Christmas in August

Well, the original idea of this blog was to post on Wednesday, but I'm full of enthusiasm right now, so I figured I'd do my inaugural blog on a Monday. I guess it will make up for the umpteen billion times that I post late in the future.

Do you ever have one of those moments where you just have to hear a particular song? I had one of those thoughts the other day. I was taking a lunch delivery last week and I just had to hear a particular song. I just had to hear Casting Crowns While You Were Sleeping. A Christmas song in August, that was interesting. Luckily for me, I just happen to keep Casting Crown's Peace On Earth CD in my car at all times, so I would get to hear the song at the exact time that I wanted to hear it. 

For those that don't know, the song starts off by stating that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, an event of such significance and was anticipated for ages. The "King has left his throne" to be "born among the animals, wrapped in dirty rags because there was no room for him in the world he came to save." And they missed it. Kind of a little jab, I thought, to the people of Bethlehem who just weren't paying attention, they were sleeping. Bethlehem went down in history as a "city with no room for it's King."

As Casting Crowns sometimes does, they call attention to what Christians are lacking today. They shift the attention from the Then and There to the Here and Now. Mark Hall starts singing about the United States of America of today and how we're "sung to sleep by philosophies that save the trees and kill the children." He sings of the future, possibly tonight while we are "sleeping", when Christ comes again. He asks in the refrain:

America what will we miss while we are sleeping?

Will Jesus come again, and leave us slumbering where we lay?

America, will we go down in history, as a nation with no room, for it's King?

Pondering this song, and the endless string of unlikely coincidences that led me to listen to a Christmas song at the beginning of August, I started thinking about my preparedness for the second coming. I believe I fall into a trap that most Christians fall into. A great deal of us think about the second coming from the time periods of the day after Thanksgiving to New Years day, and then the two weeks leading up to Easter. Even in this time period, a lot of people are not even focusing on God, but on shopping, evergreen trees, lines at the stores, and hard-boiled eggs. Never the less, outside these times, some of us focus on the fact that Christ is coming again even less. I guess it is a good thing that song just happened to pop into my head at a time when I could actually hear it. It gave me a little boost that I needed to keep me focused on what is really important. I will end this little blog with this: 

Christ has died

Christ is risen

Christ will come again

Will you be ready for when He does? Or will you be like the Bethlehem that Casting Crowns sings about, and be sleeping?

Amen