Miracles! We long for them, pray for them, even try to see them where there may not be one. But we know miracles are real because of Christmas. I think of Christmas as the Miracle of Miracles: God, stooping down, becoming one
of us…not on a whim but out of love!
And when God stoops, God really knows how to stoop – not born a king or president…not a rich merchant or Lord of the manor…but born a humble birth…a peasant’s birth…maybe even lower than that…at least most peasants have a roof over their heads…as leaky as it might be.
I am struck by how the Good News of Jesus’ birth upended the lives of those who first heard it. Shepherds leaving their flocks (possibly at great peril to the animals they were supposed to protect) to go and witness the impossible; wise men leaving the observatory where they read the stars to go on a 2-year journey following a star unlike any they had ever seen; Mary and Joseph
becoming unexpected parents to a child unlike any ever born. Their lives were turned upside down. It has been said that the birth of Christ was God’s grand intrusion into this world. It definitely was for the characters in the Gospels.
Most folks, me included, don’t like intrusions. Maybe that is why we have
added so much to the celebration of Christmas. Maybe we want something
to distract us from the idea that in the birth of Jesus, God is saying, “I’ve got good news of great joy, but…” There is always a ‘but’ isn’t there? To be honest, I would rather deal with the incarnation in a big flourish of celebration than
to have to think what it means that God chose not only to intrude upon our world, but that God wants to intrude upon my life. I like a Christmas that doesn’t demand very much from me…well, except buying a few gifts and
preparing a few extra sermons. But I think God has other ideas. Well, that’s enough of all that kind of talk. I have some distractions to get back to.
Or who knows, I might end up hearing what God says after the “but” this year. But then again, maybe that won’t be a bad thing.
Merry Distraction…I mean Christmas!
Pastor Wilson