pedo mellon a minno

Christ-mas is With Us Again.

What's christmas got to do with me? A time where I feel 'all christmassy' and warm and fuzzy? Food, candles and nice friends? Worse- christmas in the tropics; how terribly unexciting. No snow, no shepherds out in the freezing cold, no reason to sit around a fireplace, nor for hot chocolate, nor sugar-saturated christmas pudding. Tough. Christmas in a tropical city- all that marketing, sales, commercialism, NO STARS in the humid night sky, only the flashing blinking lights of freezing malls and stuff. Sweaty people trying to push things in your face.

Then there's the problem with the date. 25th December. Which roman emperor in his right mind would have called for a midwinter census? People would have revolted! It must have been suicidal shepherds out in the snow, not to mention explaining why grass would be growing under that blanket of frost. Poor sheep. Then again, it took the wisemen over two years to arrive, so I guess the 'nativity' of Christ- his 'babyhood' if we could call it- still stands. He would still have experienced two winters before they arrived with the gifts. The three gifts. Not Three wisemen. Oh well.

What was He thinking? Forsaking the perfection of heaven, for the squalor of earth. Better yet, die for us. And while in that manger he's that image of frailty, tenderness and innocence; a foreshadow of how he ends his life frail, tender and still innocent. Jesus you're so beautiful.

"The most Innocent [man that ever lived] had to suffer the Most Unjust suffering, so that the most wicked of us can live our lives as innocent" Loren Cunningham

"Magnificat anima mea Dominum;
Et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo."

Then there's Mary. The poor girl- the psychological trauma. My goodness! God's poster child for using the simple to confound the wise. Carrying a "holy embryo" as Michael Card calls it. Half the chromosomes? Oh dear. What a paradox- the Created carrying the Creator. Its repurcussions echo through all time.

"My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior."

Then again, she was faithful- faithful with the task set before her. It would not be an easy journey. From cradle to the cross- talk about total quality management, or cradle-to-the-grave service. And yet, in this case it went more than the grave. There was the glory of the resurrected Jesus Christ!

Christmas seems to me, a simple reminder in the calendar that Christ has come, Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again. His work on earth was complete and perfect. The whole history and humanity of man converged on those 33 years of incarnation, culminating at the cross- where all the prior deeds of man, the present and all the future deeds of man were summed up with Jesus on the cross and crucified. Before we were, he bore our sins, our suffering and our pain. More than me remembering his birth, I will remember his death and his ressurection. And I MUST remember he is coming again. Coming very soon.

C. S. Lewis summed up Christmas in one sentence: 'The Son of God became a man to enable men to become the sons of God.'

Put Christ back in Christmas.