Merry Christmas!

I had the most beautiful Christmas. There were enough (but not too many) gifts, my loved ones were around me, the food was yummy, the fun was fun, and IT SNOWED!!! The kids let us sleep in until 7:30am, and it was all just inexpressibly good, scrumptious.

But the best gift I received this year was Christmas itself. I've had an outlook that really didn't "get" Christmas. It's my understanding that Jesus wasn't really born around December 25, but that we celebrate it at that time because some invaded pagan country already had a holiday then so it got glued there. God never said to celebrate Christmas with or without a tree or gifts or anything--he did set up holidays and a feast system, but we ignore those. Jesus offers us a desperately needed gift of eternal life, at great cost. The gifts we exchange are not much needed or worth much. I like singing songs, being with friends and family, giving gifts and eating yummy food but I didn't really see what the celebration had to do with my relationship with God.

Christmas is different for me this year. We watched The Nativity Story on Christmas eve or so, and I am changed. I was so caught up in the drama of their lives--oppressed, desperate for the Messiah to come and do something about it. And what does God do? Make a girl's life even more miserable? And yet blessed. He lays a huge burden on her, and then blesses her with the understanding of Elizabeth, and then Joseph. What a huge comfort it must have been for Mary to have people who knew the truth about the child she carried.

I was outraged that God would ask Mary and Joseph to go through that. It's more than a person should have to bear. I feel that he may ask me to live beyond what I can bear also. Then I realized what it cost God, and how needed it was. The tiny, vulnerable, poor baby, susciptible to cold, disease, violence, neglect. Bereft of the gift of speech, the mind of a child. Which of my kids would willingly wind their ages back, and quit their privileges and abilities--to be un-potty trained, to be dressed by another, etc. And yet God, the creator--the one that made the world--laid down his power and abilities to be this tiny baby, at the bottom of the social scale. Why? Because the situation was desperate. He put it off as long as he could, and he slipped in the Answer in the most painfree way he could, but when there is a huge problem, the Answer is disruptive.

The incarnation is Huge. It's tender, and miraculous, the advent of our hope. Who can fathom God? When his people cry out for a military leader to throw off the invaders, he gives a sin sacrifice to deal with their sins--and allows them to be scattered, Jerusalem smashed. And yet he made a way to be IN us that we may never be alone, and draws us together to endure what must be for the death and rebirth of creation.

Anyway, when Mary held out that little baby to show hope to both the shepherds and the kings, I realized what a treasure she held, what we received so silently that night--it wasn't on the news, most people had no idea nor cared what was going on. God is good. I will keep Christmas in memory of the incarnation. It slays me, cuts me to the quick, to have such a terrible and tender Father. If I get to celebrate another Christmas, I will remember what it cost, and what it's worth.