Christmas
December 31, 2015

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 1:3-14

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. –Ephesians 1-6

I think of myself as rather a rare bird seeing the world differently than others. I suppose as unique human beings we all do. In high school and college, I worked as a waitress part of the time in a family-type restaurant well stationed on an interstate highway. The staff had the opportunity to people-watch a vast variety of humans in their various sizes, shapes, colors, and primarily dispositions. Once when we were swamped, a trucker called out to me at the counter saying that he just really needed a cup of coffee and a ticket and he would not bother me again. I poured the cup of coffee and quickly gave him the ticket and returned to the melee of the tables and booths. He left me a tip larger than the cost of the coffee. On a Sunday after church a wealthy family from the surrounding area came for Sunday dinner and filled the booth for eight that I had been assigned. I made numerous trips getting and filling their order, refilling drinks, and serving dessert. They left me with a table only a family with children could provide and a quarter for a tip.

The funny thing about that job was I took great pleasure for some reason in seeing the table set for service. It was always left in a mess of dirty dishes and dropped food on the floor and seat, but then returned to the table set for service. I guess cleaning up the mess gave me a sense of purpose and some semblance of control over the outcomes of what I was doing.

New Years is a similar opportunity to clear out the messes of the previous year and reset our tables for service in the new year. I never meet the test of being holy and blameless before [Christ] in love, but I so appreciate his forgiving grace and the new beginnings it spawns toward another year of learning how to love like him.

Prayer: Lord, forgive us this day our sins and refuel us for the work you have called us to do. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized 
Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council 
of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights 
reserved.