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This Christmas, May the Lord Bless You and Keep You

What an amazing year! COVID-19 has dominated, of course, we all know about that and have been affected one way or another. America has a new president, although the current one is not giving up without a fight. And so we come to another Christmas.

Christmas tells the story of God’s Son entering human history in a young woman's womb in an insignificant ancient town, Bethlehem. He was raised in the even more insignificant Nazareth. Such things show that God is prepared to come in undramatic circumstances, away from the glitz and glamour of those in power, and grow his kingdom from a small seed into the largest tree in the garden.

He came through the miraculous conception of a virgin, showing that God is a God of miracles. He is an interventionist, God, entering creation at his will, to work out his purposes—we are comforted that God can if he wills.

He was conceived in a womb and born in the usual human way, not in a blaze of heavenly glory with angels and fire, showing God’s preparedness to make himself utterly vulnerable and dependent on a young woman and her husband for his safety and nurture.

He became flesh, showing God’s willingness to take on mortal animal and human form to make himself known and be saved.

By coming as flesh, he came into bodily mortality and vulnerability, showing God is not afraid to die to save his world (later he would, on a cross, and so his salvation was worked out).

By coming as a baby, God showed he is not a distant, angry creator and overlord. He is prepared to come to us as one of us to summon us to him and to launch a new humanity.

He is a God who is unafraid to enter the world, full of pandemics and other natural disasters, empires, and war, to save those with ears to hear and eyes to see.

He was born amidst animals, showing God’s preparedness to hang out among the creatures of his world in their space.

He was found by shepherds, anticipating him becoming the Great Shepherd who would gather God’s lost sheep from around the world.

He was laid in a feeding trough, showing that even though God is holy to the core, he is unafraid of the messy, dirty world of animal saliva and grime.

Celebrated wise men from the east recognised his coming and came to offer him gifts, showing how eventually the small and the great would bow before him and give him their lives and kingdoms.

He was born into terror as the local client king Herod “the Great” sought to kill him as a threat. God is prepared to enter the corruption of world politics to establish his reign.

He was taken away to Egypt for his protection, showing that this God knows what it is to be an outsider and immigrant and so that this boy would live the Exodus story of Israel, his people.

He was born into the home of Joseph, a descendant of David, in the city of David, Bethlehem—he was raised to be Israel’s Davidic Messiah and Christ.

On the face of it, he was born illegitimately, a ‘bastard’—God identifies with outsiders and the socially maligned.

As seen by his parents being only able to provide the ‘cheap’ sacrifice for his circumcision, he was born into poverty. He made himself poor that we might become rich.

He was named Jesus, the Greek for the Hebrew Jeshua (Joshua), meaning “God is our salvation”—he is the Savior of the world.

What is left but to join the shepherds, angels, and wise men, and come bearing gifts to God with Us, Immanuel?

Wherever you are—May the Lord bless you and keep you for what is left of 2020 and into 2021.

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