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Blog 504 – 12.24.2016

My Favorite Day Of The Year

My favorite day of the year is not Christmas but Christmas Eve. Well, it used to be. I have sworn off using the term “favorite” and instead I try to remember to say, “one of my favorites.” Some years ago I read a book called, “The Shack” which I highly recommend. In the book an unusual representation of God, has the habit of referring to everyone as “One of my favorites” and I liked that very much. So much in fact that I believe if God had really inspired the literal words of the Bible, as some think, that the verse labeled John 3:16 would probably read something more like: “For God so loved the world that He sent one of His favorite sons to remind all of the rest of us that we too, each and all of us, are also one of His favorites, eternally.”

Jesus was probably not born on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve. The holiday had been celebrated for many years as a feast to the god Saturn and when Christianity became the state religion of Rome that holiday was co-opted and the name changed to Christmas as Easter, formerly a pagan spring holiday, was taken over by the church in much the same way. Oh, and by the way for all you don’t say or write Xmas folks. X was an early and very legitimate abbreviation for Christ which is not Jesus last name but a title meaning “the annointed.” It was the Jewish custom to annoint important people on a special mission with oil in recognition much as loving mothers and fathers still anoint their babies with baby oil. I believe every baby is sent into this world on a mission from God. The one mission assigned to us all is: To figure out Who and Whose we truly are and as soon as we do to start reminding all of our brothers and sisters of Who and Whose they truly are too – One of His Favorites.

But back to why I love Christmas Eve, it is the culmination of the long anticipated holiday where we celebrate angel announcements of love, joy, and peace. With family and friends we gather and for just a little while we believe there ought to be peace on earth and with it love and joy in every heart. I heard Barry Manilow singing a lovely song about Christmas being for the children. We as all God’s children. And then there is Mel Torme’s lovely and popular,”Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..” a favorite Christmas song. I am glad these Jews boys had the spirit of Christmas, a holiday re-named after another Jew boy, Jesus himself.

I love Christmas Eve because it reminds us on every hand that God and Santa Claus have no favorites and neither should mommies and daddies or any of us but like the little crippled boy in Charles Dickens classic story we should pray, “God bless us everyone” not just me and mine. You tell ’em, Tiny Tim.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
One of His favorites too,
David White