To you is born this day in the city of David a savior, who is Christ, the Lord… (Luke 2:11)
Well, it’s almost over.
If your house is like mine, there is a sluggish satisfaction at the end of an eventful day. The living room and the dining room table both evidence the reality of abundance and generosity. Once again, we have wrapped ourselves in the familiar stories and traditions of Christmas.
Even our house of worship has the feeling of wearied fullness. When I left the sanctuary this morning, there were drips of candle wax in seldom-used pews and stacks upon stacks of bulletins waiting to be recycled.
We have embraced and encountered the mystery of incarnation – and, while we feel, somehow, closer to God and one another through that encounter, we still wonder what it all means…
Madeline L’Engle writes:
[My problem with Christmas] lies not in secularism, not in Santa Clauses with cotton beards, not in loudspeakers blatting out [inane] Christmas carols, not in shops full of people pushing and shouting and swearing at each other as they struggle to buy overpriced Christmas presents.
No, its not the secular world which presents me with problems at Christmas…it’s God.
Cribb’d, cabined, and confined within the contours of a human infant. The infinite defined by the finite? The Creator of all life thirsty and abandoned? Why would God do such a thing? (From “The Irrational Season,” Chapter 2)
And the answer, of course, is love.
Perhaps we will never grasp the what, or the how of Christmas. Those types of understandings are lost in the brightness of incarnation’s mystery.
But we can grasp the why. We know why God chose to enter the finite, human, real world in the person of Jesus Christ. It is because of love…the love of the Creator for the creation. The love of the Redeemer for those in need of grace. The love of the Sustainer for those charged with spreading this love to the whole world.
Merry Christmas!
Today’s Christmas reflection was written by Pen Peery, Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, Shreveport
