Today I happened to glance at the “Top Searches” listed on Yahoo! Online. They were, in order:
1. Gisele Bundchen
2. Kate Beckinsale
3. Rosario Dawson
4. Angie Harmon
5. 2009 Audi A4
6. Duggar Family
7. Laptop Computers
8. College Bowl Tickets
9. Detox Diet
10. Electric Socks
Such an eclectic mix of desires! Superstars, Flashy Cars, Lightning-Speed Laptops, Roaring Crowds, Re-shaped Waistlines, and Warm Toes. A virtual mass mishmash of interests. Such is our modern information-rich world, where everything is literally at your fingertips. But something very striking lept out at me – a little bit of “wisdom lost in information”, as T.S. Eliot once put it. There was no searching for Christ. Interest in Him didn’t make the top 10.
Two thousand years ago, God came to visit us in the flesh, not as a flashy king peeling out in his Audi A4, but as an inconspicuous baby lying in a livestock stable, ignored by most of the mad-rush popular world. Only a few shepherds and some wise men took notice. Hidden in that little one wrapped in swaddling clothes was the answer the world sought – the peace that calms hectic hearts and the promise of eternal life that fills the “hole in the soul”. Yet there were too many people staying in the inn for the innkeeper to even notice Him or offer Him a room.
What will you notice this season? Will you take a few moments of time to search for peace and the gift of eternal life God that offers to you? Or will you quickly scurry past the manger on your way to searching for electric socks? I hope you choose the warmth of God’s Love today. May God bless you this season with the peace that the Christ child offers, and Merry Christmas.
- Mickey Badalamenti