Christmas Ponderings for the New Year

Now that the gifts have been opened, the Christmas story read, I’m left to reflect on what I have gleaned from the season. This year has been different for me. We celebrated Advent Conspiracy through our church and while I knew it was going to be an awesome opportunity to help those that really need it, I was not prepared for what it was going to do in my own heart. Even though the heart of Advent Conspiracy is worship, I don’t think I fully grasped the magnitude of this word until this past week.

With what started for me as a way to celebrate Christmas in a simple but meaningful way turned into a complete mindset that I hope will forever shape everything I do. Without the burden of over-spending consumerism and the stress of the hustle and bustle, Jesus was able to strip away the clutter in my heart and make room for simply…HIM. I was left with the opportunity to really ponder Christ. To contemplate in the deepest part of my soul the incarnation of God.

You see, this year was the first year in which I really tried to not let myself become preoccupied by the well-meaning intentions of the holiday season. I don’t say this as a pat on my own back, but rather a testament to what I realize I have allowed myself to miss out during Christmases past. While I have always regularly (and genuinely) touted “Remember the Reason for the Season” every December, more often than naught it seemed as though Christmas would sneak past me every year in some elusive spirit of deeper meaning. Frantic and always slightly disappointed, it seemed I would always be left trying to prepare my heart on the way to the Christmas Eve service.

I realize this sounds as though I’ve been missing the point of Christmas. After all, I grew up in an amazing home that stressed the gift of Christ every year and I get it. I really do. But as someone who has experienced the saving grace of Jesus since I was a wee little girl, I think as an adult I have been longing for something at Christmas that went beyond the TRADITION of celebrating Christ at Christmas and instead experienced something that was life changing.

Maybe that is what God was able to do in my heart this year. I was able to SAVOR his sacrifice, his humility. I was forced to examine the way I worshipped and how I portrayed Christ to others.

It made room in my heart to worship Jesus in the WAY of Jesus.

Jesus didn’t spend his time waiting in long lines at shopping malls, or decorating gingerbread houses. He gave himself fully and completely in his love, time and energy. While I definitely don’t think he would judge our activities at Christmas (if they come with the right intentions), I do wonder if there are times he is gently beckoning for us to take a step back and just RE-EXAMINE and EXPERIENCE who He IS. And how when we do, it literally can feel like our heart’s preconceived notions are getting pounded into a million little pieces. It’s like taking a breath for the very first time all over again and you realize the miracle at Christmas isn’t found on 34th street or even under the tree itself.

The miracle is that God personally entered our story.

I don’t know why but I just keep coming back to this phrase. It is one that makes me want to weep. The beauty of it, the sacrifice of it, and the hope that is found in the notion that God made himself nothing to make us everything is something that my heart can barely wrap itself around. It was the inspiration for the Christmas card that Jared and I sent out this year. It was my heart’s attempt at unraveling the awe and almost gut wrenching, bittersweet feeling of undeserved deliverance. I’m sure you all have read it but just in case I missed some of you out there, I hope it blesses you. May it be a year, and not just a season, that we all reflect on and experience the true heart of God...

THE MOMENT

Amidst the heavy blanket of darkness, a small cry was heard.

A sound so beautiful it would shatter the shackles binding our feet.

It would cause us to lift our faces toward heaven and reach for the eternal.

In that moment, Hope entered the world in a tangible form.

Having tasted the forbidden, we struggled and fought against our very nature.

So weary and broken, needing rescue from a chosen path of self-destruction.

In that moment, God's Love was perfected.

Hands so tiny, an entrance so humble, his beating heart was proof of God's answer.

Goodness and mercy had entered our story, in the faultless epitome of Emmanuel.

In that moment, Heaven took its first breath.

And with his last, he would breathe our forgiveness.

Arms stretched wide, hearts now freed; our decay would be exchanged for His beauty.

In that moment, Redemption was born.