Just as we surround Christmas with tinsel and trees, lights and presents, food and friends, Christmas for many of us also means thoughts of people who aren’t here this year, people overseas, travelling, and those who have died. Our minds can be filled with gift ideas, financial worries, mortgage payments, have we enough food, what about the relatives we don’t get on with, and have we remembered a gift for everyone, OH and will they like it?!
Christmas can be very stressful. In all our hard work of trying to make Christmas special, and Christmas is a special time, we sometimes get overwhelmed by the things that surround Christmas, just as the manger did here a minute ago.
Think back to the first Christmas, Jesus wasn’t born in a palace, or a hospital with the latest facilities; he wasn’t born into a wealthy or well connected family, OK he was in the line of David, but so were lots of people.
Jesus was born to teenage girl, not yet married, Jesus was born in amongst the animals in the only shelter they could find; as an infant, his family left Israel for Egypt
This story of Christmas is amazing, and it doesn’t rely on the biggest turkey, a new hand stamped Christmas cloth, special clothes, or festive decorations. This story, is about God loving us so much, that God decided to come and live in all our human frailty. This story is about one sent into the world in peace who was condemned to death. This story is about a light sent to shine in the darkness, which the world snuffed out. This story is about God's never-ending, self-giving mercy which was rejected and condemned.
We can try and follow the advice on Better Homes and Gardens, and spend ages preparing special decorations and food; we can follow the advice of fashion columnists and decorate ourselves with special clothes and new make-up. We can find out the latest trends in gift giving. But will any of this make Christmas more special?
Christmas is special, that is why we make an effort to buy gifts and to share time with friends. These things don’t make Christmas special, we do them because Christmas is already special.
Christmas is special because God chose, and chooses, to be part of the life of ordinary people in amongst the ordinary stuff of life: birth and death, homelessness, hunger, feasting, working, part of family, all the ordinary stuff of life.
God still wants to come into our lives, into the messiness, the chaos that is life. And when God come into our lives, maybe we will stop striving for perfection, and accept that God loves us as we are, that God wants to have a relationship with us, that God came in Jesus – to save his people, and Immanuel – God with us.
Christmas is special, In Jesus we see how much we are loved by God.
I hope you have time today, time during this Christmas season to rest in the knowledge that God loves you and became human for you. Now that is something worth celebrating.
No comments:
Post a Comment