But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law. Galatians 4:4 ESV
I have been so longing for Christmas!
It has been a year of change. And change - even "good" change - produces stress. Or at least that's what I learned in a psychology class many years ago. And it is what life has confirmed.
So as a lot of things in my life have been changing this year - good, bad, and indifferent - I have looked forward to all of the holidays with a different kind of longing. Something about the constancy of Christmas itself just feeds my need for stability and familiarity. And so, my playing of Christmas music and watching of Christmas movies commenced a bit early this year.
I am so, so blessed. But I am not on any level "living the dream." It's not that anything in my life is bad. It's just not anything like what I thought my life would look like at this juncture in history.
Maybe you can relate.
I'm just living my life. I like my job well enough. I'm happy in my church. My marriage is solid. My children and grandchildren are happy and healthy. My dog seems appreciative when I feed her.
But life just feels... different.
Out here in west Texas (or the wilderness, as I like to call it), the wind blows. A lot! The wind has blown our grill across the drive more than once, and it completely flipped the neighbor's grill last week. It rocks my little house on wheels, sometimes to the point that I wonder if we're just going to topple over one day. It is an unsteady feeling that has become a bit of a metaphor for my life.
There just seems to be so much uncertainty in life and in the world around me. And it seems like the Lord just doesn't show up in the ways that I hope and expect.
And isn't that EXACTLY what Christmas reminds us?
God came down to earth in a most unexpected way. It should not have been unexpected, as it had been prophesied centuries earlier, but it did not happen in the way the Jewish people had hoped. When the Jews were looking for a powerful King who would rescue them from Roman oppression, God sent a helpless baby to a poor young couple at the most inconvenient time and place imaginable.
Every Nativity set I've ever seen is so neat and tidy! Everyone is neatly dressed in clean clothes. They're all smiling and serene in this clean little barn with all of those quiet, well-behaved animals. The hay is clean and soft. It's just so peaceful!
But as I'm thinking about that first Christmas, I have a feeling that it looked nothing like my nice porcelain manger scene.
For starters, a baby had just been born. There is nothing neat and tidy about childbirth! Without getting too graphic on the specifics, I can't imagine that anything in the barn was very clean to start with. But after a woman just gave birth there, I'm sure it was even less clean. And Joseph and Mary's clothing? Probably not very clean before the birth since they'd just traveled a long way on dirt roads, and they probably hadn't bathed for quite some time. But those clothes could not possibly have been clean after the birth...
A more realistic scene at the Nativity would probably be of a messy and exhausted young couple holding a messy baby in a messy barn where there might have been some messy animals (or at least some messy evidence that they'd been there). Some messy shepherds found their way on dirty feet through messy fields and dirt paths to come see the messy family in the messy barn. And all this happened at a messy time in history.
But right in the middle of the mess lay our Redemption.
So, if your house is looking a little messy this Christmas season, and if life is not going exactly the way you had dreamed that it would, perhaps that is exactly what you need to celebrate. Neat and tidy may be what we long for, but it all starts with a mess.
And perhaps the constancy I'm seeking in this season is really just this simple reminder that God moves in unexpected and often inconvenient and uncomfortable ways.
Messy Christmas to you all!
...Just a thought...
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