This article is right on! Everything has gotten so worldly in recent years that is appears that attending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services has taken a back seat to all of the family gatherings and secular celebrations. What must our Lord think of all of this? God sent his Only Begotten Son on Christmas, and what does He get in return? We turn out the lights and close the church doors at Christmas. If Jesus hadn't been born and lived out the perfect fulfillment of the Law and died and rose again, we would all be doomed to eternal death and damnation. Can't we at least muster the enthusiasm to go attend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services and be "Joyfully" Lutheran and celebrate our Savior's Birth? What better thing could we be doing with our families on Christmas! There will be plenty of time for family time after we have attended church services. Better yet, get your entire family together and take them to church. As scripture tells us, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you."

The whole Advent season is spent anticipating Christmas. The excitement is building each week as we look forward to the culmination of the Advent season in the joyous celebration awaiting us on Christmas Eve! Christmas Eve should be the highlight of the entire Advent season. We should pull out all the stops and join the Heavenly chorus in singing our Christmas carols. How can we even think of not having or attending our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services. Since when do we "vote" on whether we will have Christmas Eve services in our church? This is an insult to our Lord and what He has done for us. It makes me very sad when I see this happening in so many churches. What's next? And the real concern comes when we see that once a service gets "cancelled", it usually never gets "uncancelled". This has happened to Thanksgiving Day services, and now we're starting on Christmas Eve services. The trend takes over and continues on year after year. That's the scary part of all of this. This apathy is getting more and more widespread, and no one even seems to care. We think nothing of sitting out in the blinding snow to attend a ballgame, but can't seem to gather the energy to go down the block to sit in a warm church on Christmas Eve.

We are a continual witness to the unchurched. They do take note of when our churches are closed on Christmas. It looks like other things are more important than celebrating our Lord's birth when the churches are closed and sitting in the dark on Christmas Eve. No Lutheran church should be in the dark on Christmas Eve. That's the time when we could have a full house and even bring in those who would not normally attend. We are losing a good opportunity for outreach and evangelism when we don't hold these services. It's high time we take a good long look at the road we are heading down and reverse this trend before it's too late.

I wish you all a blessed, Christ-filled Merry Christmas. Glory to God in the Highest!