December 25, 2024

Merry Christmas Everyone,

I hope this message finds you well, warm, safe, and happy, that your children are enjoying their Christmas gifts, that you are savoring their happy faces and moments of joy, and that, as time inevitably marches on, you can, today, slow it down, if only just a little bit, and maybe look out the window or sit for a few moments and simply reflect on where you are now.

This time of year is filled with lots of busyness – school, work, kids’ sports, doctor’s appointments, and the like. Layering in all the various Christmas preparations makes things even more hectic.  It is understandably challenging for Christians to remember what we are supposed to be celebrating. Perhaps that is worth a quick try.

In his Gospel, John tells us that, at Christmas, “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:9; John largely equates the Word with God earlier in the passage).  What could this mean?  I think it means that God, as Christians understand God, rather than staying far away in a far-off place (heaven? a distant kingdom?) chose, instead, to join us fully in our world.  This is, I think, a natural extension of God’s creation of the world to begin with – after all, one would think that God could have done an infinite number of other things, choosing instead to create us through Christ (see, e.g., John 1:1-4).  Then, years and years later, he joins us on Earth through Jesus.  He creates the world and he is in the world, experiencing fully all of our joys and sufferings. 

Joy is a primary message of Christmas.  That God joined us is nothing less than truly amazing.  And yet, coupled with this amazingness, there is also a challenge to us.  Mary and Joseph, poor refugees in an occupied and often violent society, had no place to go with Jesus, using a manger (a pig-trough) as a crib.  The shepherds who saw Jesus were viewed as castaways; Herod murdered the Holy Innocents in a fit of envious political rage; all the “lepers” Jesus healed were poorer than poor, the lowest of the low, people who were swept away and cast off from society (think of homeless encampments in major cities today).  Jesus challenged all of our conventional ways of thinking, through the Sermon on the Mount and his various parables and most powerfully in the way he lived, which was not with the rich or educated or highly accomplished or busiest, but among people who struggled simply to survive.  

In short, God got involved by coming and living with and challenging us.  He advocated for the bringing of the Kingdom right here, on earth, to all people regardless of status or race or yes, even religious creed. 

Jesus’ challenge does not mean we shouldn’t be joyful or even give each other Christmas gifts – quite the contrary, I think.  Jesus doesn’t present us with “either/or” thinking that leads to division and acrimony and false controversy and stress.   Rather, Jesus invites us to the far more inclusive “both/and” thinking.  Be joyful, yes, but also be aware of injustice.  Go to church services, yes, but bring your faith to your world in the form of actions and self-sacrifice.  Recite the creeds and receive the sacraments, for sure, but also live those sacraments out in the world.  I think you’ll find that rather than being in conflict, one goes hand-in-hand with the other. 

So let us indeed rejoice in the grace that God gives us through Jesus, and let us find our own ways to join him in making this world the good world it is supposed to be.   

Wishing you peace and joy always,

Greg