Wake up, look up, it's Christmas morning . . .

And so it came to pass. In the middle of the hustle and bustle, the crowds and the business, the One for which they had been waiting and hoping and watching for centuries had been born. But almost nobody noticed.

After I poured a cup of coffee I settled in on the sofa and for a few seconds listened. The morning is quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and the patter of raindrops against the leaves that I never raked. I'm glad I didn't. It makes such a wonderful sound. Then the alert signal on my phone rang. I had to check it. It was an alert after all.

Best Buy wanted me to know that the prices on HDTV's had been slashed again, and I could shop online today.

The world is relentless with its noise.

But I still haven't turned off the alert on my phone. What if I miss something important?

Almost nobody noticed. But the shepherds noticed. And the Wise People noticed.

What was so different about them? Who knows?

But they were both looking up. Away from the earth. The shepherds saw the angels in the heavens. The Wise People followed the star.

To understand that this baby is worth noticing maybe it is necessary to know where He came from, who it is that sent Him. Maybe it is necessary to spend time looking up, searching the stars, listening for the voices from heaven instead of the alerts from the cell. Maybe it is necessary to look up from our computer screens (busted) and our smart phones. Maybe it is time to look up, away from ourselves.

Because even now, if we don't look up, it is easy to miss Him, though he chose to live and walk among us.

And that would really be a shame.

To miss something important.

Merry Christmas. And I hope things look up for us all next year.

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