Hello Hump Day readers. I hope you are truly enjoying and longing with anticipation for Christmas. Sadly, in the rush of what we think ‘we have to do’ or ‘must have for Christmas’ it’s easy to lose sight of God. We’re busy trying to have “the best Christmas ever” and in the Christ Child we already have it!

In Matthew 1:23, using the New Living Translation, we read the incredible promise that the first Christmas brought us when the angel told Joseph:

“Look! The virgin will conceive a child!
She will give birth to a son,
and they will call him Immanuel,
which means ‘God is with us.’”

Pastor Greg Laurie wrote: “It’s possible to lose God in this season. Of course, we can’t really lose God, but we can lose sight of Him. However, He never loses sight of us. He’s constantly thinking about us.”

Have you ever thought about God thinking about you? I grew up in church where, at the end of every service, the Aaron’s Benediction from Numbers 6:24-26 [NIV] was spoken “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”

As the organist, this was my queue to play the refrain, but it wasn’t until many years later I really thought about its meaning. Outside of this blessing, one will rarely hear or use the word ‘countenance’. Considered an old archaic French language, it is still as powerful today as it was centuries ago when Aaron blessed the worshippers as they departed from the Synagogue.

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary describes ‘countenance’ as “the appearance or expression of someone’s face” and “to approve of or give support to something.” The blessing is a reminder to us that the Lord shines himself on us, the Lord pays attention to us, smiles on us, is gracious and, for me, the last 3 words are precious: the Lord “gives us peace.” We could say Jesus fulfilled those last 3 words when He came into our world where there was no peace and He gave us the “peace that surpasses all understanding.”

In our world we are always in such a rush and Christmas is right up there in it. It’s easy to lose our attention of what this Christ-Child-gift really is! About the only thing that gets our attention is our smart phones! No wonder we have lost the beauty of making eye contact with others. The powerful words of affirmation, love, care and so forth just don’t cut it in a tweet or an abbreviated text or email.

Thankfully, God is different! When we talk-text-send an email or send a card, God takes in every single thing we’ve done. Why? Because God loves us and is interested in everything about our lives. That’s why God sent His Son into the world so we could know the love of God and the intimacy God wants with His children—God is our “Abba Father” Scripture tells us this and, Oh such love we just can’t comprehend but aren’t we glad we have it?!

So, this Christmas, let’s adopt a new mind-set for our celebration of Jesus’ birth. In fact, let’s make it a practice to not lose sight of what Christmas is all about. In these last few days until we celebrate the greatest gift ever given, while we’re doing our last-minute shopping, calls, mailings, travels to be with family and so on, let’s keep our focus on the Gift of the Christ-Child in all that we do. Let’s put Jesus “center-stage” every second of every day.

After all, Immanuel is not just a beautiful name, its actual meaning is “God with us—always” and what better gift can we have in our lives and the privilege to share it with others? AMEN.