I am not going to re-post the video here, but if you hang in Christendom like me, you probably get an email with this very heartfelt song each year in recent history.  Maybe you have been tagged on Facebook or Youtube may have actually suggested this song/video to you.  I am not re-posting it because the singer is lovely and has a nice voice the part where she sings out about every knee one day bowing and every tongue confessing, with a children’s choir behind her, that Jesus Christ is Lord is kind of a chill-bump moment (and you know how we love those).  And she so very obviously feels the message of a “little boy at the mall” who, while all the other children are clamouring to see Santa Claus, wonders “Where’s the line to see Jesus?  It’s HIS birthday, after all”  Then disappears.

I am not re-posting it because I truly do not mean to disparage it.  It is obviously presented with an intent of provoking thought (which it has done for me, for sure), but after recieving it along with 80,000 other people on a FW:FW:FW:Fw:Fw:Subject: the Line to See Jesus list where a little hint of condemnation mixed with a little dose of shame-and-tsk-tsk over Christians merry-making or that we ever even go to a mall (which I truly do avoid at all costs), and then the ever-present dare to re-send to everyone in the ol’ addy book, I cringed a little.

You may or may not know that I CONSTANTLY pray that the Lord will not let my life cause stumbling to some one else, that my actions will not turn people off to Jesus, because nobody knows better than me how little I truly am {like Jesus}, how little I probably do deserve to be called a Christian (whatever that really means, anymore).  I am so trying to follow Him close enough that I can just reflect HIS glory.  Anything less is detrimental to His love and plan for the people in my life.  I need to pray this more, actually…

Oh we Christians are funny, aren’t we?

I just want us to be careful not to watch a video like this and just shake our heads and start condemning the world (and our peeps in the household of faith) for celebrating the Birth of Jesus in the only ways they know how.  For yes-they are celebrating His birth even when they don’t understand it.  Every twinkling light they hang, for instance, represents Jesus-the Light of the world.  He came and the darkness can never be the same!  They may not consciously realize it, but it is so.  Their hearts cry out for wholeness, too, my brothers and sisters!

Where is the line to see Jesus?

Check it out.  It is the bumper-to-bumper traffic you are forced to deal with on your daily commute.  It is the crowded bus full of anxiety-ridden, depressed and joyless people who invade your newspaper-reading territory and climb over you unceremoniously to get the window seat.  It is formed in the 15-items-or-less line at WalMart anytime this month, where every cart has at least 30 things or more and you better not say. one. word.  It is sitting next to you in class.  It is the challenging relative who attacks your faith and witness every year because they are really hoping you will prove them wrong about a God they feel somehow doesn’t see them. It is your toddler tugging your shirt when you have no time.  It is your spouse and who has been to hell and back with you.  Oh the line is there.  It’s everywhere.

Look over your shoulder, baby. The line to see Jesus is long and it is growing.  It forms right behind you.

Do they see Him?