Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all!  I just returned home from my third (yes, you read that right) Christmas Eve service of the day.  One of our family traditions has been to attend the 11 pm service somewhere, then open one gift before heading to bed.  After my brother and I went to college, we stopped this tradition as a family, but I still enjoy the late service on my own.  There is something about singing "Silent Night" by candlelight.

As I sat in the late service tonight, I couldn't help but compare the services I participated in today.  Two of them were at the church at which I am a member--heavily attended, songs projected on the wall, lights, worship band, people raising hands as we sang, light shining from real candles (btw, with 200-300 candles, there really was no need for house lights!).  The third service was held at a more traditional, denominational church--fewer people, songs from a hymnal or printed sheet, liturgy, piano music, and light from battery powered candles. 

While there were obvious differences between the services, there were also many similarities--Christmas greetings, familiar faces, families worshipping together.  The most important similarity was this:  people gathering corporately to celebrate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, God coming in the form of man for one purpose:  to redeem mankind from a life of sin so that we may live eternally.  I was reminded tonight that it doesn't matter where or how we worship.  What matters is that we worship the Living God, Creator and Sustainer of life, Who sent His Son to save us.  This Son Who had to live a perfect life as a man, had to come in the form of a man.  He had to be tempted and tested and tried.  He had to die a suffering death as a living sacrifice so that we may be redeemed.

I'll close with Paul's thoughts on Christ from Philippians 2:5-11 (ESV):
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess tht Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.