Monday, December 3, 2018

A Christmas Observed

I'm listening to the Christmas songs of Hillsong Worship this morning.  My house doesn't have one sign that Christmas is a few weeks away.   Nor will it likely as Christmas approaches.  This makes me sad...but I just cannot go up and down the deck steps to the garage where the Christmas decorations are housed.  Nor can I go down and back up the 12 steps to our basement where I would store the house decorations until the Christmas ones are down and put away. 

I have a friend --who recently moved back to Indiana, where she grew up--and she came one year and decorated my house for Christmas and then came back after Christmas to put it all away.  And last year she brought me a small handmade tree because she knew of my need for one.  That now, is also downstairs and thus out of my reach.  And my friend too, is out of reach, far away in Indiana.  I don't know, I will ask my father maybe if he can find the wreath for the door in the garage.  And maybe he can locate the little tree downstairs.

There are a lot of things that being shut in that have to go by the wayside; like hitting the stores and finding the perfect gift for a friend or loved one.  Seeing the bustle of crowds and admiring the decorations and music. Or going to cookie swaps at church.  Or baking Christmas cookies, And cooking Christmas dinner.  And too, having marital struggles just adds one more heartbreak to the heap.

I guess it is time to strip away all those traditional Christmas sights and activities--the things that warm one's heart and make us wish for a cup of eggnog or spiced cider and sitting in front of the Christmas tree and feeling cozy and sentimental.  While that is very nice...it is not Christmas.  Christmas is a dark, smelly stable filled with a young woman's screams of pain, a rush of blood and ....there he is: our Savior.  It is the announcement of angels to the social rejects of the day: the shepherds out living in the fields with the flocks assigned to their care.  The celestial songs lit by stars and glowing heavenly beings.  And their compelled haste to find the babe as the angels had bid them.

Christmas is the God of Glory, who cannot be seen  by mortals lest they die from exposure to his Shekinah Glory, it is that God who voluntarily confined himself to a 7 lb mortal babe....one who was dependent on his mother for everything.  One who experienced hunger pains and gas pains, cold, sickness and fevers, and soiled his diapers. The One whose smiles and gurgles of glee prompted chuckles of love from his adoring parents.  This cannot be grasped by us.  We have no ability to grasp the enormity of the Immaculate conception and the incarnation of God to a mortal child.

Maybe it is good not to have Christmas parties to attend, or to be able to sing carols in Church, or to do  Christmas baking or to spend money at the stores and stand on long lines at the checkouts --or decorations in my house.  All of that is lovely and enjoyable...but its lack doesn't mean that Christmas is beyond my reach.  Maybe I have an advantage.  I can think a lot about the real miracle of Christmas.  Maybe my heart is more free to "Come and Adore Him" than it would be were I distracted by the trimmings.  And this year I am planning on delving more into the meaning of the
Advent of our Lord. 

Enjoy your families.  Enjoy the cookies and gifts.  But don't forget to spend some time pondering on the thing that is most important.  That our GOD quietly burst onto the scene of this sad planet, offering hope. Hope that promised a cross.  More spilled blood.  This time to fulfill the purpose of Christmas and to die to pay for your sin and mine.  That, friend, is the true meaning of Christmas.

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