Christmas: With Fear and Intrepidation!?

It has been two millennial since the first Christmas...and yet the REAL story, and meaning behind it, hasn't changed.  That is why each year my blood pressure goes up just a little when I start considering Christmas themed preaching. I mean how much can continue to be said about it after 2,000 years before it all starts sounding the same? 

Unfortunately, some find this challenge to be too much, and they often "give in" to contrived consumer driven themes and messages or they simply whittle Christmas into a single message on the Sunday closest to Christmas.  I DO NOT believe that the message of Christmas can be contained in a single message--the scope of the narrative is far too broad and diverse to deliver in a single dose...it is a little more like an antibiotic that you need to take for awhile and let it run through your system! To that end four "fresh" Christmas ideas each year can be taxing (the longer you are in the preaching ministry the more difficult it becomes!) Resources abound, and often there are creative people all around you that can help if you would only seek them out and allow them to help.

So here I sit...four Sunday's until "Christmas" Sunday with my bible, a white board, a marker, and the Internet...now what?

Don't be confused...I have been praying, studying, and preparing messages for weeks (but right now they all amount to a handful of notes, and another white board full of ideas)--it now has to be some coalesced into the "Christmas Magic" of the Word made Flesh (maybe an eggnog shake would help to "make the season bright"---sorry my mind wondered!!).

Here are some resources that I start reading in the Fall to help me prepare for this moment, I don't read everyone EACH year (though some are perennial favorites that I chose to read no matter what):

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
God With Us: The Miracle of Christmas by John MacArthur
The Case for Christmas by Lee Strobel
Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Christmas: the Festival of Incarnation by Donald Heinz

New this Year (at least to me):
Come Let Us Adore Him: Stories Behind the Most Cherished Christmas Hymns by Robert Morgan.
The Christ of Christmas: Readings for Advent by Calvin Miller

Each year I combine these readings with what I am studying and reading in the Word different ideas and concepts "come home to roost" in my often cluttered and confused brain.  Though I LOVE the simplicity of the Christmas story just because it is an old, and well rehearsed story, doesn't mean that it should be boring. If the God of the bible is present "yesterday, today, and forevermore" than the "good news for all peoples" is that Emmanuel came, but is still present, by the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  The cradle could not contain him, the cross could not hold him, the grave could not keep him, and soon ALL will see that the child of Christmas is a King for eternity.

I hope, and pray, that these words of mine are filled with Him as together with other believers each Sunday this month we are faced anew with the startling prospect of God's love for us...and abiding agape love is just a little bit scary!

I believe help my unbelief.