With Christmas comes special family traditions. The Fishhook team reflects on their holiday traditions and how they see Jesus in each of them.
The holiday season is filled with family, friends, food and traditions. Though we all will share in celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas, we will all experience it a little bit differently. Your family looks different from mine and mine yours.
I was with my family in Michigan for Thanksgiving but Christmas will be spent with my husband’s family here in Indiana. Our holiday feasts look different from house to house and I’m sure the same rings true for you. When I joined my husband’s family, I had homemade noodles for the first time at a Christmas meal. It was different but delightful!
The same goes for family traditions … each are a bit different. My family has the tradition of cutting down a real Christmas tree as well as my husband and I grabbing takeout pizza after a long day of Christmas Eve services.
There is something rhythmic about the holidays and the traditions that come with them. Holiday traditions mark another passing year. With any tradition, it naturally evokes the act of remembering and looking back. It reminds us of previous years and the memories that come with them.
Maybe this year your Christmas traditions will stir up emotions like joy and excitement. Someone new is around your table and you couldn’t be more thankful. You look at your kids and feel so much pride for who they are becoming. The friendships you have this year are the type you longed for last year.
On the other hand, your Christmas traditions will stir up emotions like grief and longing. Last year you hoped that next year would be different, but 12 months later you find that things have not changed. It could mean that someone won’t be around your table who was there last year. Maybe you are even debating whether or not you still do some of your traditions because they feel too tender.
As I look at the Bible and the Christmas story, I wonder if they were more like us than we might realize. I think of Mary and Joseph and how every year on Jesus’ birthday they probably looked back on their night in the manger. They were probably so proud of who Jesus was becoming year after year. Yet, at some point, it became just Mary and Jesus. I wonder how many times Mary thought, ‘I wish Joseph was here to see Jesus doing ministry.’
I look at Zechariah and Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s parents, and how they longed for a child for so many years. I wonder what emotions they felt with every passing year as they waited and hoped.
I even wonder how the shepherds talked about that first Christmas night for years to come. It makes me curious to think about what each of these people knew about God through what they experienced.
Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll hear from several people on the Fishhook team as they share a Christmas tradition and how they see God through that tradition.
We pray that these devotions will point you to Jesus and all He has for you this Christmas season. Whether you are heading into the Christmas season with hopefulness or hopelessness, with joy or grief, with excitement or tenderness, we hope these devotions remind you that we serve a God who is with you in the midst of it all. He wants to show up for you during this season.
He is Emmanual, God with Us.
You can read more of our team's Christmas traditions on the blog.
