward the new year as God's invocation.