Twas the Sunday before Christmas and all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, except perhaps a mouse

The songs were sung by the choir with care,

In hopes that the blessing soon would be there

The children were settled while the young pastor read

With slight trepidation at what might lie ahead.

And Mamma with her coffee and I, an “ice cap”

Had just settled down for a long sermon’s nap

When up near the platform there arose such a clatter

I sprang to my feet to see what was the matter

A man on the edge of the pew just below

Had fallen asleep and what do you know

He fell on his face with the preacher still praying

Three deacons rushed forward with one of them saying,

“HalleLUjah, Amen, and Praise be to God!

They were so excited, but he was caught in his nod.

And business as usual prevailed in that place

So sad in the light of God’s amazing grace

I heard him explain as he walked out of sight

“That’s what happens Sunday morning, after a late Saturday night.”

— Karl Ingersoll

Business as usual prevails in our lives and our services when we come to the house of God with no great expectation to see anything that makes one Sunday different from another.

We lose hope in our lives and accept our lot as bad fortune, disappointment with God or disillusionment with the church.  I have to tell you today that pinning hope to circumstance is a recipe for sameness, cynicism, and bitterness.  I remember reading one time that cynicism is a “lazy man’s way of thinking” . . . I agree.  It takes the color out of life, . . . blurs it’s beauty.

I am pondering  “HOPE” on the Sunday before Christmas.  But you are going to have to look somewhere else today if you are to see it . . . to find it.  Somewhere other than the places that you have already scoured.

I have some ideas about where you may find “HOPE” . . . I am hoping that you are tired of trying to find something different in the same places and that God may bring something to you this morning that will change your heart.

Personally I am pinning my HOPE on the person of Jesus Christ, the Sovereign Son of  our Sovereign God.

Pastor Karl