So often at Christmas we get caught up in how we want things to be--which takes on the character of the all-important. I am reminded of the opening scene of the 1983 movie "A Christmas Story" (which runs for 24 hours straight on Christmas Eve into Christmas Day). Weeks before Christmas, nine-year old Ralphie and his younger brother Randy are gazing in awe at the window of Higbee's Department Store at the display of potential Christmas gifts, when Ralphie's eye lands on the Red Ryder Air Rifle that becomes the focal point for his scheming to be certain he gets it for Christmas. For Ralphie, Christmas is all about him getting what he wants.
So many of us are nine-year old Ralphies at Christmas--not just about gifts, but about activities and "traditions". And because of that, we may find Christmas disappointing, perhaps even irritating, this time around. It likely can't be what it always is for us what with the pandemic, and the precautions we will need to take will most likely change our "regular" plans. We don't know for certain how we will do Christmas Eve worship at McKnight, for but one example. So we likely won't get what we want.
Maybe this year is the time to consider what God actually was doing with Christmas--after all, it is God's initiative to have it happen, and God's plan that was put in place. And that plan goes a lot farther, and is a lot bigger, than me getting the Red Ryder Air Rifle" (or whatever it is) I want, or doing what I usually do. Perhaps with so much I want being usurped, it is a good year to consider the really big picture of what God was doing.
The really big picture? John 1 tells us that the "Word", the "true light", was in the beginning with God--Christ, as the second person of the Trinity (we've been able to sort that out from the whole of the Scriptures)--and that everything that was created was created through Christ. The entire world we can see, all of the feelings we feel, you name it, was created by God through Christ. And for the first Christmas, "the Word became flesh and lived among us"--or as Eugene Peterson rendered it in "The Message"--"The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood." Christmas is about God entering rhe world as one of us, a human being, as a vulnerable baby, needing us as much as we have always needed him.
That's a lot to think about--God as a human, the light of how we should live, the love of the one who created each of us learning what it's like to be one of us at every stage of our lives. And that gives Christmas a lot bigger scope than whether or not I get what I want.
Let's shift our vision a bit this time, in this time when we're frustrated that we won't have the same time we usually have, and open ourselves to envision what Christmas means for all of time.
GOSPEL John 1:1-18
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” ’) 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.