“Thus far, this Christmas season is much better than what has transpired the last couple of years. ”
Ok, I admit it, I'm a sucker for the sparkle and spangle of Christmas. I realize that it's bright and brash. I know it's superficial and artificial and a symbol of commercialism gone mad, but whoever said I have good taste? Perhaps I equate the bulbs and bobbles with the innocence and magic of childhood. Who knows.
Still, I realize that much of the stuff I feel about Christmas comes from alternating layers of memory and desire. It's like the season has a kind of emotional ether that's hard to escape. I guess my thoughts at this time of year become a lot more emotive then rational.
Thus far, this Christmas season is much better than what has transpired the last couple of years. The weather has been cold enough — even if we haven't accumulated any snow yet. I've been playing Christmas music endlessly for the last couple of weeks. In particular, Steve Bell's, "The Feast" has struck a cord with me. His sweet voice, elegant guitar style, and gentle spirit seem to be the perfect holiday backdrop. If you can find it, pick it up!
I've also been doing a lot of walking. I wish you could've spied some of the skies I've seen the past few weeks. They've been bold and black and greenish gray and brown with large billows of bravado. Yet, the brooding darkness has been interspersed with a hint of blue and a few rays of sunlight mixed in a way that only a winter sky can achieve. To add icing to the cake, these skies have often been accompanied by just a hint of flurry activity and a bracing winter wind that hurts the face enough to remind me that I am a Canadian.
With these walks always comes a time of prayer. Lately I've been enjoying a hunger for heavenly fellowship. This obviously is the key to making Christmas meaningful. I mean, if God cared enough about relating to us that he decided to leave His celestial threads behind and don Galilean Huggies, I figure there is nothing more Christmasy then spending time with Him, right? Overall, I am at peace, and that's a good feeling to have during the usual Christmas frenzy.
Still, there is something gnawing at my soul. I am on a quest of sorts. As much as I enjoy the trappings of some (not all) the traditions of Christmas, I feel the need to peel away these man-made layers in order to dig down to the basic message of Christmas in its natural state. I want the raw. I want the human. I want the stench of the stable and the fatigue of a carpenter father. I want the fear of the virgin bride who was with child. I want to remove the saintly glows from the painted portraits and return to the sweat and the heartbeats and the bottomline brass tack.
What is the stripped down message of Christmas? It's simply this: God wants to take up residence in you and birth a miracle of salvation and re-creation. He wants to do it regardless of your past. He wants to do it regardless of your achievements. He wants to do it regardless of your age, or your fears, or your failures. He wants to merge the imperfection of your human flesh with the perfection of His divine holiness, so that you can give birth to the life you were intended to have.
You see, what happened to Mary that first Christmas is a prototype of what God wants to happen to you. Mary was young and inexperienced. She was from a despised part of her world. Her life and her future would have been uneventful and average If God hadn't come knockin'. Don't get me wrong, I am sure that Mary was a sweet girl, with a good heart, but if you look at God's track record and who He consistently chooses to use, you'd have to say that Mary, like Moses, or David, or Gideon, or Peter, or Timothy, most likely wouldn't have been our first pick.
But that's exactly my point. Poor, average, blend-into-the-background Mary, imperfect, human Mary, became impregnated by the Holy Spirit, and gave birth to Jesus — the miracle of salvation. So rather than put Mary on a pedestal and distance her from our experience, what we need to do is see Mary as she really was, one of us. Why? Because if we see Mary as one of us, then perhaps, maybe, just maybe, we can also see the possibility of God wanting to take up residence in our beings and impregnate us with the hope of salvation and the miracle of relationship.
The question I leave with you to ponder this Christmas is: What does God want to birth in your life? It's something to think about, isn't it?