I thought I might do a little something, this year, that would help me focus on what this season is really about, and maybe it could help you, too. I’m going to take the story of Jesus’s birth, found in Luke 2, and go verse by verse, 1 through 24, to see what happens. Here we go…

 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. ~ Luke 2:16 NIV

When I was a girl, I was playing at a friend’s house down the street. The sky darkened and weather was a little iffy, as there was lightning coming into play. Before long a loud crack hit very close by, stunning us from our work, for although I can’t remember exactly what we were doing, I do remember being very involved in making something that was important to both my friend and me.

Moments later we heard sirens on our street, and before we knew it, another neighbor kid came tearing in to tell us they were at my house.

My house??

I dropped whatever was in my hands, leaving what had been so important to me only moments before on the ground like so much rubbish, and tore out of there. I ran as fast as I ever had in my life up the street to my house to be greeted by a crowd of neighbors and emergency personnel.

My house had been struck by lightning, causing a fire which was contained, popping nails through wallpaper, melting the backs of mirrors, and blowing every electrical appliance we had, but everything was okay. My people were safe, and my house still standing, and that’s all that was important to me in that moment, which I’m sure is why I can’t remember the nature of the pressing work on the floor down the street.

Those shepherds, who, moments before, were tending their life’s work, hurried off to see the Christ child of whom angels had just sung. They left with haste, some translations say, and not a one mentions anything about making arrangements for a sheep-sitter. No. They were so compelled that they left everything and ran.

It turns out they weren’t the only ones. Some thirty years later, there would be a band of fishermen who, when asked to follow Him, dropped their nets – the very source of their livelihoods – and hurried off after Christ. Later, there would be a woman at a well who, once realizing that Christ was able to know everything about her (and it wasn’t all that pretty), and still love her, dropped her water jar – a critical life source – and ran to tell her whole village about him.

So, I ask this: why aren’t we hurrying off? Why aren’t we dropping all the stuff we deem so terribly important, in a life that is like a vapor, to run to the Source of our eternity? One day, when we’re sitting in the His presence, we won’t even remember what was once so vital to us.

What are we waiting for, you and I?

Let’s drop everything and run.

As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him. ~ Matthew 4:18-20 NIV

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him. ~ John 4:28-30 NIV