This Christmas season, the TCF Sunday school kids have been practicing a modern rendition of “Go Tell it on the Mountain” by Matt Maher. If you are in the service today (the day this is posted), you’ll even get to hear the kids sing out the chorus yourself. It’s always so fun to watch the cute chaos of a children’s nativity play, but we hope it is more than that for them, don’t we? 

In the lead-up to Christmas, there are always a lot of exciting things for children (and those young at heart). Who wouldn’t get excited about school holidays, lights and trees, plenty of chocolate, and the anticipation of presents under the tree? While none of these things are bad, we also want our kids to know what Christmas is actually about. A little play seems an insufficient way to teach them about the most momentous moment in history, a moment so cosmically beautiful it has changed the course of the world. Perhaps you think my language sounds exaggerated or a little over the top, but can language fully capture what we remember during the Christmas season? And if words fall short, how are we to pass it along to the next generation? 

Well, I don’t have an all-encompassing answer, but I know what my parents did. They showed me that Jesus was their King on Christmas and every other day of the year. When our kids see their parents and friends live their lives honestly seeking Jesus throughout the many different seasons of life, it says much more to them than the nativity play (as fun as it is). When we give thanks on the hard days, our kids see that. When we commit ourselves to a church community for its good more than for our good, our kids see that. When we share Jesus with those who don’t know him, our kids see that. When we are so captured by the fact that our God would come to live with us and walk down Calvary’s road for us, that we go tell it on the mountains…our kids will really see that. In our great desire for our children to know Christ, let’s remember that the best witness we can have to them and to anyone else is to simply follow Christ each and every day. And as we do that, tell everyone the great and joyful news of Immanuel, God with Us!