Reflections Along the Jesus Way
December 21, 2023 – Quote for the Day:
“Christmas is about a baby, a really vulnerable baby, born into poverty, into a land that is militarily occupied, to a race of people who are horribly oppressed. God in the flesh – even when it didn’t seem like God is with us.
Christmas is about a baby whose life is threatened soon after his birth so that his family has to run to save his life – they have to become aliens and immigrants. That doesn’t sound like God is with us, does it?
Wait – What about beautiful Christmas trees and expensive presents and lavish meals and feasts and huge choral concerts? Nothing at all in the Gospels about Joseph and Mary being so busy, buying presents, attending all kinds of church activities, baking cookies, having parties, going to concerts – none of that! Didn’t Joseph and Mary get the memo – didn’t they know what Christmas is all about? When we perceive Christmas as God being with us even when he doesn’t seem to be, we will focus our hearts and souls on serving others in the name of Jesus, on picking up our cross and following Jesus and on losing our desires in the service of helping to fulfill the needs of others. The question is not what one will ‘get’ for Christmas but what one may, by the grace of God, give to others – and even more so, what that little baby’s birth gave us.”
Originally published in:
Christianity Without the Religion magazine, December 2020
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