Hello, Christmas

Christmas is over for most people.  The Christmas trimmings have found their way back into boxes, tucked away to collect dust till next Thanksgiving comes and goes and holiday excitement fills the air once more.  The faithful Christmas albums have been placed back on the shelf, replaced this time with whatever happens to momentarily top the charts (which will be forgotten by this time next year).  The Christmas mugs have served their fair share of hot cocoa and coffee, and it's time to wrap them up too.

But I can't say goodbye to Christmas so easily.  So, I won't.  My tree remains the highlight of our living room.  The stockings are still hung by the electric fireplace with care and scotch tape.  The elves will continue to peep out from unsuspected hiding places.  I'll keep drinking in the Christmas season and all its joys as I drink my coffee from a Santa-suited cup.  I don't really know where Christmas got to this year, but for me it passed by rather too quickly.  Not enough time to take in all the laughter, all the excitement, all the truth and beauty that this season holds... like the impossible becoming possible.  God becoming man.  Whole things becoming broken, so that broken things could be whole again.  That's something that must be meditated on all year long.  Well, a new year's begun.  Here's my chance. 

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth... For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.  For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.  

{John 1:14,17}

God's Word, which spoke everything visible and invisible into being, became flesh.  How do I begin to grasp this?  And not only did He become flesh, but in His flesh He became the blood through which we all would receive His fullness and that grace upon grace.  His fullness.  In us.  And grace upon grace.  The realization of grace and truth, because He embodied it and, through Him -- His fullness -- in me, I too can -- do -- must -- embody it. 

This is Christmas.  I don't begrudge all the trimmings and trappings.  I enjoy them.  But this is Christmas: the Word became flesh.  And no, I won't pack it away, even when it becomes impossible for me to keep up the tree and the elves and the music and the mugs.  

Hello, Christmas.  Stay a while, won't you?