2020- Um, Bleh?

We’ve spent this year noticing a LOT more.

There’s been a pandemic and we all had to stay home for a while. The normal noise, noise, noise noise!! (as the Grinch calls it) was cut out. No one had band/cheer/sports/dance/choir practice. Your car’s gas tank didn’t need refilled weekly. You learned puzzles can be fun sometimes. You watched WAY too much TV (looking at myself here early on :P). And in the stillness, you started noticing what’s going on in the world.

People dying in the streets. Injustice happening all over. Congress bickering over money and bailouts and protections and… it goes on. There’s so MUCH going on in the world we were too busy to read about or, sometimes, care about before 2020.

But we as Christians know, God is good. We as Christians know He only plans for our good, even if the world brings such bad into our lives. In this holy season, St. Augustine of Hippo had this to say about our Savior whose birth we celebrate this week:

Let the just rejoice, for their Justifier is born.

Let the sick and infirm rejoice, for their Saviour is born.

Let the captives rejoice, for their Redeemer is born.

Let slaves rejoice, for their Master is born.

Let free men rejoice, for their Liberator is born.

Let All Christians rejoice, for Jesus Christ is born.

As all the noise we ignored for so long crept into social consciousness, we realized our need for a Justifier, a Savior, a Redeemer, a Liberator. We need Jesus. Especially children need this faith right now. Especially children need to know this truth. And the best way to show local children, local adults, and the world what Jesus can do is telling them about Him! This has been a “test pilot” year for all the programs we can successfully and effectively run in the spring. We can do virtual. We can do safe in-person. We can DO THIS together.

In 2021, let’s renew our faith. Let’s use this bleh year as the kindling to grow our faith into a flame that cannot be blown out. Let’s PROCLAIM the name of He who said in His most dire hour, “But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Take a breath. Let the stress and turmoil of 2020 fade for the next 2 weeks.

And in 2021? Let’s fan a flame for the Gospel together.