freeze!put down the glue gun and step away from baby Jesus!
don't get me wrong...i'm right there with ya...riffling through half price christmas decorations ...imagining each and every one perfectly placed on the hearth. [ok so i don't have a hearth but you get the idea]
and i certainly can't deny an ever growing collection of nativities that make their way out of boxes each december to 'put the Christ back in christmas'...
who doesn't love this time of year?
...we're wrapped up all warm and cozy...sipping hot cocoa by the warm glow of a lighted tree...listening to the songs we've sung for decades...ahh the quintessential christmas moment...
do i soak it in as much as the next girl?...definitely.
and yet i'm pretty sure it encompasses nothing of the mood surrounding my Savior's birth...or the one pervading our lives as His followers.
what is with our desperate need to smooth out all the rough edges and make everything about our faith a little easier to swallow?
i mean let's get real...
let's follow a pregnant teenager breathing through labor pains on a donkey...
everyone since the wedding has done the math...raised eyebrows and whispers of 'impropriety' are still nipping at her
the birthing suite God provides for Messiah?...the smell of it makes her stomach churn. it's not 'rustic' or 'shabby chic'...no burlap and reclaimed wood here. nope...it's smeared with cow dung and full of sheep with crusties stuck in their wool!
if mary's anything like me, thoughts of 'seriously!?!' occupy her mind as she lands in the dirt. tears fall. tears of pain, yes, but also of hurt...everything's been so much harder than she imagined the day she said yes...surrendered to God's plan. she tries to make sense of the chaos surrounding her heart.mind.body.life. and screams through the last intense labor pangs.
and then...
there...
in the mess of afterbirth and exhaustion of labor...
she.encounters.Jesus.
Emmanuel.
God with her.
without...nothing has changed...within?...everything has. God is here...and He has a plan...
silent night...Holy night
Son of God...love's pure light
radiant beams from Thy Holy face...
with the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus Lord at Thy birth...Jesus Lord at thy birth
is your spirit taking a deep breath too?
this is a moment that defines our faith...the dawn of hope...real hope...for all of us.
and it happened in the mess...
encounters with Jesus? they don't so much tickle in the warm fuzzies of life...they descend gloriously on the travail of a soul...knee deep in the muck and mire [and cattle slobber] of reality.
...oh Lord...
with mary...let me shift my gaze...away from the sweeping torrent of circumstance...
let me soul-stare into the eyes of my Savior...let me treasure up the mystery of how you work...pondering it deep in my heart...
and let the radiance of redeeming grace leave me changed...
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