Lists.
Around Christmas, most of us have a lot of lists. Hang the wreath. Swag the garland. Pick up Sally's gift. Make and deliver Christmas cookies. Vacuum. We have to do lists, shoppings lists, Christmas gift lists, and every day lists. Some of us just love to check off those boxes and get through the lists, and then move one to the next one.
There is a list, though, that comes to my mind often during Christmas and it's a hard one for me to just check off. When I was a kid, we would work on this list as a family and as a church, and then when I became a pastor, I focused on this list in Advent, too. It's the 4 Sundays of Advent list, and its a whole different sort of list.
Hope.
Peace.
Joy.
Love.
What an amazing list. These are such short words, and yet they evoke in us something deep down for which we long. Our hearts are restless, longing for these to be checked off in our lives. They're hard ones, though, to check off and that's why we revisit them each year. We revisit them, realizing that their partial fulfillment in our lives has given us a taste of the goodness of God, and yet leaves us hungry and thirsty for more and to be satisfied fully.
As we move into this Sunday's focus on peace, another list came to my mind. It goes like this:
The fruit of the Spirit is...
love
joy
peace
forbearance
kindness
goodness
faithfulness
gentleness
self-control
In Galatians chapter 5, Paul articulates for us a vision of the kinds of things a person who knows the true Savior will begin to check off in their lives. This is not a shopping list, or a to do list, it is a character formation list. Paul shows us what it looks like when the Savior of the world who in the incarnation not only "moves into the neighborhood" (John 1, The Message), or into a stable, but takes up residence in our hearts. When Jesus is born in our hearts, we are reborn to a whole new way of living.
Christmas is not only a time to work on shopping lists and to do lists and grocery lists, more importantly it is a time to reflect on what the Savior is doing and has been doing in our lives. He is assembling hope, assembling peace, assembling joy, and assembling love in us and through us. It is my prayer today, that these lists would be increasingly true and evident in our lives this year as we find the Savior wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. And as you enter into worship this Sunday may you hear about how God is assembling hope, peace, love, and joy in your life and find your deep longings once again quickened and encouraged.
