In a Peanuts cartoon Snoopy the dog is feeling great. He comes dancing into the first frame saying to himself: “Sometimes I love life so much I can’t express it!”
In the second frame he continues to dance: “I feel that I want to take the first person I meet into my arms and dance merrily through the streets.”
Then, in the third frame, he meets a very grumpy Lucy. Snoopy is silent.
In the fourth frame, he is dancing again: “I feel that I want to take the SECOND person I meet into my arms and dance merrily through the streets.”
When you think about the possibilities that God offers YOU through the Babe of Bethlehem……it makes YOU want to dance.
My Commentary:
This Peanuts cartoon makes us smile because it feels so true to life.
Snoopy bursts onto the scene overflowing with joy. His happiness is so full it demands expression. He wants to dance, to celebrate, to pull the first person he meets into the sheer delight of being alive. Joy, by its nature, wants to be shared.
Then comes Lucy.
One encounter with a sour spirit is enough to stop Snoopy in his tracks. He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t lecture. He simply adjusts his expectations. And moments later, he is dancing again — wiser now, but no less joyful. He will still share his happiness, just not with someone determined to drain it away.
There is a gentle wisdom here. Joy is a gift, but it is also fragile. Some people nurture it. Others extinguish it. Snoopy teaches us that we don’t have to surrender our joy just because someone else refuses to receive it.
When we think about the possibilities God offers us through the Babe of Bethlehem, the joy runs even deeper. God enters the world not with demands, but with a gift. Not with condemnation, but with hope. Not with noise, but with grace wrapped in swaddling clothes.
That kind of love stirs something within us. It makes us want to dance. It makes us want to share life, hope, and mercy with others.
And if the first person we meet can’t receive it, that’s okay.
Keep dancing.
There is always a second person — and always room — for the joy born in Bethlehem. Who is the Second Person who YOU can dance with today?
JESUS ENTERED TIME AT CHRISTMAS SO ETERNITY COULD ENTER THE HUMAN HEART!
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