SUPPOSE 2009 WAS THE LAST YEAR OF YOUR LIFE. How would you spend it? That’s a very good question, don’t you think? Apparently The Baltimore Sun thought so. Some time back they conducted a contest in which they offered a prize for the best answer to the question, “What would you do if you had one more year to live?” Mary Davis Reed submitted a poem which won the prize! I share it with you now as we are about to step across the threshold of a New Year.

“If I had one year to live;
One year to help, one year to give;
One year to love, one year to bless;
One year of better things to stress;
One year to sing, one year to smile;
To brighten earth a little while;
One year to sing my Maker’s praise;
One year to fill with work my days;
One year to strive for a reward
When I should stand before my Lord.

I think that I would spend each day,
In just the very self-same way
That I do now. For from afar
The call may come across the bar
At any time and I must be
Prepared to meet eternity.

So if I have a year to live,
Or just one day in which to give
A pleasant smile, a helping hand,
A mind that tries to understand
A fellow creature when in need;
‘Tis one with me—I take no heed.
But try to live each day He sends
To serve my gracious Master’s ends.”

Thank you Mary! Thank you for looking ahead so selflessly and for calling us to acts of service and kindness. You never can tell what opportunities for doing good will present themselves in the days ahead---like the young man who was a “bagger” at a grocery store. He was returning from the parking lot when he noticed a woman who was loading her groceries into her car. She placed one package on top of the car while she loaded the rest inside. But as she got in, started up her car and began to drive away, the young man saw that she had forgotten to retrieve the package she’d placed on the roof. Now he was closer to the car and he began to run after her. When she made a turn to exit the parking lot the package on the roof rolled off. Fortunately, the young man caught the package---a baby---just before it hit the pavement!

Expect opportunities to surface in the year ahead. Seize them when they do. Make it your aim to be a blessing to others and see what a wonderful, rewarding journey it will be.

CHRISTMAS WAS FIRST CELEBRATED IN THE YEAR 98, but it was 40 years later before it was officially adopted as a Christian festival. December 25 was not designated as the time to celebrate the birth of Christ until about the 5th century. Up to that time it had been irregularly observed at various times of the year, e.g., December, April, and May, but most frequently in January.

Clovis, the first Christian king of France, was baptized on Christmas Day, 496. The Pilgrim Fathers, who condemned all church festivals, spent their first Christmas in America working hard all day long amid cold and stormy weather, and commenced the building of the first house in Plymouth in 1620.

It is a significant fact that no great battles were fought on Christmas Day. They have occurred on the 24th and 26th of December, but the anniversary of the advent of Peace on Earth has ever been observed by a cessation of hostilities. Wouldn’t you think that if they could stop for one day, they could extend it indefinitely? Human beings are a strange lot indeed.

In history Christmas has been a very remarkable day. It was on Christmas Day that Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in the Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelie. On Christmas Day in the year 1066, William the Conqueror was crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey.

Back in the early 1700s, when the United States were the Colonies, the settlers in Williamsburg, capital of Colonia Virginia, celebrated Christmas with customs they had brought from England. There was no Santa Claus (a Dutch tradition), no Christmas trees (a German tradition), no nativity crèche (an Italian tradition), and no chimney stockings (an American tradition).

Christmas in Colonial Williamsburg was primarily a holy day, but the atmosphere was not necessarily solemn. Churches and homes were decorated with greens, while candles burned in all the windows to welcome carolers.

There was public celebration, too. Musicians played special concerts, and fireworks and cannon were exploded to heighten the general merriment. Feasting was in order with dishes of roasted fowl and hare, narrow pudding, ham, oysters, sausage, shellfish, often capped by whole roast boar on a platter. Some gifts were given then as a part of the Christmas celebration, but not nearly on the present-day scale.

21st Century folks have their Christmas traditions, too. I wonder what the historians will say about our time. Hopefully it won’t be a negative report of the secularization of the day. I’m just afraid that the Babe’s coming may be lost amidst the stresses and busyness of our culture. Perhaps we should return to Colonial Williamsburg.

ONE OF THE GREAT EVENTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY took place on July 20th, 1969, at exactly 4:17 P.M., EDT, when the Lunar Module “Eagle” landed on the surface of the moon. The Apollo 11 mission was the first manned mission to land on the moon. It was the 5th human spaceflight of Project Apollo and the 3rd human voyage to the moon.

The mission fulfilled President John F. Kennedy’s goal of reaching the moon by the end of the 1960s, which he expressed during a speech given before a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”

That goal was realized when at precisely 10:56 P.M., astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon. He was followed shortly by Buzz Aldrin. This was purported to be the most amazing achievement ever by mankind. And of course, Armstrong spoke his famous line "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

But let me tell you of another leap that was even more amazing. God walked on the earth. He visited this planet to bring deliverance and hope. He didn’t have to take a space ship. At precisely the right time, according to the Father’s timetable, the earth-walk was achieved. Remarkable as it was, Armstrong’s moon venture pales in comparison to what is absolutely the most amazing event ever—the incarnation—God taking on human form. That’s what we celebrate every December. And among His many astounding words were those that echo throughout time and eternity: “I have come to give you life, and that more abundantly” (John 10:10).

Swept along on the wave of worldwide elation over the lunar landing and their safe return to earth, President Nixon said, “This is the greatest week since the beginning of the world! Nothing has changed the world more than this mission.”

I heartily disagree. The greatest and most wondrous event in the world occurred when the angelic being announced long ago the hope-enkindling advent of the Savior: “I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born…a Savior.”