Christmas Week Musings….
…Praying this morning in the wee hours – Lord, I have a big day of preparation ahead, how can I live today for you and still get everything done? I want to focus on the meaning of this upcoming Holy Day, but also accomplish what needs doing for this celebration. The words that came to my mind were ‘Give it to God, honor Him with everything.’
I think the point is to prayerfully honor God and live from Him, through Him, with Him and for Him; in everything we do.
…….I thought this year would be the year we could focus more on the real meaning of Christmas. And it is, in some ways. Without as many guests expected, paring things down a bit, I have had more time for reflection. But the last minute press of chaos is here, we are in the home stretch. How can we return our focus to the whole point of Christmas when there are so many details to attend to?
Lord …how to do this? I don’t think God wants us to stop participating in the events of life and just focus on Him, but there is a balance and there is a Grace for including and integrating God into all we do. It’s easy to forget, but God is with us in the huge events and in the tiny moments. The holy and the mundane.
We sense him more in our pinnacle moments; Graduation Day, going on a retreat, climbing Mount Everest, the birth of a child, our Wedding Day… But he is no less present when you are sweeping the floor, shoveling the snow, planning your Christmas menu, studying for a test, changing yet another diaper.
The holy and the mundane – they are often one and the same. To God, every moment is holy and really if you think about it, every moment is mundane too. Compared to the glory that awaits us.
….The arrival of a baby is never mundane. It’s always a miracle. But it is an everyday occurrence. Hundreds of thousands of times a day, all over the planet, this everyday miracle takes place. But just like so many other things that we get used to, we sometimes take it for granted, maybe don’t see it as the miracle it is.
Just as the Israelites did 2000 years ago. They needed saving and expected a Messiah to ride in on a white horse with a commanding presence, with power, strength and authority. Little did they know, their Savior would come in the tiny, miraculous package of an infant. No one expected our Lord to come into this world in the usual, ordinary way.
No one saw Jesus coming. He came as a baby; a startling, vulnerable, inauspicious entry into this world for the King of kings. Who would have ever guessed…?
This Christmas, as we celebrate with abbreviated, truncated versions of our parties and families, I hope we can all slow down the pace of things; Savor the small moments – which are really what the memories we cherish are made of. And I hope, in doing so, we can experience a little bit more fully the love and the joy and the hope that 2000 years ago, a little baby came to bring us.
Merry Christmas!
