Relationships reveal our Christmas spirit

"The Life was revealed, and we saw and are testifying to and declare to you the Life, the eternal Life Who already existed with the Father and Who was made visible to us. What we have seen and heard, we are also telling you so that you too may realize and enjoy fellowship as partners and partakers with us. And this fellowship that we have is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ (the Messiah)." 1 John 1:2,3

I'm a pretty decent person while I'm sitting on the couch, reading my Bible, praying and just hanging out with God. It's the hanging out with people that hangs me out to dry.

God is good all the time, but I'm not. Sometimes I send Christmas cards late, forget birthdays and saying thank you, and use my tongue to cut when it should patch. In the area of relationships, I get too lazy, too busy, too sloppy, spread too thin, or too self-focused. I managed to call far-away family members at Thanksgiving, but sorry, friends, I just didn't get around to you. And the last time we were supposed to bring a covered dish for lunch at work, I forgot and just brought an appetite.

If I could cut people out of my life, I'd probably sin less. I know I'd look and sound more like God if I never stood in a check-out line or spoke to a telephone solicitor again. Eliminate people and I could get downright godly.

But Jesus didn't do that. Although he often got off alone at night to pray, he filled his days with people -- often desperate, needy folks, the kind that wear out the rest of us. He even put up pretty graciously with jealous, judgmental, hateful people until it was time to tell them where the cow ate the cabbage.

Jesus also kept a dozen guys around 24/7 who could be downright bossy, dense and obnoxious. He prayed for them, taught, challenged, protected, forgave and revealed God to them. As he stretched their thinking and their love, he taught them to stretch out their arms to others. You know, the same stuff we're supposed to be doing. He loved his closest friends, and he loved the crowds. He taught, healed, filled with hope, fed, and sent people home different from how they came É stuff we're supposed to do.

Jesus, the Christ of Christmas, is also the Christ of the cross. The cross is the vertical plumb line dropped from heaven to focus our eyes upward and give us divine relationship, a straight line to God that squares us up with him. It's also a crosspiece where Jesus stretched out his arms to encompass all of us and that points us toward our fellow man.

It's on the crosspiece that we get hung up and tested as we struggle to embrace others. We either show the unconditional love of Christ in our relationships or we live self-centered, self-glorifying, self-pitying, self-indulging and selfish lives.

"Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. It is not conceited; it is not rude and does not act unbecomingly. Love does not insist on its own rights or its own way for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it. It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything. Love never fails." 1 Cor. 13:4-8 amp

Jesus is the Christ and he is Christmas.

He is God. He is love, the foundation for fellowship and right relationships. He's our Christmas spirit.

June Seabaugh is a member of Christ Church of the Heartland in Cape Girardeau.