Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
“For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” Luke 2: 11-12 (NKJV)
I wonder what the right word might be for our journey through Christmas 2021.
Some might say—celebration.
For others—joy.
Others might settle with—experience.
For others the word is—survival.
For still others, no word comes as they fight through difficult times.
For others, the journey is colored by memories of abandonment or no Christmases at all, or living through Christmas without a loved one, lost.
Maybe their word is—despair, or heartache, sadness, anger or confusion.
Or maybe no word comes at all.
Here’s a word—expectation.
I wonder what we each expected as we approached and journeyed through Christmas 2021.
Here’s another word—Christ.
In his Christmas Eve Homily, Pope Francis shared this—
“The angel goes on to say…‘This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger.’ That is the sign: a child, a baby lying in the dire poverty of a manger. No more bright lights or choirs of angels. Only a child…
No grandeur at all: just a poor child wrapped in swaddling clothes, with shepherds standing by. That is where God is…
God does not rise up in grandeur, but lowers himself into littleness…to draw near to us, to touch our hearts, to save us and to bring us back to what really matters.”
The world and the stuff that happens to us or happened to us in times gone by, offers words to us which we might reach for to describe our journey through this Christmas 2021, and those past and those yet to come.
But those words will all be incomplete and miss the mark of God’s love and intention in this sacred eternal moment, for you and for me.
God offers one word—Christ.
And wrapped in that one word, that one life of a little child born into a poor family and dirty stable setting, is all the love of Heaven—for you and for me.
For times past, for our Christmas a couple of days ago, for today and for all the Christmases and times yet to come.
One word—Christ.
Let it always be your word, and mine.
In His Name–Scott
