Some brief thoughts and considerations on Christmas, Christ, and recapturing the spirit of the season.
Two years ago, I moved out of the private sector as an independent contractor to work in at a church. Where in the past my client work may have simply wound down at the close of the year, affording a large amount of empty space with which to reflect, my Novembers and Decembers became a frenzied blur of preparation for one of the church’s biggest events: Christmas Eve, when our attendance numbers multiply several times over for one glorious night as the churched and unchurched alike gather together to acknowledge that something unique is being celebrated.
I confess that for the last two years I have missed Christmas, the holidays becoming something to endure and “get through” rather than a time of festival joy and honest reflection on the “reason for the season.”
Much has changed within my heart over the last few months, which will be the subject of our next episode, but as Christmas is upon us once again, I wanted to take a moment to re-orient—to refocus my heart on God and the endeavor to live as an exile in this world.
I am determined not to let Christmas pass by without truly imbibing in the season and its meaning. The coming of the King, the birth of Christ—God become flesh. The ultimate tale of exile: that one so Holy would condescend to a fallen world to be the sole shining light of hope, bearing up the consequence of the darkness, and spreading the truth so that that singular light might spread across the world, re-orienting our eyes heavenward in hope and wonder at what as been done on our behalf though we deserve it not.
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In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
We were created in the image of God, holy and pure in his sight. He gave us the world and its fruit as gifts, and the care of the world as a job. He walked with us and talked with us, we knew him face to face.
Yet amidst all of these blessings, there was one fruit forbidden to us. “If you eat it,” God said, “you will surely die.”
Even so, we took the fruit, and ate it.
And with that, our fate was sealed.
We were cursed, broken, fallen, and driven away from God’s presence, doomed to wander a world no longer within our control- our hearts giving way to deeper sin and darkness.
Born into sin and cursed unto death, no one on earth can save us.
But God had other plans.
He promised that someday there would come a man who would undo this curse and save mankind.
And thus we watched, and waited for the coming of the Messiah who would deliver us from darkness.
“In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” – The Book of Judges
The days turned to years, and the years turned to centuries- and human life continued down the cursed path we had brought upon ourselves.
But in his grace, God set apart a people through which he would save the world, God built a mighty nation, providing for, prospering, and leading them into the promised land.
But their hearts were fickle, and they quickly turned away.
Yet despite it all, God set apart a royal lineage through King David, through whom the messiah was promised to be born and rule over the earth.
But we did not want God’s chosen king. Though his prophets warned us, we would not listen.
And so we continued down the path we had chosen, suffering exile again and again.
But even in this, while we were still sinners, God remembered his promise to save us, and set apart a remnant for himself whose knees had never bowed before any idol.
And so it was, in the days of Caesar Augustus, ruler of the Roman Empire, that the Messiah would finally come.
Hear the words of the prophet Isaiah concerning the coming of the Messiah:
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”
In the time of Herod, king of Judea, there lived a woman named Mary. She was a virgin, pledged to be wed to a carpenter named Joseph.
Before they could be married, God sent the angel Gabriel to Mary to deliver a message:
“You have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”
Through the years of exile, David’s line had continued.
The throne of Israel was empty, but there was always a living heir.
And so it was that Joseph, Mary’s husband took his pregnant bride with him to Bethlehem, the city of David, his homeland, where his son, the heir to the throne of Israel, would be born.
“Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the
Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Upon arrival to Bethlehem, it was time for Jesus to be born. But there was no room for the pregnant couple to stay at the inns in town.
Instead, Mary and Joseph were shown a stable- a home for the lowliest of animals. This was to be their lodging.
And it was in this most humble of places. That the Lord became flesh and came into the world.
No fanfare heralded his coming, the sole witnesses were his parents, and the beasts of burden that shared the stable.
But where man had failed to welcome the messiah, God once again had other plans.
He sent angels to announce the birth to a group of shepherds in the hills outside of Bethlehem. He placed a star in the sky that wise men from the East followed to Bethlehem, where they offered their gifts to a newborn king.
And so they went to worship and adore the baby Jesus, who would come to be known as “The Good Shepherd,” and the “King of Kings and the Lord of Lords”.
There, beneath the skies of Bethlehem, the messiah was born, and heralded into this world by the most unlikely of people.
Jesus grew into adulthood, growing in favor with both God and man. He called all who heard him preach to repentance and dedication to God.
He taught that he alone was the path to salvation:
“I am the way the truth and the life… believe in me.”
He performed miracles and healings, showing his power over the natural world.
He was tempted to sin like every one of us, but unlike us, never succumbed to the temptation.
He opened his heart and arms wide for those whom society had cast away, choosing not a life of luxury for himself, but the life of a homeless traveling teacher.
He lived a perfect and sinless life. The life any of us we should have lived.
He was loved. But he was also hated.
For preaching the word of God and claiming to be the Messiah, Jesus was betrayed into the hands of the Romans and sentenced to torture and death.
Fulfilling the words of Isaiah: He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
And he was hung on a criminal’s cross, endured hours of pain until finally, he died. The King of Kings and light of the world slain by those he came to save. He died the death our sins deserved.
He was buried just before sundown, and his followers left, heartbroken.
How could this be the end, after all that they had seen?
Of course, it wasn’t.
For on the third day, the tomb was discovered to be empty.
Word began to spread that Jesus had been seen alive.
Some believed. Some did not.
But soon enough, both Jesus’s disciples and many who had never believed could no longer deny- Jesus had risen from the dead.
He appeared one final time to his disciples, charging them with the task of spreading the story of his life, his death, and his resurrection- spreading the story of the Good News, that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
And then, in an instant, he ascended into Heaven, leaving behind another promise for a day when he would return:
“Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear. In the Lord alone are righteousness and strength.’”
And so we watch, and we wait, for the return of Jesus Christ, the Messiah.
And while we watch and wait, we are charged to be the light of the world in Christ’s stead, to go forth and make disciples of all nations and spread the word of the coming Kingdom, that kingdom which is “not yet”, but that is all the same happening “now” as hearts and minds are renewed in Christ the world over. We are truly living in exile, expatriates of the paradise that was Eden, refugees of a Kingdom that is yet to be fully realized, sent forth as ambassadors to encourage all that would hear: come.
Come.