Today is Sunday, It's Not Christmas yet

I love my dad.

Yesterday on Christmas which was on a Sunday this year, he and my mother, who are both preachers were worried folks would choose to stay home and open Christmas presents instead of attend worship.

So Dad reminded myself and my siblings that "today is Sunday" Meaning we could open all the frivolous commercial, material presents in that non-biodegradable paper after we treated the day like Sunday, the Lord's day, and went to worship.

How many of my neighbors and friends have such discipline from their father?  There was something powerful about before looking in the living room at all the goodies I would get, hearing Psalm 98, and singing Christmas carols, and realizing for the full hour that yes like the Grinch remided us: "Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more."

In fact it means a whole lot more than what we buy at the store. And if we forget that it is Sunday and the Lord's day then all we have at Christmas is toys and clothes and a pile of wrapping paper, and just these material things to put our joy in.  Don't let that happen.  It is Sunday. Let your joy reside in our God, and things greater than ourselves and our stuff. Joy to the World, the Lord is Come!

Psalm 98 (words that Joy to the World is based on)

1 Sing to the Lord a new song,
    for he has done marvelous things;
his right hand and his holy arm
    have worked salvation for him.
2 The Lord has made his salvation known
    and revealed his righteousness to the nations.
3 He has remembered his love
    and his faithfulness to Israel;
all the ends of the earth have seen
    the salvation of our God.
4 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth,
    burst into jubilant song with music;
5 make music to the Lord with the harp,
    with the harp and the sound of singing,
6 with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn—
    shout for joy before the Lord, the King.
7 Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
    the world, and all who live in it.
8 Let the rivers clap their hands,
    let the mountains sing together for joy;
9 let them sing before the Lord,
    for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
    and the peoples with equity.