Everybody loves Christmas. We celebrate the holiday in different ways, but everybody, believer or not, loves Christmas. We all love Christmas because we are all looking for the same thing. We are all looking for inner peace and a sense of community.
The Christmas carol, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” speaks to the universal appeal of the meaning of Christmas. A key line in the song is “cast out our sin and enter in.” We are lacking in peace and community because of our sin. We try to blame others for our struggles, but the fault is something in ourselves. Because of our sin, and the resultant distance from God, our lives and our world are less than they should be. Hence our longing.
Another key line in the song is “Be born in us today.” Jesus coming into our world, into our lives, being born in us, delivers us from sin. He brings us back to God. It is only through Jesus that we can find what everybody wants.
In our sermon this Sunday, we will talk about the song “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and see what it shows us about what we all want, “the hopes and fears of all the years.”