The story of Christmas is your story
IN PREPARATION
for our time of worship on Christmas Eve, we invite you to meditate on Zechariah’s prayer from Luke 1:78-79
By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high has broken upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
May you ponder this reality of your relationship with our God:
God created. And, God said, “This is good!” God created sky and sun, earth and water, every living plant, and all living creatures that dwell beneath, upon, and above.
God created and said “ This is tov meod! -- This is very good!”
Meditate on this today.
God created you and says, “Tov meod!”
The Christmas story that holds us shines forth a message of goodness. God so delighted in you that God broke through the heavens to declare your worth and to declare the worth of creation.
God broke through the heavens because God knows that we humans lose our way. We wander. We stumble. We get lost in the dark.
Christmas tells us the story of God not giving up on us and meeting us instead in our vulnerability to show us the way of peace; becoming the most vulnerable of all that all might discover that grace and freedom is accessible for them. Jesus, who became a refugee in another violent time, is the Refuge of the vulnerable, communicating a love that defies any human made border or boundary.
Just as the sky blazed with light for the shepherds as they heard angels declare, “good news of great joy for all the people,” and the star guided the wise men from the East -- Jesus, God born in human flesh, is our LIGHT back to God and the One who guides our discovery that we ARE created in God’s image (tov meod!) and created to be light in this world.
We celebrate Jesus, our LIGHT in the world, who guides us forward to live as LIGHT.
To be people who listen with hope.
To be people who love without judgement.
To be people who trust that God is with us, breaking in again and again, to bring healing, restoration, and promise that we are a part of a story that stretches back to creation and forward to eternal restoration.
You are not isolated nor irrelevant , though it can feel that way. You are at the center of God’s story of love.
May the story of Christmas hold you and invite you to hold forth good news in our desperate, lonely world. Jesus, the babe, is the one who is our peace and who breaks down the walls of hostility to create a new humanity, a people who love one another as Jesus loves us.
“This, you see, is how much God loved the world: enough to give his only, special son, so that everyone who believes in him should not be lost but should share in the life of God’s new age.” John 3:16 (NTE)
Joyfully, Renee and James B
