PASTOR’S PONDERINGS

January. The thought of January always brings the new year to mind, which always reminds me of the end of the Christmas vacation and season. Somehow, at least in some cases, January, perhaps mostly its early days, just gets caught up and overlooked in the Christmas rush.
That’s how it was for my father. His birthday is January 5th. He told me that growing up his birthday was overlooked because it always came so close to Christmas. He never even got a birthday present – it was just assumed that one of his Christmas presents doubled as a birthday present.
For some of us, that’s a very sad and pitiful thought. For others it’s a terrible reminder that they, too, felt overlooked for one reason or another while growing up. But there’s something about being overlooked at Christmastime that suggests something else to me. For all of us it should be a reminder of John the Baptist, who was at least tempted to feel overlooked when Jesus arrived on the scene – not at Christmas, but at the start of His ministry.
We read about that in John 3. John’s disciples—there’s a lesson here about the temptations that come to us from those closest to us, but that’s for another time—came to him and suggested that there was something amiss in the fact that everyone was leaving John for Jesus. Jesus was becoming more popular than John. In short, John was being overlooked because of Jesus. John’s response was classic, inspired, and grace-enabled, and should be ours: “He must become greater; I must become less.”
Wow! I should be willing to be overlooked for Jesus’s sake?! Yes! And I should be willing to be overlooked for the sake of those Jesus wants to raise up for His glory, as well. By God’s grace, yes!
When I was growing up, we tried to make up for Dad’s childhood by making efforts to make his birthday special, and we make certain that he always has a birthday present every year from us—on his birthday, not under the tree at Christmas. He will not be overlooked in our family.
But I believe he would gladly be overlooked every Christmastime, every January, for the sake of the One Whose birth Christmas celebrates. And I believe he would gladly be overlooked every day for His sake as well. It might be a stretch, but I believe that Dad has even learned over the years to accept being overlooked for the sake of those Jesus has chosen to raise up for His glory, and that have caused Dad perhaps to be overlooked.
What about you? Been overlooked lately? Got your nose bent out of shape over it? Or have you, like John, and perhaps my Dad and January, learned to say, “He must become greater; I must become less.” You think about that.
– Pastor Jim