Advent Devotional for Christmas Eve
Wednesday, December 24 Luke 2:1-20
Jesus is healing.
We read these verses every year. Maybe we read them at the Christmas Eve service, or hear the pastor read them on the Sunday before or after Christmas. Maybe we read them when we are together as a family Christmas Eve night. Maybe we hear Linus read them in A Charlie Brown Christmas, with the lights dimmed, holding only his blanket and speaking with childlike innocent clarity.
The first seven verses are a remarkable retelling of the events, if only because it reminds us on one hand how ordinary Jesus’ birth was. An ordinary man, an ordinary woman, on ordinary business, give birth in an ordinary way. In fact, if there was anything exceptional about the birth itself, it had more to do with how humble the circumstances were; there was not even a room in a home or an inn for the baby to be born, so he was laid in a feeding trough.
Of course, the next few verses reveal that this is no ordinary baby boy. An angel appears and tells shepherds of his birth, that this one is a Savior, a Messiah, the Lord himself. Suddenly the angel is surrounded with an army of other angels, all rejoicing in the accomplishment of God in being Incarnate in human form. This is most unusual; not for every baby does the veil between heaven and earth tear so that mortals can see the rejoicing of angels.
The angels’ message, of course, is that Jesus is the long-awaited One, the Reconciler, the one who will save us from our sin and from ourselves, and the one who will offer us right relationship with God. It is, in short, a message about healing; it reveals that the brokenness that has permeated the world since Adam and Eve is on borrowed time; it reveals that the darkness that covers the earth is being pierced by one great light, and that Light is currently laying in a manger and longing for human touch.
Never forget this, not now, not ever. Never settle for the insipid brew that passes for Christmas in America, this idea that Christmas is about the innocence of childhood, or the joy that naturally occurs in our hearts, or the quiet comfort of family and friends. Christmas is this: our healing has come to us in a way we can see and touch and understand, in the baby Jesus. Our healing lays now in a manger, close to us, within our grasp, and cries out to be held and touched and embraced and owned. The question which confronts us always, but especially at Christmas, is whether we will in fact embrace this Baby who cries out for our arms.
Jesus is healing.
We read these verses every year. Maybe we read them at the Christmas Eve service, or hear the pastor read them on the Sunday before or after Christmas. Maybe we read them when we are together as a family Christmas Eve night. Maybe we hear Linus read them in A Charlie Brown Christmas, with the lights dimmed, holding only his blanket and speaking with childlike innocent clarity.
The first seven verses are a remarkable retelling of the events, if only because it reminds us on one hand how ordinary Jesus’ birth was. An ordinary man, an ordinary woman, on ordinary business, give birth in an ordinary way. In fact, if there was anything exceptional about the birth itself, it had more to do with how humble the circumstances were; there was not even a room in a home or an inn for the baby to be born, so he was laid in a feeding trough.
Of course, the next few verses reveal that this is no ordinary baby boy. An angel appears and tells shepherds of his birth, that this one is a Savior, a Messiah, the Lord himself. Suddenly the angel is surrounded with an army of other angels, all rejoicing in the accomplishment of God in being Incarnate in human form. This is most unusual; not for every baby does the veil between heaven and earth tear so that mortals can see the rejoicing of angels.
The angels’ message, of course, is that Jesus is the long-awaited One, the Reconciler, the one who will save us from our sin and from ourselves, and the one who will offer us right relationship with God. It is, in short, a message about healing; it reveals that the brokenness that has permeated the world since Adam and Eve is on borrowed time; it reveals that the darkness that covers the earth is being pierced by one great light, and that Light is currently laying in a manger and longing for human touch.
Never forget this, not now, not ever. Never settle for the insipid brew that passes for Christmas in America, this idea that Christmas is about the innocence of childhood, or the joy that naturally occurs in our hearts, or the quiet comfort of family and friends. Christmas is this: our healing has come to us in a way we can see and touch and understand, in the baby Jesus. Our healing lays now in a manger, close to us, within our grasp, and cries out to be held and touched and embraced and owned. The question which confronts us always, but especially at Christmas, is whether we will in fact embrace this Baby who cries out for our arms.
posted by Michael Jordan at 6:00 AM
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