The amazing christian groundhog

This is your yearly Groundhog Reporter the Silent Preacher. This is the day. Actually, the whole week leading up to Groundhog Day has been predictable. Many are here waiting to see if the groundhog makes his appearance. The anticipation is mounting. I have seen the posts. I have read the reports. Every year it’s the same thing. I guess that is why it’s called Groundhog Day. Hmm, what does the groundhog do the remainder of the year? Just asking?

            You see, I feel that the regular groundhog is dumb. It’s not rocket science. He wakes up early if it’s going to be an early spring. It’s not an early spring because he did or did not see his shadow. It’s the life of a groundhog. Now I am here today reporting on a different groundhog. You must have been scratching your head because Groundhog Day is Feb 2, not March 30. You see, I am here waiting for the predictable Christian groundhog. This animal is special because it shows its head twice a year: at Easter and Christmas.

            The original groundhog is unpredictable. Who knows if he or she will appear. The Christian one is very predictable. Although Easter moves around, the Christian pokes their head out of the ground to see their shadow. They want to be noticed. The rest of the year, besides Christmas, they stay huddled up in their church hog holes. Occasionally they let out a cute religious post or scripture, but you will never see them. Sometimes I even forget they exist. I wonder why that is?

            Seriously, I struggle with Easter and Christmas. Christians post wonderful saying and are so excited for something that happened over 2000 years ago. It’s not that it’s unimportant. Yet, in both instances we don’t know when Jesus was born or when he died. Yet, we make it an event. The Christian groundhog bugs me to no end. We never, and I mean never, see them being Christian groundhogs. That is reserved for twice a year on days that are not real.

            What does God have to say? In Numbers 21 Moses made a serpent staff. Anyone who was bitten could look upon it and live. Ironically, hundreds of years later the people had kept the staff and were worshiping it instead of God in 2 Kings 18. I totally believe that is what the Christian groundhog is doing. I Acts 1 some men saw Jesus go into the heavens. The Angels asked them why they look to the sky? The focus should be on the hear and now. Jesus resides within more than above. The Christian Groundhog loves its own shadow.

            Here is my beef. It’s nuts the amount of posts we see around Easter and Christmas. Yet, the other 340 days or so we never see the Christian groundhog. They are gathered in their church holes being entertained not trained. They sing, talk about lunch, and how the week was going. Rarely are they hosting events for the poor, making prison runs, or giving out food to the food banks. The shoe box thing is a fun thing to do with the kids once a year at Christmas. Who sends help the other 364 days a year. To be fair, it’s not totally that way. Oh, but I’m sadly very close to the bone now.

            I had an event for a few years ago that served the community one day a year. One Elder in a church said Christian living is more than one day. So, they canceled it. Did they do more? Oh no, Christian groundhogs were more annoyed they had to go out on another day besides Christmas and Easter. We invite people into our hole. We don’t go to theirs. We send missionaries, we send money, we pray (with distance), and we sing and worship the church. Yet, we rarely show our faces except the 500 posts twice a year.

            This is it. If I said that church never promotes Bible teaching, reading, and training the Christian groundhog would go nuts. That’s blasphemous, of course we do. Really? If you held people accountable to reading the Bible your attendance would drop. If we pushed the word on them the hog pack would dwindle. Instead we worship people meeting in groups playing groundhog games. We worship singing. We tell more stories than Bible verses in sermons to keep people happy. It’s about entertainment to the Christian groundhog.

            The rest of the year is dead silent. We serve across the water. Our missionary money out strips anything we give to our local community 10 to 1. My Local food bank receives about 5000 dollars from all the churches combined in a year. I know individual non-Christians that gave more. One shoe box a year? Oh, spend church going out and serving the poor. Oh, that won’t do. The serpent pole is inside the hog hole. Breaking news!!!! It’s Easter and the Christian groundhog saw his own shadow again!!!! Sweet!!!!

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