On Sunday we were talking about Advent - the season of making room in our lives for Jesus. I couldn't help laughing - I mean, we are a church which is not having a service on Christmas Day! How can we talk about making room for God and making God a priority without even putting aside one day for Him? As Dean pointed out, it is rather like churches closing for everyone to have Easter holidays. I can't help thinking it is a sign of our times that going to the beach is more important than thinking about Jesus' incarnation.
The argument has certainly been made (sometimes by me) that we are not bound by legalism to be there every time the church doors are open, and this is certainly true. It is also true that we are not bound by the law to celebrate Jesus on any particular day, and that we should be grateful to Him every day. Even so, I think not to even have the option of gathering with other Christians on what is usually considered the second-biggest day of the Christian calendar (after Easter), well what is the church for?
If the church is not to gather and worship and encourage one another and re-tell the stories of our faith - why have a church at all? What are we doing if we do not celebrate Christ's coming into our world, which is after all the very day which made Easter possible?
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