G.R.A.C.E. and Church on Christmas

I pray everyone is doing well out there.   This Christmas (yesterday actually) I was at church (yes our church met on Christmas, more on that later).  My pastor has been doing a series on the characters of the Christmas story, and it has been a very good series, and Sunday was centered on Jesus.  The part I want to mention is something some of you may have heard before, I know I have, but I wanted to write it down this time.  It is the acronym G.R.A.C.E.  God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense.  It was a great Christmas reminder that God gave up everything to come to Earth, be human, experience temptation, and then suffer and die on the cross for my sin.  And He did all that so that I could one day live and experience God’s wonderful riches in heaven.

Now about church on Christmas.  I heard a lot on the news last week about churches that were not going to meet on Sunday BECAUSE it was Christmas.  Something seemed REALLY wrong about that.  Christmas doesn’t fall on a Sunday very often, so why wouldn’t you want to go to church on Sunday (assuming that is your normal church day) and on Christmas?  I saw some interviews with pastors saying that they just didn’t expect people to come, because they would spend time with their family instead, or that they thought it was important for their congregation to spend time at home with their family.  I must disagree!  It sounds like these pastors are telling people that their personal family is more important than God’s family.  God is more important than anything here on earth, even our families.  Now, some of you may say, but you don’t usually go to church on Christmas, or even Christmas Eve, and that is true, but to CANCEL church when it normally occurs seems really stupid to me.  Oh well, it is past us now, and there is nothing one can do about it now.