Just say it

After making a transaction at Costco, the clerk wished me, "Have a great day."
I responded, "Merry Christmas!"

She looked at me for a moment, surrounded in the store by decorations, gifts, even holiday music playing in the background, as if it hadn't occurred to her the reason for this stampede of customers.

And suddenly, it was as if great joy suddenly emerged and entered the equation, "Why, thank you!  You too!" she said.

For a brief moment, it was about Christmas.

A few days ago in church, we sang, "Go tell it on the mountain, that Jesus Christ is born!"

And yet, we are negligent in saying anything at all.  Has our culture become so secularized --indeed have we-- that blessing others with even the words "Merry Christmas!" is out of the ordinary?  Are we that afraid of being different? Or are we that oblivious to bearing witness to Him, even in this season?

In our corporate worship, we come before God to confess what we have done and what we have left undone.  Even what we say can make a difference in someone's life.  More than we can know.  "What if...?" I had said something?

Does my life, my vocabulary, what I do and say --even my salutations --embrace and reveal the reality of what Christ has done in me?

And all the shepherds returned,
glorifying and praising God
for all they had heard and seen...

                     Luke 2. 20

God never intended for us
       to keep His glory for ourselves.
And that goes far beyond
             how we decorate,
  but seeping radically in how we love others,
           what we do,
      and even infiltrates what we say.