Boy is this good! This is in the new issue of the Virginia Lutheran, written by Pastor Gary Erdos of St. Mark, Yorktown.

"Coming Back To Church For Christmas"

Most of us seem to have a love/hate relationship with the time that leads up to Christmas. The lights, the decorations, the music, the festive mood of people in general, the food and parties as well as the gifts all work to put a smile on our faces.

But none of these things come for free, figuratively and literally. December is loaded with stresses and strains most of us choose to ignore if we cannot do away with them; there is the emotional draining, the physical exhaustion and the general draining of cash from our bank accounts that all leave us feeling pretty empty (except for the five pounds we gain from all the cookies we eat, leaving us feeling pretty snug in our pants!).

I don't know if you've noticed, but Christmas is not like the movies, books, songs and neighbors seem to make it out to be. The possibility for disappointment is great. The likelihood of exhaustion is almost total. Almost all of us vow to make changes in how we deal with Christmas and almost none of us do.

In church, we almost seem schizophrenic, which really means we reflect the world around us. We want to have religion in the holiday season, yet we want to celebrate all of the pagan rituals that go along with the season. Santa at the manger? Come on, now. Preachers will all tell you you're too materialistic, but we like our presents, too. And it feels like we all compete with the parish down the street to put on the best show.

In many ways, it seems ironic that we surround the celebration of the Nativity of our Lord with all of this. In some bizarre way, I think it proves we need him. We are all looking for salvation and happiness in a world we try to construct on our own terms. We think we can buy happiness and it always seems someone has more than we do and it makes us mad.

Happiness/Salvation is only one more gift /card/cookie/party away. We surround the gift of the presence of the Holy One with all of our own stuff, our own agendas, our own world. It's almost as if we're trying to say we really don't need him.

But, strangely, we keep coming back to church for Christmas. Even people who don't come any other time will come at Christmas. It is almost as if we hope something religious, something transcendent, something spiritual will happen to us. A friend gave me a quote from Harry Reasoner a few Christmases back that said, "So if a Christian is touched only once a year, the touching is still worth it, and maybe on some given Christmas, some quiet morning, the touch will take." Maybe that's what a lot of our holiday stuff is about-we're trying get touched.

I'll make a deal with you: I'll pray for you and your safe passage through the "holiday season" and that somehow Jesus will touch you in this time. Pray for me too, that I'll make it to the end, to Christmas day with you.