Sunday, December 14, 2003
Sunday, December 14, 2003
If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God
raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
(Romans 10.9
NRSV)
"It leaves you only three ways of accepting Christmas. One is cynically, as a time to make money or endorse the making of it. One is graciously, the appropriate attitude for non-Christians, who wish their fellow citizens all the joys their beliefs entitle them. And the third, of course, is reverently. If this is the anniversary of the appearance of the Lord of the universe in the form of a helpless babe--it is a very important day. It's a startling idea, of course, the whole story that a virgin was selected by God to bear His Son as a way of showing His love and concern for man. It's my guess that, in spite of all the lip service given to it, it is not an idea that has been popular with theologians.
"It's a somewhat illogical idea, and theologians like logic almost as much as they like God. It's so revolutionary an idea that it probably could only have come from a God that is beyond logic, and beyond theology. It has a magnificent appeal. Almost nobody has seen God, and almost nobody has any real idea of what He is like, and the truth is that among men the idea of seeing God suddenly, and standing in a very bright light, is not necessarily a completely comforting and appealing idea. But everyone has seen babies, and most people like them. If God wanted to be loved as well as feared, He moved correctly here, for a baby growing up learns all about people. If God wanted to be intimately a part of Man he moved correctly, for the experience of birth and family-hood is our most intimate and precious experience.
"So it comes beyond logic. It is either a falsehood or it is the truest thing in the world. It's the story of the great innocence of God the baby. God in the person of man has such a dramatic shock toward the heart, that it, if it is not true, for Christians, nothing is true.
"So, if a Christian is touched only once a year, the touching is still worth it, and maybe on some given Christmas, some final quiet morning, the touch will take."
Maybe this Christmas will take to someone anew. Maybe you won't have a perfect Christmas. Maybe it will be far better than that. Maybe you will see right to the heart of this sacred event to the God who seeks not perfection, but love in the grace we find in Jesus the Christ.
Loving God, change me heart so that I will be more full of your grace. Amen.
