Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 11, Number 5, DeMotte, Jasper County, 19 December 1940 — THE PASTOR'S COLUMN [ARTICLE]

THE PASTOR'S COLUMN

by Rev. Geo. Gotsch, Pastor of the St. John’s Lutheran Church of Union Township

Sunday is the fourth, the last Sunday in Advent, preparatory for Christmas. What preparations are made everywhere and by everybody! It is a festival of fellowship. On that day you seek the fellowship of your loved ones as on no other day of the year. How dreary Christmas is for one wiho must spend it in loneliness! Even the sick and the sorrowing can find glimpses of joy on Christmas when they are surrounded by their loved ones. Yes,. Christmas is a festival of fellowship. However, the true Christmas celebration consists in the Christmas fellowship of believers, the fellowship of those wfio have faith in the Christchild which came to earth lying in a manger in Bethlehem to become our Savior and Redeemer. 'What would you think, if someone would hand you a goodly sized package, very neatly wrapped with fine tissue and tied with a pretty ribbon, but when you untied and unwrapped it with eager expectation, you would find it quite empty? The hoped for gift is not there! Hollow mockery! How about them that celebrate Christma s without the real Chrismas present, Christ, the Lord, the Savior of the world? The whole celebration, beautiful as it was in itself, is but a hollow mockery, if it is not conducted in the spirit of fellowship of believers. When the glitter and glamor is gone, the empty shell, beautiful as it was, is gone, and such celebrants have not received the matchless prize, the Savior and His salvation. Let us, therefore, celebrate Christmas in the spirit of fellowship of believers. Yes, let us celebrate in beautifully decorated homes and churches and with the exchange of gifts; but let our real Christmas joy be centered in the gift of our heavenly Father, the Christchild in Wthlehcm. Our text for Sunday will be found in 1 John 1 :l-4, and we will meditate on Christmas fellowship of believers.